Family History
2.30 pm – 1st Fridays
Group Leader: John Cassidy Tel: 01298 24663
The Family History group consists of people who as well as tracing their family pedigree are interested in how their ancestors lived and what affected their lives.
Typical of the topics covered over the past few years are
General Discussions
- Trouble Shooting: Bring your sticky problems or irritating dead ends along to the meeting for the rest of us to try to find a solution.
- Family History Software packages: a laptop demonstration of different packages used by our members.
- Agricultural labourers. Lets share our knowledge about this group of people.
- Writing up your family history research.
- How surnames change.
- Wills and Administrations: A talk on wills, where to locate them and the type of information contained in them. Bring your old family wills for discussion.
- Heirlooms: Bring along a treasured family heirloom and tell the story behind it.
- Christmas celebrations. Ideas for next year’s programme followed by a chance to chat over a glass of mulled wine.
Talks by members
- Bridget, my deaf and dumb cousin: the life and times of a strange little old lady. Sue Burfitt
- Researching local archives; a history of Cavendish Golf Club. Richard Atherton
- The Scottish Clan system; Who are the Scots? Ian Taylor
- Finding your ancestor’s Military Regiment by Ian Taylor
- Irish Emigration led by John Cassidy
- 20th century research. Val & John Coulter tell us how they went about this.
- Railways and how they changed the lives of our ancestors: A short talk followed by a general discussion led by John Coulter
- Researching American family history by John Cassidy
- A family History Quiz with Ian Taylor
- “Odd twigs on my Tree”: With John Evans
- A family history tale from John Sherratt.
Talks by visitors
- The history of Registration. Keith Holford has been indexing the local bmds so is well placed to give us the inside information.
- Old Maps. A talk by Keith Holford
- The history of the High Peak Railway by John Morten
- Restoring old photographs by Roger Furness
- Foundling babies; talk by Brian Fell
- My family and the Cutty Sark. Alison Crowther
- Hatches, Matches and Dispatches. Raymond Rush talks about various old customs
- The History of the Poor Law by Alison Crowther
- Diseases that killed our ancestors by Malcolm Bradbury
- Oral History. A talk by Ruth Gordon from the Matlock Local Studies Library
Visits
- Elspeth Walker gives us a tour of Under Whittle Farm, Sheen and tells us about its history.
- A visit to Matlock Records Office
- Visit to the National Archives at Kew. A very long day with coach hire.
- Visit to the Manchester & Lancashire FH offices in Manchester and talk by John Marsden
- A visit to the National Trust Workhouse at Southwell. This will be a full day outing. (Don’t forget your NT membership cards)
Family History Handbook
Over the years we have collated the information gathered into a reference handbook. The contents are listed as a sub-page.
New to Family History?
Have a look at the short introductory course to help get you started.