The
Bulletin
Wiltshire Record Office on
the move
Three years ago
the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts de-registered
the Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office as the
building did not match the national standard for
archives. As a result local councillors
considered three options: closure, doing nothing,
or improving the existing structure. Last year
Wiltshire County Council and Swindon Council
agreed to move the Record Office from Trowbridge
to Devizes. Wiltshire County Council also
proposed to take the opportunity to improve its
other heritage services. The site chosen at
Devizes became known as the Wharfside Initiative.
It would include the new Record Office, the
County Local Studies Library, the County Museum
Service and the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust
Archive. The reasons given for the move to
Devizes was that it was closer to Swindon, and
central to the County. In terms of access, this
does not make sense. Trowbridge is accessible by
bus and rail while Devizes has no railway
station, nor the level of bus services that the
existing Record Office has. So Devizes is not
closer to Swindon in any sense apart from simply
marking it on a map. Trowbridge will also be
losing one of its attractions for tourists and
archive users.
The County
Council is likely to receive support from the
Heritage Lottery Fund which it is said,
'recognizes the central role of access'. On the
face of it moving to Devizes is unlikely to
improve services to users, but perhaps you have
other views.
A petition
protesting to the move is available at Trowbridge
Town Council Office at 10/12 Fore Street and at
the Tourist Information Centre.
GRO
birth, marriage and death indexes
FreeBMD is a
volunteer project to transcribe the GRO birth,
marriage and death indexes. The objective is to
provide free Internet access to the Civil
Registration index for England and Wales. The
main focus of the project is currently the sixty-three
year period from 1837 to l900. So far the
database includes more than 12,000,000 of the l00
million index entries. That represents about
eight per cent of the information held at the
Family Records Centre. Given the size of the
database it is always worth checking FreeBMD to
find if the certificate you are searching for has
been placed on the Internet. A researcher may
visit the FreeBMD website and enter their
ancestor's surname, first name(s), whether a
birth, marriage or death is of interest and so on.
Additional search criteria such as year of the
event, registration district, etc. may also be
entered to help narrow the search. Wildcards and
multiple selections can be used (e.g. select
several registration districts to be searched
simultaneously).
The search
facility will return all results that match the
search criteria, with information on: event,
quarter, year, surname, first name(s),
Registration District, volume number, page
number, and submitter.
The project has
over 1,500 volunteers adding around 6o,ooo
entries a day, but more volunteers are needed if
the project is to be completed before 2010.
Volunteers need a computer with Intemet access
and some spare time. The Internet address is http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/.
Cleaning gravestones
In view of the
number of enquiries about cleaning gravestones,
Paul Wohlgemuth sent in a report in the Sunday
Telegraph on 24 June. The Association of
Burial Authorities say that in cemeteries across
the country there are 15 million unstable
gravestones, many of which weigh more than 200lb.
A falling gravestone in Harrogate killed a six-year-old
boy last summer and there has been a death a year
over the past four or five years. Accidents
happen when someone kneels down to tend a grave
and takes hold of the top of the headstone to
pull themselves up. All headstones are now being
submitted to a 'topple test' to establish whether
they can withstand pressure equivalent to the
weight of an eight-stone person. If not, they are
being knocked flat by council workers. Families
are responsible in law to maintain a plot and
they will have to pay up to £l000 if they want a
stone restored to its proper position. Meanwhile,
gravestone transcribers beware.
Genealogy and medical
research
In recent years
there's been increasing scientific research into
hereditary life threatening conditions like
cancer and heart disease. Although poor diet and
smoking does raise the risk of succumbing to
these and other medical conditions, family
genetic history is also one of the major causes.
The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical
Studies has been one of the pioneers in the
application of links between genetic research to
assist medical teams throughout the world.
Now in a major
step forward the Institute and the University of
Utrecht in the Netherlands have launched a new
research programme. They are seeking family
historians who can provide a proven family tree
of four or more generations on each line and/or
longevity for four or five generations. They hope
to build a database for scientific research that
will also provide a means of assisting those
whose genealogical research may be blocked by
adoption, lack of documentation or a failure to
discover the place of origin of a family.
The Institute is
also working on a project involving the longevity
of individuals. A substantial prize has beenset
aside for anyone who is able to produce a
pedigree for three generations in which the
living great grandparents are aged 95 or more
with children, grandchildren and great
grandchildren all in good health.
If you would like
to join either project send your full name,
address, telephone number and email address to
the Institute at Northgate, Canterbury, Kent CT1
1BA. They will then send you forms and further
details.
Procat on-line catalogue
I tried out the
new Public Record Office online catalogue
recently and I was pleasantly surprised, indeed
shocked, to find a dozen or so references to my
name ranging from seventeenth century wills, to
First World War records and even an abortion case
in the 1930s. The Procat database provides
searches through eight million document
references giving a summary description. The
catalogue does not contain images of the
documents themselves (although this cannot be far
away). It is not necessary to have any previous
knowledge of the administrative history of
government records as the catalogue searches all
the departmental codes. There is only a small
chance that a family name of a relative will be
found in the catalogue, but in my case a dozen
hits seems to be a rather good strike rate. The
catalogue is especially helpful to local
historians as entering placenames provides a
wealth of documents. The catalogue can be found
at www.pro.gov.uk/
A hot tip from Oxfordshire
For those with
North Berkshire interests, I've just stumbled
upon the fact that the Bishop's Transcripts for
Appleford are now available on-line and
completely free of charge. They cover the years
1563 - 1835. Go to either: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~pbtyc/Den/Aplford/Aplford-index.html or:
http://perso.libertysurf.co.uk/pbenyon/Den/Aplford/Aplford-index.html
Warfield Millennium video
After Warfield's
successful Millennium Exhibition in July last
year the exhibitors made a video presenting some
of their material. Included are photographs
illustrating the history of St. Michael's Church
and of local brickmaking; finds from excavations
of the sites of old houses; and local scenes,
characters and agriculture. The video runs for 33
minutes and may be obtained for £1.50 Plus £1.00
P&P (payable to Warfield Millennium
Exhibition) from Michael Dumbleton, 25 Warfield
Road, Bracknell, Berkshire RG42 2JY.
Public Record Office events
The Open Day this
year will have a Victorian theme to commemorate
Queen Victoria's death. Visitors will able to
sample food prepared from authentic
Victorian recipes
and explore an exhibition based around an
original Victorian street scene. Original
material from the PRO's collections will be on
display, including a letter from 'Jack the
Ripper', plans of the Great Exhibition, and an
informal photograph of the Queen with her
children. The Open Day will also feature a series
of behind-the-scenes tours and talks about our
premier record collection. The Open Day will be
held on Saturday September 22.
An exhibition and
series of talks exploring a thousand years of
immigration to Britain - from the Norman settlers
to the passengers on SS Empire Windrush - will
take place throughout October.
Have you caught the disease
The condition is
extremely contagious to adults. It reveals itself
in a need for names, dates and places. The
patient has a blank expression, sometimes deaf to
spouse and children. They have no taste for work
of any kind, except feverishly looking through
records in libraries and archives. There is a
tendency to frequent strange places, like
cemeteries, ruins and remote areas, making secret
night calls hiding telephone bills from their
spouse. Although the disease is not fatal it does
get progressively worse. Patients should attend
family history workshops, subscribe to
genealogical magazines and be given a quiet
corner in the house where they can be left alone.
The usual nature of the disease is: the worse a
patient gets, the more he or she enjoys it.
Family history classes
It's September
and the autumn season of adult family history
courses is with us. There are three classes in
the Reading area, all of them at the Adult
Education Centre at Caversham. For beginners
there's a class on Monday afternoons from 2pm
until 4pm and for those with some experience
there are two family history forums on Thursday.
All the classes involve trips to record
repositories and as far as possible studying real
documents. The beginners class' takes students
through a range of document sources and at the
end of the course most will be able to trace
their families for at least 150 years. If you're
interested get a copy of Focus 2001 from your
local library or telephone 0118-901-5272.
Oxford University
Department for Continuing Education has courses
throughout Oxfordshire and Berkshire. At Henley
there's one on English social history and at
Hungerford one on the town and village (Hungerford,
Inkpen and Kintbury). At Windsor, there is
Behaving Badly? Crime, Law and Order in England
and Wales from the mid-eighteenth century until
1914. And at Oxford itself various subjects from
archive sources at the Oxfordshire Record Office,
Villages in the
Landscape and an
illustrated history of medicine from 1750 to the
present. For information and a prospectus on all
these courses call 01865-270391 or 270360.
