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Women are often left out of recorded history, but their lives lie hidden in records, from where Joan Dils pieced together the lives of five Newbury women in Tudor times.
In an age when gentlemen and ladies often neither dined together, or shared the same church pews, Bath’s communal facilities must have come as quite a shock for the first-time visitor. When Edward Ward visited the famous city he observed a startling and deeply unattractive picture of the middle classes taking to the waters.
Where can you visit a private library within a church? Or see rare examples of the macabre funerary art which swept Europe after the Black Death? Or find graffiti recalling the incarceration of Levellers in 1649? Catherine Sampson reveals all.
Heraldry can help with family history research, and there are many sources freely available online.
At the Newbury Branch January 2020 meeting Ellie Thorne of the Berkshire Record Office outlined the history of the Plenty company, an innovative and successful engineering firm founded at the turn of the nineteenth century. Lifeboats, steam engines, boilers, pumps, diesel engines and even a delivery van were produced at Plenty's Eagle Ironworks in the heart of Newbury.
A rascal from Shinfield; what they say about family historians; stories from Newbury’s Newtown Road Cemetery; Hydes and their hidden faith; Endell Street Hospital; English Poor Law and a Canadian mystery; evacuated to Kintbury
Poachers in the dock; a quest for some publican ancestors; a Victorian school day; grandfathers in WWI; the Herridges, a Purley family; a Christmas quiz to test your knowledge of the royal county
Berkshire Family History Society works to meet the needs of those researching their ancestry across the UK and overseas – as well as those looking for former relatives in historic Berkshire. You do not need to be a member to benefit.
The society offers:
Research Zone in central Reading that is free to use and open to all
Free access at The Centre for Heritage and Family History to online resources like FindMyPast, the 1939 Register, The Genealogist, the British Newspaper Archive and Ancestry (the worldwide edition)
Regular free help and advice sessions
Meetings in Abingdon, Bracknell, Newbury, Reading and Windsor; and a virtual Computer Branch which meets online. All meetings are open to everyone
Community forum – informed answers to research queries and advice from experienced researchers
Members’ Area with data and other information not readily accessible elsewhere
Indexes and transcriptions of Berkshire’s historic records on CD — parish registers, probate documents, monumental inscriptions, maps, First World War history and more
Quarterly magazine, the Berkshire Family Historian, for members
a chance to join in project work, recording, transcribing and helping to preserve records
Links to the research experience, advice and support of members worldwide
