Berkshire and South Oxfordshire churches: hidden gems and stories
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.
Wokingham’s Leading Families – talk by Peter Must
Three Wokingham Families by Peter Must reported by Bryan Pledger. The talk started with a photograph of the blue plaque on Montague House in Broad Street stating the house was named after Henry Montague, a schoolmaster in 1654. The Winkfield records of the Mountagues from 1538 in the Berkshire Record Office has the Will of […]
A Caribbean Journey: experiences of researching Barbadian ancestors from the UK
Reading Branch meeting 27th February 2020 Speaker: Guy Grannum Guy gave an interesting talk on how he came to research his Barbadian roots and the types of documents that can aid with Barbadian ancestry. Guys started researching for his parents 25th wedding anniversary, and discovered an international family covering South Africa, Gibraltar and Majorca. Unfortunately, […]
Heraldry: more than just logos for nobles
Heraldry can help with family history research, and there are many sources freely available online.
Victorian Divorce
Reading Branch meeting 30th January 2020 Speaker: Simon Burbidge Simon spoke of his research into his ancestors who had been divorced by the time of the 1901 census. Prior to 1858 Divorce was subject to Ecclesiastical Law with basically consummated or unconsummated marriage. It required an Act of Parliament and grounds were usually separation, civil […]
Open Evening – Discoveries
Report on Presentations by Members by Bryan Pledger The story my sister told me by Peter Beaven Peter started with “Once upon a time” and said “when my cousins came to see us they used to talk about Budleigh Salterton. His sister had a story about this family that a mother and daughter travelled by […]
The Victorian Plentys
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.
