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Past Meetings Archive |
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Special events 11 September 2001
9 October 2001
27 October 2001 13 November 2001 11 December 2001
8 January 2002
12 February 2002
20 February 2002
12 March 2002
9 April 2002
14 May 2002 11 June 2002 9 July 2002 |
 Kent Family
History Society
Deal and District Branch |
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This page will contain reports of previous branch meetings and events as information becomes available. Where possible, speakers' notes and other materials from the talks have been included. Details of future meetings can be found here. An archive of meetings from 2000-2001 can be found here. Mr. Richard Ratcliffe, from Clacton on Sea, Essex, gave a very interesting and amusing talk, illustrated with examples from his own research. He outlined some of the reasons why you might not immediately find your ancestors where you expect them to be and gave some examples of how to find out where they were. Tuesday 9th October 2001It is often said (or so we were told this month) that "you cannot read a document if you do not know what it says and you cannot know what it says unless you can read it". If you haven't already experienced the difficulties of deciphering 17th century handwriting, you will eventually come across wills and other documents in your research. This month, Miss Anne Oakley, for many years an archivist at the Canterbury Cathedral Archives and an expert at the art of paleography, shared some of her valuable knowledge and experience with an audience who were, initially, somewhat daunted by the idea of reading the extracts from parish registers with which they were presented. However, within a short time Miss Oakley had them all reading some quite difficult entries. The first trick is to familiarise yourself with the alphabet being employed by the writer. This is where "knowing what the document says" comes in; for example, almost every will started with the words "In the Name of God Amen". Once you identify this you have established a substantial amount of the alphabet: a, d, e, f, h, m, o, A, G, I and N. The next important thing is to learn the different symbols and abbreviations used to save space in writing - remember that parchment and paper were very expensive. One of the most common abbreviations is the Anglo-Saxon "thorn", usually written like the letter "y", seen in abbreviations such as ye (pronounced "the", not ye!), ym (them), yse (those), etc. Others generally take the form of dashes above the words, similar to the modern apostrophe (') to show that letters have been omitted. Society Conference and Annual General Meeting In November, Jeanne Bunting gave a talk about using maps and directories to find places on the census the census. The talk was illustrated with examples from her own research in London. A Dovorian, for many years a teacher and latterly headmistress at Dover Grammar School for Girls, Miss Lilian Kay has written a book about her memories of Dover. The subject of her talk was "A Lucky Person", which had her audience roaring with laughter from beginning to end. To say that Miss Kay's family had a colourful background would be an understatement, with tales of being the 13th child, with ancestors who were rather fond of the drink, being miraculously saved from drowning by a hangover. This was the first installment of her family history; we look forward to hearing the rest at a future meeting. Your webmaster again foolishly volunteered to give a talk entitled "Misleading Cases", or why you should always check everything against reliable sources. The intention was to show how we can be led astray by relying on secondary sources of information and family legends. Examples were drawn from my own family history, from research we have carried out for other people and from odd cases that have appeared on the Global Branch mailing list. If you have ancestors who were in the armed forces, or the merchant navy, you will almost certainly need to visit the Public Record Office in Kew at some point. This month, Mr. Duncan Harrington gave us an insight into doing research at the PRO. He also gave us the latest information on the 1901 census on-line project that failed so spectacularly on its first day. The branch organised a trip to the Public Record Office in Kew on Wednesday 20th February 2002. Tickets for the coach were £10 and, with the help of the Ashford branch, we were able to fill the coach. Unfortunately, the trip was dogged by delays due to heavy traffic, which left members feeling rather frustrated and tired by the long journey time. The committee is unsure about the future of trips to the London record offices. Please let us know what you would like us to do in this regard. This month's speaker, making a welcome return to Deal, was Mr. Colin Allen, whose talks are always very informative and entertaining. This month he gave us a very informative talk about researching military ancestors at the PRO, enlivened with personal anecdotes. April was the second anniversary of the founding of the Deal and District Branch, which means that we should have been having our Annual General Meeting to elect a new committee. However, due to a number of committee members being unable to attend, the AGM has been postponed to 14th May. Mr. Les Cozens once more entertained us, this time with true stories of smuggling in Deal and the forces ranged against the highly lucrative trade. He told us how, if caught, smugglers would be fined £100 - a vast sum in the early 19th century. However, with casks of brandy bought in France for 14 shillings (70 pence) and sold in London for 3 guineas (£3.15), a cargo of 50 casks could net them a profit of around £150 on a single trip. Even bigger profits could be made on American tobacco, shipped in from Belgium. He also told us about how the contraband was hoisted up the cliff face at St Margaret's Bay and hidden in the local church (the Parish Clerk was a leading figure in the local trade) until it could be safely transported onwards to its final destination. The Branch AGM was held this month, postponed from April. The meeting started earlier than usual so that the business of the evening could be concluded before the talk. In the absence of any volunteers from the membership, the remaining members of the standing committee were re-elected unopposed. The branch needs you to take an active part - please give a little of your time to support our work. The committee meets on the first Tuesday of the month, about four times a year, to discuss the running of the branch. If we are to continue, we desperately need some new blood. There are now three vacancies on the committee due to resignations: Events, Library and Bookstall. Wills are a valuable source of information for family historians, giving us names of surviving children and other members of the family, but can we always rely on them? Lilian Gibbens gave us a lively and interesting talk about wills and their use. This month's speaker was Meryl Catty, who made a welcome return to Deal to talk to us about newspaper heritage (she gave the talk at our inaugural meeting in April 2000). Newspapers, both national and local, can be a very useful source for family history researchers. Mrs. Catty gave us an interesting talk on their history, illustrated with articles from various publications from the 17th century to more recent times. Turnout was disappointing with only 16 members and guests joining the members of the committee to hear this month's talk. Life and conditions in the post-1834 Poor Law Union Workhouses was to be the subject of this month's talk from Peter Ewart but unfortunately the weather prevented us from enjoying that talk. No, it was not an outdoor event - the sun decided to come out after several dull, wet days and there are no curtains in the hall, so Peter could not show his slides. Undeterred, Peter rushed home and came back with another talk about 19th century records, including Petty Sessions reports as well as Workhouse and Lunatic Asylum records. This interesting and often amusing talk was very well received and well worth waiting for. Members were encouraged to consult these records, particularly those of the asylums, as these often contain high-quality photographs of the inmates as well as considerable biographical details and descriptions. We hope that Peter will return early in 2003 to give us the planned talk, when the evenings are dark.
Special Events The Canterbury branch coach trip to Ypres and the World War 1 Battlefields on 6th April was a great success. See the June edition of the Journal for full report and pictures. Ypres is a medieval walled town in Flanders, Belgium, which was completely destroyed in WW1 and later rebuilt exactly as it had been before the war. It contains some magnificent buildings, including the Cloth Hall. The museums are well worth a visit (a knowledge of Flemish would be useful though: the labels on the exhibit have not been translated into English!) as is the Menin Gate where, every evening at sunset, the Last Post is played to honour the memory of the thousand whose names are commemorated on its walls. Look here for pictures of Ypres and the war cemeteries of Flanders, taken by your webmaster on a similar tour a few years ago. |