Show and Tell

Members of the Society gave two talks at the May meeting.
Barbara spoke about the preparation needed in recording of the Monumental Inscriptions in a cemetery, or church & showed how Ron drew up the plan ready for the recording team to use.
The audience was told how sometimes it was difficult to read the grave – stones & mentioned the ‘tricks of the trade’ to enable the scripts to be more easily seen, from brushing the stones or spraying with water to tracing the indentations with a pencil or simply waiting for the sunlight to move round.
We were then advised on the vast amount of family history that can be obtained sometimes about a whole family who have been interred in the same burial plot with birth dates & relationships, occupations quoted – even sometimes the stone masons name is evident.
Barbara then explained how the work was then typed up & transferred to a CD so that even if the graveyard or stones were destroyed, as was the case for the Baptist Church cemetery Upwell, there is a record made for posterity.
Although some would think the occupation of recording grave – stones in a cemetery is rather morbid Barbara told of the many ‘lighter moments’ she had experienced. Ron was able to tell of his ‘eerie encounter with the Monk’ who it is said ‘resides’ in the church at Elm….
Linda caused many a laugh as she told of her Search in the Fens for the female line in her family.
As with most families, Linda told of those relations who did not speak to others & how her information was gleaned from various family members and of the vast amount of information gained from all censuses. With this information she was able to follow the lives of her family, saying who married whom, their occupations, how they moved around the Fens & how she herself lives in close proximity to where most of her relations lived although several of the houses no longer exist.
Linda said that it would appear that the ladies were of strong character & ruled the roost & that many of the ladies ran ale – houses to get pocket money. Linda spoke at length of her prudent grandmother who was a keen business – woman who ended up buying several lorries & sending her farm produce to London & it would appear that grandma was not above a ‘bit of black market trade’ during the war.
Linda also explained that she had recently obtained a laminator & in preparing her papers showed us her first wrinkled attempts at using it – but there were other pictures of the family beautifully portrayed which members were able to see after her very amusing & informative talk.
[Barbara Holmes]