Exploring Family History

Derek Palgrave gave our members & visitors an insight into how maps past & present help us trace our families. In the British Isles we were shown county boundaries & how they have ‘moved’ over the years.
He pointed out how surname spelling can alter from one county to another especially where dialect was present or the scribes wrote down names as they sounded rather than the correct spelling and members stated that they had come across this in their own research.
There were maps that showed locations where particular work or crafts were concentrated & the grouping of surnames in different areas, these taken form the 1881 census and now available on disc.
It was noted that family movements often followed the line of a river that could also be the natural boundary line.
From this Derek showed us plots of movement of specific families – his own included and he then spent a long time showing the concentration in different counties of the surnames taken from the members present. Such was the interest in this activity that the clearing of the hall at the end of the meeting went on around him & he was thanked for giving us a fascinating evening.
[Barbara Holmes]