Lancashire Family History & Heraldry Society

lfhhs.org.uk

Preston Branch

NEWSLETTER - MAY 2016

Message from Ian Hartas, co-ordinator for the UK BMD sites–that he has now put tutorials online for anyone who wants to get the best out of the sites. Full details on the content of these tutorials can be found on the Tutorials page.

More updates to LancsBMD, mainly in the Manchester area. Now over 20 million records free on line. Would you like to help with the transcribing?

FIND MY PAST

Searching the 1939 Register!

Have you, along with many others had problems searching the above register on FindmyPast? One thing that may help, if you are searching for a female who married soon after the Register was compiled, is searching in her married name rather than maiden name. Females who married were updated on the Register to their new married name. Due to transcription errors her maiden surname did not bring any results and only by remembering a neighbour’s name was the family found.

Final batch of the National Schools Admission Registers & Log-books 1870-1914 – If you are lucky and find your relative you may find details of exam results and any illnesses that led to absence. Recently found one of my WW1 soldiers on it.

Royal Navy & Royal Marine Service & Pension Records 1704-1919 now available.

The Lancashire Archives will be closed on Bank Holiday Monday 30th May. Revised opening hours will be released soon, in response to the Lancashire County Council cuts.

Leyland Library closing early at 5pm on Tuesdays into July. Lack of staff. Harris Reference Library closes on an ad doc basis between 12 and 2pm due to lack of staff. If you are planning a visit, check first. 0300 – 123 – 6703 and ask for whichever library you want.

In the latest issue of 'Catholic Ancestor', the journal ofthe Catholic Family History Society, there are two articles that maybe of interest to some of you.
The first by two of our well-known friends, Margaret Purcell and David
Hustler, deals with some Catholic church war memorials in Colne and detailsof some of the men who served in WWI and came home.

The second is adiscussion of a 1715 List of Papists in Lancashire.
Details of how to obtain copies of this journal are to be found on theSociety's website

Recent presentation from Keith Vernon, UcLan Humanities, of an up-coming project to transcribe the attendance registers of the Harris Institute during the period of the First World War. If you have any relatives, or an interest in this work, please contact me. Much family history knowledge contained in the registers. Initial meeting, early June.

If you are thinking of doing a project of recording the memorial inscriptions of a particular burial ground, private, commercial, municipal or parochial, there are new suggested guidelines from the Society so that we are all singing from the same song-sheet, not duplicating any work and that the work is of a standard format. If this is your next or on-going project, please contact me. Sheena.

The attention of members is drawn to the recent publicity surrounding the closure of libraries in our catchment area, namely Fulwood, Bamber Bridge, Penwortham and Lostock Hall. If you can, contact your local political leaders, by any means, to voice your concern of the closures (if you have any) and seek to find out what is to happen particularly to the deposits by local historians and contributors that are currently lodged in libraries (transcribed censuses and church records etc). Approaches will be made via the Society also.

Military Abbreviations, like thosefound on Servicemen's Records, War Diaries, etc. There is acompre-hensive list at:

Do you have a short article for the Society Magazine about your family history experiences. E.mail direct to the editor at or contact me.

Are you available to show someone the sights and places of interest in the greater Preston area, to those who are coming very long distances to do their family history? We do get such enquiries now and again and can’t always accommodate them. So if you can offer your free time, the greatest thing you can give, please contact me. You never know, a new friendship and a reciprocal gesture may be the reward.

Stewart McLoughlin Preston Branch Secretary 25th May, 2016