The Hampshire Family Historian | Vol.48 No.1 | June 2021

Local Group Programmes

This was such an interesting evening including members from Australia and Canada. (March) Planning Another Zoom meeting was held in March, to express views to formulate plans for the post Zoom era. Although there is no date for this change, there is optimism that it will happen later in the year. It was felt an exchange of ideas for how we will adapt the meetings and go back to some sort of normal was helpful preparation. There was an exchange of ideas on speakers to book and what areas of genealogy these could take explore. For the less experienced researcher, perhaps at an Open Meeting, members could take their laptops, to get some practical advice from members who are more used to researching that record that was tricky to find. Some speakers do not use Zoom, so we are looking forward to presentations in the usual manner but also acknowledging how welcome the Zoom talks have been over the past year, where would we have been without Zoom? There is also the benefit for members from overseas as they have enjoyed being able to share these electronic meetings. Having members from Canada, Australia and New Zealand gave a new dimension to meetings. The question of which Family History program to use gave many views on Family Historian; Family Tree Maker, or using Family Search for free. The personal view seemed to sway towards Family Historian for many reasons but having a good Support Group for members’ queries swayed the vote. From time to time, requests for help in family history research are received and various members reported on the outcome of these requests. The ideal way is obviously to join HGS for a modest annual fee, where you the resource centre can assist in finding the answers or at least pointing you in the right direction. (April) Four Merchant Seamen from Southampton – Michael Hobbs. Michael started by talking about the 17,000 sailors who were without work in Southampton in 1912 due to the lack of coal, due to the National Coal strike. He was particularly looking into the lives of four seamen all members of the Hurst family, which he eventually found whilst doing research into a World War 1 project involving Gilbert Richard Axford of Fair Oak. The men he was interested in finding out more about were William Ferris, Walter Hurst, William Mintram and Robert Hurst. Ferris, Mintram and W Hurst were working on the Olympic; Oceanic and the Atrato. They would take coal and 154 men from Olympic, along with coal and crew from other ships for their new ship. The new ship could carry only 8,000 tonnes of coal, but they could only find 5,892 tonnes and also needed hands for their Black Hand Gang (Greasers, Firemen and Trimmers). The ship in question was the Titanic. We were told what happened when the ship hit the iceberg. The research was aided by the Southampton Archives although ships are noted by number not name! All lists are in the Southampton archives, plus crewlist.org.uk to trace seamen or uboat.net for German archives.

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