The Hampshire Family Historian | Vol.48 No.4 | March 2022

Chairman’s Report

Message from the Chairman

Welcome to the first edition of the 2022 Historian. I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year wherever you are. We are now settled in our new home in Winchester, having celebrated our Partnership with the Hampshire Archives and Local Studies at an event last December. I was pleased to see that Caroline Edwards who was Chief Archivist before her retirement last year joined us, as she was very much involved with the negotiations of our move. We still open just the two days a week, but will review an additional day should we have sufficient volunteers to cover it. We are always looking for volunteers, whether on the desk helping our visitors or carrying out transcribing. If you are interested, please contact Chris our Research Centre Manager. I am still seeking someone who will take on the role of either Publicity or Minute Secretary. Can you help? You may have noticed on our Website news that Ancestry is to spend a year in the HRO scanning documents to make available on line. This will be very useful for members that are unable to visit Winchester. I was sorry to hear that Marilyn Lovett has had to step down as the Group Organiser for Gosport. This is a role she carried out diligently for many years. In December the HGS was a beneficiary from

the will of one of our past Australian members. The HGS Executive will be exploring how best to honour the memory of our generous

member with her kind bequest to the Society. Two new ventures for members have recently taken place. Firstly, HGS has formed a National Group focusing on those members out of Hampshire that cannot attend a local group meeting. The first meeting was held on 3rd March. This group will alternate bi- monthly with the International Group. Secondly, we held a Zoom presentation hosted by FindMyPast that enlightened us to the recently released 1921 Census. Unfortunately, it is not free to those with FMP membership, but nevertheless a useful addition to family history research. Well enjoy the rest of the March Historian and ‘Good Hunting’

Paul Pinhorne Chairman

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