The Hampshire Family Historian | Vol.49 No.3 | December 2022

Local Group Programmes

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Look at entire certificates for clues, occupation, witness connections

Use lateral research – siblings, cousins for clues

Broaden research.

Find links. E.g - Living with son or next door, etc Some parish registers provide maiden names

UK BMD

Search GRO with maiden name Remember ancestors bent the truth

Think laterally

Don’t take things for granted

Use online records but remember to justify and back up the proof

Have patience

Investigate family tales and rumours (September) Suffering Suffragettes – Jane Glennie

The talk was given by Jane, dressed in a typical suffragette outfit. Jane took us back to 1913 and we were attending the first meeting of the Gosport Votes for Women Society. She explained that there was a group called Suffragists who believed in achieving change through parliamentary means and used lobbying techniques to persuade Members of Parliament sympathetic to their cause to raise the issue of women's suffrage in debate on the floor of the House. However, as progress was slow, the Suffragettes were determined to achieve votes for women by whatever means. She talked about women who went on hunger strikes and how they were force fed and some of the other events that took place as well as various characters involved in the movement. Eventually, women over 30 were given the vote, although they had to own or be married with property. At the end we all sang a Suffragette song and Jane wore her green, white, and Firstly, Fiona showed us a picture of her Grandma’s Birthday Book. She explained that her Gran had used it as a birthday, wedding, and death date book. It contained some other relevant dates and had been continued by her mother and herself. Intrigued by the information, Fiona set about verifying all the dates for her family trees through traditional research sources such as GRO records, FreeBMD, FindMyPast and others. She also used some obscure military sources. It transpired that her Grandma’s Birthday book was quite accurate. Fiona was able to build four generational trees for the RESTELL and TRYON Families. She set about her research one person at a time and investigated and compared their dates – a good technique for genealogists everywhere. The group was intrigued and picked up tips during the evening. We all wish we had a “Grandma’s Birthday Book”. Forthcoming Meetings: purple sash. It was an Informative and entertaining talk. (October) My Grandma’s Birthday Book – Fiona Ranger

Christmas Festivities

December 14th

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