#ShropshireFamilyHistorySociety #SFHS #Conference #Anniversary #Shrewsbury
Yesterday I attended the Shropshire Family History Society (SFHS) for an in person event to celebrate their 45th year.
Since joining the society I have really enjoyed being able to partake in monthly meetings via Zoom but there is something nice about getting together with like-minded individuals where you can chat between talks.
It was a very nice mix of talks and learnt a lot from the speakers. This included the history of Shropshire Archives from Sarah Davis1 with the various types of record sets held and that their earliest document is an 8th century fragment of Bible commentary by St Jerome (ref 1052/1). Although not specifically about the county, it was found at a house being demolished in Wellington.
Fascinating details provided by Simon Davies2 in the hunt for the location that his family member fell during World War I. Although of Shropshire origins had ended up in Australia and therefore not a resource that would come to mind he found a lot via Australia War Memorial Archives [https://www.awm.gov.au/digital-collection].
I have come across the Great War Forum but was unaware of Trench Mapper so will be using that in the hunt for information about my own family members in future.
I was disappointed not to meet Kevin the Drone but perhaps next time he will also come to Shropshire as clear that being able to use for research gives another perspective especially when looking at landscapes and trying to make sense of them.
This is one of the occasions that I am so grateful to have found a lovely online community of genealogy researchers. Even though had not met Simon or others who were there in person before having been part of groups via Twitter (X) etc actually got to know and recognise them that going alone to an event like this was not the scary prospect it may otherwise have been.
Karen Hunter had then been rummaging through the back issues of the journal and gave a tour of how the documents had changed over the time and when there were themes for a few. What became clear is that some of the people at the event were invested in SFHS from day one and sounds like a few have the full 45 years of them held.
The journal is now available as a digital option which I receive and there is a hope that copies of them will ultimately be held on the website for members’ to peruse as they wish as there’s about 180 of them to date.
Next there was an interactive discussion looking forward to the future and an awareness from all (having seen the difficulties faced by other groups) that need to really consider how to move the society forward over the next five years.
It was acknowledged that a large proportion of the membership is not local to Shropshire but has family interests there so hoped that more ideas will be forthcoming from those as well when asked. I would welcome suggestions from other genealogists and societies as to how they are looking to the future as well since definitely feels that everyone in the same boat.
Until recently I hadn’t thought to join myself as presumed it would be expensive but the SFHS current subscription rate is £10.00 for 12 months. And perhaps part of it is promoting just what your membership provides even for those who can only be remote.
The final talk was from Dave Annal3 who ran us through a number of examples from 19th century novels which give fascinating glimpses into lives of the characters that absolutely did appeal to those interested in genealogy research.
Was lovely that he tried to find Shropshire related content but that most of them are a few decades out (e.g. P. G. Wodehouse with Blandings). Therefore, the content quoted was mainly from other notable books but I had recently become aware of the premise that Little Nell from Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop had been based on Tong.
This village is just down the road from me and having come home I’ve found this BBC article4 about the fictional grave and register fabrication.
The other grave I know about is Scrooge’s from A Christmas Carol’s 1984 adaptation5. Wondering if there are any other fake graves or memorials to characters around the country.
Overall it was a lovely event, just the right length of time for each speaker and absolutely lovely to go somewhere where it did not cost anything extra and got to eat a very nice slice of cake.
Footnotes
1 – Sarah Davis – https://www.shropshirearchives.org.uk/
2 – Simon Davies – https://www.weare.xyz/about/
3 – Dave Annal – https://lifelinesresearch.co.uk/
4 – BBC Article – http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/shropshire/hi/people_and_places/religion_and_ethics/newsid_8468000/8468580.stm
4 – Scrooge’s grave – https://www.charlesdickenspage.com/1984-carol-scrooge-grave-shrewsbury.html
