March 2026 : Ward Jones on "The Lock-ups of Wiltshire".

Wiltshire's Traditional Lock-Ups History

We had almost 50 in the audience on Tuesday, and 4 more on Thursday.

Ward Jones presented on the history of traditional lock-ups or blind houses in Wiltshire, discussing their architectural variations, purposes, and historical uses. The presentation covered how these small windowless buildings were used to detain offenders overnight before court appearances, with details about specific examples across Wiltshire including Trowbridge, Bradford-on-Avon, Chippenham, and Salisbury, and others.

Ward explained how these structures served as basic detention facilities from the 17th century through the 19th century, often built in local architectural styles and later repurposed for other uses including military sentry posts during World War II. The discussion concluded with information about the demise of blind houses following the 1839 Police Act, which led to the establishment of larger county jails.

January 2026  Charles Eldridge on "Improving our knowledge of DNA".                                     

Charles Eldridge from Oxfordshire FHS joined us for a very illuminating talk on DNA testing, with quite a large audience on the Tuesday, although not so many on the Thursday morning, which allowed for a slightly more intimate look at some members' questions. He also made a very generous offer to try to answer any members' questions submitted, and pointed us to resources available online, including Oxford, but also the various DNA test providers and online matching sites.
The main use of DNA in Genealogy is to support and confirm our 'paper' research trails - although we do much of it online these days! We learned when we should consider a test, and what we might expect of it. That we need a tree constructed from other sources to compare it to, and how far back (4-5 generations) it can be best helpful with.

It was very useful to see why it is less helpful further back, and to understand the biological reasons why the amounts of matching DNA are average ranges, and not exact for each level of relative. And even that a complete lack of DNA overlap can occur in a true relative, whilst a number of factors can increase the amount of matching DNA above expectations. Also touched briefly on sensitive handling of unexpected lack of match.
Questions included Who to test if not everyone, then the oldest, and strategically picking others, and how to approach people to test, and once a site shows a match. Charles also covered using the matching sites to best advantage, using Ancestry as examples, and how to manipulate the searches and results for best effects with screenshots so we could all see how it can be done.

November 2025 :  Janet Few : Women at Work. 

 Janet had been one of our initial speakers, so it was a joy to welcome her back with another fantastic talk. This time, her theme was “Women at Work” throughout history. As well as identifying some of the principal jobs carried out by women in peace-time, she also highlighted the magnificent (and sometimes dangerous) work that women were called upon to do during the periods of international warfare of the twentieth century. During the talk, the following occupations carried out by women were featured that are often mentioned on census returns and other sources: housework (as with the 1939 Register), dressmaking, gloving, button making, domestic service. Milkmaids, herring girls, bal maidens (mines), milliners, shop girls, nurses and midwives, school mistresses, nonconformist preachers, match girls (being open to phosphorus poisoning), etc.

September 2025 :  Ian Hicks : Winnie the Pooh and the History Centre.

Ian Hicks of the History Centre began by telling the true story of Winnie the Pooh and HER connections with Wiltshire. She was an orphaned black bear cub who had been purchased for $20 by Lieutenant. Harry Colebourne, a Canadian vet serving with the Royal Canadian Army Vet Corps, prior to his posting to Salisbury Plain during WW1. Harry named the cub “Winnie” after the city he came from (Winnipeg). Winnie became a beloved mascot of the Corps, and stayed with Harry during his time in Wiltshire, but was passed onto London Zoo when he had to leave the UK.

It was Winnie, who grew up to be a very affectionate creature, that A A Milne and Christopher Robin fell in love with, when they visited the zoo. And, as they say, “the rest of the story is… fiction.”

Initially, the Canadian troops stationed on the Plain lived in tents, but later were re-billeted in long wooden huts. After the war, these Armstrong huts were distributed around the county with one (with the plaque: “Maple Leaf Villa”) becoming the original base for the Wiltshire County Library at Prospect Place in Trowbridge, housing over 7,000 books. Ian then spoke about the other buildings in both Trowbridge and Devizes that have housed the collection over the years.

He concluded his talk with helpful demonstrations on how to access Wiltshire documents that can be found both on “Know your place” and Ancestry.

The Virtual Branch’s speaker for our July zoom meeting was Ian Porter of the Family History Federation. His talk was entitled “The real Wolf Hall and the links with Wiltshire and area”. Speaking direct to camera, rather than using PowerPoint, Ian highlighted the principal historical characters that were portrayed in the two TV series that had been viewed in numerous nations such as USA and Australia as well as in the UK.

He then took us through the stories of the historical figures giving his personal understanding of how the fictional portrayals measured up to the actual people themselves, this included King Henry VIII, his wives and Thomas Cromwell. With Cromwell, he compared the historical reality of this very complex man with the loveable Wolf Hall Cromwell (Mark Rylance) and the quite vicious portrayal of Cromwell in the 1966 film of “Man for all seasons” when he was played by Leo McKern. At the same time, he also highlighted various buildings and estates within the Wiltshire area that were used in the making of the series, such as Lacock Abbey for exterior scenes of Wolf Hall and Great Chalfield Manor and house as Cromwell’s home. Wells Cathedral and Montecute House were also used in order to create Tudor settings for the series.

May 2025. Mia Bennett : Probate - where there is a way. 

Those attending the May’25 Virtual Branch meeting appreciated Mia Bennett’s talk entitled “Probate – where there is a way”. Mia’s talk focussed on English and Welsh records both before and after 1858, taking us through the process of finding the records and what they contained. The reason for the change in 1858 was that in that year the main administration of the probates moved from the ecclesiastical courts to the civil courts. Because of the complexity of the record finding, as well as the excellent talk, Mia also provided those attending with very comprehensive notes and sources in her handout. Based in Gloucester, but with Wiltshire connections, Mia also made several references to the County. In conclusion, Mia also mentioned the recent developments on the FamilySearch website, regarding “experimental labs” which was greatly appreciated from at least one person who found references to their family records from the court records due to this upgrade that Mia shared with us.

March 2025 : David Church - From Tragedy in Wiltshire to Flourishing in Glamorgan. 

David told the fascinating story of his family members, originally from the West Wiltshire area. In 1858 Benjamin Butcher and Susan Alley were married in the Trowbridge area. They had several children, the youngest being Elizabeth Maria, born in 1871. By 1881, Benjamin was widowed, and died himself just a year later. As there was no one in the family who could look after eleven-year-old Elizabeth, she was sent to the Muller Homes orphanage in Ashley Down, Bristol, where she created a wonderful sampler, with family initials worked into the patterns. Instead of staying in the Trowbridge area, several of her brothers moved to the Cardiff area, including David’s great grandfather, Ernest, who was a coal trimmer by trade. Ernest’s eldest son, William Henry (David’s grandfather) became the second Mayor of Barry and was given the M.B.E. in 1960.

January 2025: Although our speaker for January, Jackie Depelle, was unable to join us due to ill health, she did send us a pre-recorded copy of her talk, which was very appreciated. Although the theme was “Writing your own Family History”, Jackie gave us so many clues and leads about expanding our knowledge and understanding of our ancestors that her suggestions were of such relevance that they were of value to all family historians. Our concepts of our ancestors can be so rigid, almost robotic, with dates and facts that we sometimes fail to recognise them as real people, which is why she was encouraging us to build a real picture of them complete with personal and local environment and life-style. Jackie even mentioned our previous speaker, Jean Renwick, in her talk as someone who has gone to the extent of not just writing one book connected with her relatives, but a trilogy.

For the last talk of 2024, in November,the historical fiction writer, Jean Renwick, spoke about how she set about finding the background information for her series of novels, "The Mourning Brooch" trilogy based on the life of her family who emigrated from Yorkshire to the USA during the 19th & early 20th Century.

In September, the meeting focussed on the work and links with the Wiltshire Online Parish Clerks. Graham Warmington, who is also an OPC for a town in Cornwall talked about the history of the scheme as well as sharing his own experience in the role. This was followed by Teresa Lewis speaking about the work and development of the Wiltshire Scheme.

At the end of July, Terry Bracher, from the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre spoke about Wiltshire’s own Black History from Tudor times until the present time. For most of this period, because of links with British colonialism, this meant servants in some of our large homes across the County. From the research that has been carried out, there is evidence of free black men and women, especially in the 19^th Century, residing in Wiltshire. Terry concluded the talk by referring to the Black American servicemen of both world wars who after service on Salisbury Plain settled in the County. The talk was an eye-opener for many of us who heard Terry’s talk especially as he mentioned black servants living in communities that were of personal interest to us.

For our May Virtual Branch meeting, our Society President Steve Hobbs gave us a very informative talk about researching the history of any building (including houses) that we have a special interest in. Using his personal knowledge of Westbury, where he lives, Steve directed us towards maps, censuses and other documents that would possibly throw light upon the development of those buildings and their occupiers over the centuries. As a result of Steve’s talk, we were enabled to apply the insights suggested by him to those properties that to us are of special, if not of personal, interest.

In March, keeping clear of the 1921 census (because of an excellent talk by John Hanson – also given in 2023), Jenny Pope gave an equally brilliant talk on the need to keep referring back to previous census returns and transcriptions, especially if we have access to more than one of the great data providers that we tend to use for researches today. She did this by taking us through some of the personal family searches she has made over the course of several years with the census returns – that by re-tracking her investigations she has discovered that more and more details regarding family members had been brought to light, details that were not obvious when she had carried out the same research years previously.

In January, I gave a follow-up talk to that given by James Holden a year previously. For whereas James talked about the development of Wiltshire nonconformist chapels from the 17th to the 21st Century, I looked at the changing history and development of the denominations themselves over the same period of time, with a closing focus on the problems of finding the records of these Dissenter chapels during the earlier part of this time period.

Tuesday 28th November (7.30pm UK time; repeated on the 30th November at 9am UK time). Graham Grist, one of our Virtual branch members is a volunteer for the Commonwealth War Grave Commission, and therefore gave us an interesting talk on the work of the CWGC, with special reference to Wiltshire. During the talk, he spoke about how the Commission came into being, the differences between graves in the various cemeteries around the world, and also the extent of the number of graves managed by the Commission around the world.

29th August (repeated on the 31st August): John Hanson FSG on “Understanding the 1921 Census” – this was an excellent talk, as John has put together a comprehensive guide to the census, with ideas that most of us may never have thought of. During his talk, he mentioned the background for both the census itself (being the first one after WW1) as well as the special little querks of the returns, for example the schedule types (including P indicating prison, and I indicating institution). He highlighted the pieces of information that had been dropped from the previous census, but also mentioned the valuable details that had been added. These include: greater details regarding ages; the issue of divorce in some families, whether the children had both parents still alive or only one and whether they were in full time or part time education, etc. The biggest improvement was with regard to occupations, including fuller details of the work itself (inc. number codes for different jobs) and details about the employers and the place of employment. The talk was very much appreciated, especially as we were able to circulate John's notes to those who had attended.

27th June (repeated on the 29th): Dr David Church on the understanding of death pronouncements on historic death certificates.  Members of the Virtual Branch were given a treat with a talk by Dr David Church. David is a member of the Wiltshire Family History Society and has been a major player in establishing and running the Society’s Virtual Branch. David has now proved that he is an excellent speaker especially with regard his keen interest in genealogy and his professional skills as a practicing G.P. (with an interest in historical ailments). The talk was entitled “Death Certificates and Causes of Death”. Speaking on this theme, he looked at what we can learn as family historians from the death certificates (both English and Welsh) and also the accompanying medical certificates and the more recent Crematorium forms – each containing a slightly different set of information data concerning the deceased. This was followed by an explanation of many of the historical names given to diseases that are now known by different names; including over 60 named diseases identified as causes of death in the London area during 1632. “Bloody Flux”, “King’s Evil” and “Tympany” were amongst the conditions that David explained. The session ended with a literal “surgery” with David explaining the meanings of various diseases and conditions that had been found on family death certificates obtained by members joining us for the talks. 

 23 January, the first live zoom meeting of 2023. With 40 members present, (plus over a dozen at our recorded meeting a couple of days later) our guest speaker was James Holden whose brilliant book on the development of Nonconformist Chapels in Wiltshire, “Wiltshire Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting Houses – a Guide and Gazetteer” was published in early 2022.
James’ theme for the evening was the development of chapel design from the 17th to the 20th Century. He also gave a very brief overview of the history of Nonconformity during this period of time, starting with the days of persecution following the restoration of the Monarchy and the Church of England after the Commonwealth period of history. Amongst other stories, he spoke of the Independent (Congregational) chapel at Tisbury, which had to be built by its members at night-time in 1726 to save detection.
Using pictures of County Chapels (both rural and urban) built in each of the four centuries, from Monks Lane Chapel near Corsham to North Bradley Baptist Church near Trowbridge, he described both the changes of developing styles and the similarities, such as the symmetry that can be observed in all but the most modern of chapels.  (report by Graham Warmington)

October 2022. "Brick Walls". There are now a variety of sources to help study family history – Ancestry, FindmyPast, The Genealogist, Free FMD, Free [Con], Family Search, Wilts FamilySearch, Genuki/Wilts, On Line Parish Clerks, Free FMD and FindmyPast combined, Ancestry DNA, newspapers – obituaries, weddings and the like (extracts through FindmyPast), Google and Facebook, WFHS Journal, publications and library, members’ interests, Wiltshire BMD, tithe awards and manor records.