Bromley meeting 22nd September 2018 now 15th September

Due to an unfortunate sequence of events that were out of our hands, we have had to change the date of our September meeting from Saturday 22nd to Saturday 15th. The venue is the Methodist Church as usual. Meryl Catty will still able to visit us, but we have had to change the title of the talk, as Maureen Binks will be on holiday on the 15th. Meryl’s talk will be 'Our Newspaper Heritage': a light-hearted introduction to the history of the press enlivened with extracts from newspapers, humorous, tragic and macabre as well as the more mundane.

Insight into occupation records

Everyone of your ancestors had to earn a living to survive, no social services and little parish support. So if you want to learn more about occupational records then Jean Stirk's workshop on 21 March 2018 will help you.
Contact workshop@nwkfhs.org.uk. There are places available for members.
Sorry, due to lack of workshop space we cannot accept non-members booking applications at this time.

New Web site goes live

The new web site has gone live www.nwkfhs.org.uk. Its been a long time coming but I feel the content and new layout have been well worth while.
There is now a members area which adds to the experience for members. It contains data available only to members.
To access the members area you need to enter your membership number and surname in caps.

Then clicking forgot password and it will take you through the process of entering a new password that you can choose.

Enjoy the site.

If you have a problem it may be because we have a small teething problem with email addresses because there are instances of two members having the same email address. Its mainly family members who for convenience have the same email address noted by the Society. So please can you change it so both family members have different email addresses.

Please let the membership@nwkfhs.org.uk, webmaster@nwkfhs.org.uk or me president@nwkfhs.org.uk know of the changed email address with your membership number in a private email. Please do not add it as a comment. Thanks

Find a spouse only 6 miles from home

The Daily Mail today (2nd March 2018) in an article by Victor Allen (science correspondent) reported a study that the 'baby boomer' generation of post WW2 typically married someone who lived six miles away. This was compared to Europe where they married 18 miles from home and in America it is 60 miles from home. The study published in the journal 'Science' co-authored by Dr Yaniv Erlich from Columbia University whose researchers trawled genealogy web sites to create a large scientific family tree of data.  The family tree is 11 generations deep covering the period 1650 to 1950.
Why the British travel less is put down to better local economic opportunities, social norms and being a small island country with closer towns and hamlets than in Europe and America.
The article mentions that before 1850 marrying into the family was common to someone who on average was a fourth cousin.
The advent of rail travel; 1820-1875; enabled people to marry partners from further afield. As did other forms of transport such as the bicycle and motor car. The study also found that women in Europe and America have migrated more than men, but men travelled further on average.
Think only of your ancestors that went to the British colonies or hunted diamonds in South Africa or gold in Australia and America.