My husband and I quickly set up our Guild of One Name Studies table with two computers for the day today. One was running the Surname Atlas and the Guild webpage and the other was running a presentation on the Guild. We had quite a bit of interest today with seven people expressing interest in joining the Guild.
I was in a rush today as I wanted to attend Audrey Collins lecture on the National Archives better known as Kew. We had such a terrific day there last year and I know we only lightly scratched the surface of what we could find there but we had been very tight with our time on purpose. Otherwise we would have spent our entire week there in London! I probably go into the National Archives at least once every day looking most at the records online and checking out the wills just for names and dates although I have downloaded many many wills over the past six years. Audrey's lecture was amazing and even though I use the website a lot I learned a number of new items that I hadn't fully explored or visited before. She had a very pleasant but action packed presentation which left you with lots of good ideas for further use of the site and an even greater desire to go sooner to Kew once again.
Back to the table again and we were quite busy during the break with lots of queries on the Guild. It is the first time at the BIFHSGO Conference for the Guild. I happened upon it by chance five years ago and did acquire the earlier Pincombe study that had been run by two people up until the late 1990s. I suspect that many many people are in possession of large studies on particular surnames and the Guild is a marvelous place to be if that is the case. Lots of sharing of information and other benefits of membership.
I then attended my next lecture which had quite caught my interest. It was on other archives/libraries in London. Again the presenter Helen Osborne was most interesting and her talk quite caught the imagination as she discussed the holdings of the various libraries/archives which she mentioned. My eyes quite lit up when she mentioned the House of Lords Archives as I would dearly love to visit that one. It would hold all the Protestation Returns and although a lot of them have been published some have not been and they are some of the ones that I would like to see.
Back to the table again and then lunch time which was again well catered on the top floor of Library and Archives Canada. It is pleasant to sit down to such a good lunch after such a busy day. Both my husband and I enjoyed the lunch.
Back to the table and I did not select a session in the next block. We both worked at the table and had a number of visitors.
I did attend the last session of the day on Fleet Marriages again by Audrey Collins. Her style is quite effervescent and the discussion quite quick which was good as there was a lot of material to cover and she did it very admirably. I was curious more than anything about Fleet Marriages. I have a few marriages in London but I am missing one of the most important ones - Christopher Buller and Mary Beard. I suspect they married at St Olave but a Fleet Marriage might also be a possibility. All three of the Beard girls married away from their home parish of St Mary Magdalen Bermondsey. I think they were all run away marriages actually. I have looked somewhat at Fleet Marriages but Audrey brought history to it that I had never heard before which helps to explain these marriages. I am most appreciate of her excellent lecture as I had not really meant to attend - it was a last minute decision.
Looking forward to tomorrow as the last day. It is tiring going to conferences although most interesting.
Carried on with the North Molton Parish Registers and completed to the end of 1631 with 2314 baptisms, 345 marriages and 857 burials.
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