YOU KNOW YOUR

FAMILY'S HISTORY?

PETE HENSHAW finds out how new technology is helping to break down the barriers in tracking your heritage

THE increasingly popular hobby of investigating your family history could soon have Nantwich in its grasp with the planned expansion of the Nantwich History Society.

The society is hoping to take advantage of the ever increasing popularity of researching family trees, and also a new Internet service being provided by Cheshire County Council, to expand its membership.

Cheshire is to become the first county in the country to place births, marriages and deaths on the Internet and Chair of the society, Derek Poppleton, believes this will increase people's interest.

It is hoped that eventually the county council service will provide easy access to millions of certificates dating back to 1837.

Cheshire County Council has set up the service in connection with the South Cheshire Family History Society, of which the Nantwich Group is a part, and the Family History Society of Cheshire.

The Nantwich group currently has 40 or so members but some of these are dotted around the globe.

"People from Australia and America are members of the group because they are interested in ancestors from the area," explained Derek.

The 20 or so local members meet regularly to search the family trees and history books of the town and help each other solve the mysteries.

Sue Barlow, one of the local members, still has no clue as to the identity of her Grandad although she has managed to track her family history back a lot further.

"I just found myself wanting to know more about my aunt and grandad and I have now been doing this for two years," she said.

"When I discover something I ring up fellow members and it is very exciting," she added.

Anne Ostridge has also been a member of the group for around two years and believes the hobby has a strange appeal.

"I find it really exciting, it is like doing a jigsaw and fitting all the information in together," explained Anne.

Derek explained how he has tracked the name Poppleton through the generations and found a lot of entries in the history books.

"One of the officers serving with Napoleon was a Poppleton and Napoleon actually did not dislike him as he did most officers," explained Derek.

"Two of my Great Uncles were killed in World War II and are buried in Belgium, I hope to be able to visit their graves one day," he added.

The new era of history tracked will almost certainly involve computing technology and the web and this has already begun in Nantwich.

"We also have a CD Rom which holds the contents of the 1881 census for the whole country. We can access that information just by entering the name, instead of the address which we need for the original records," explained Derek.

"The parish records in the library are also very good and the Mormon's have set up a very good website which spans back hundreds and hundreds of years," he added.

Derek hopes that eventually Nantwich History Society will be able to hold regular monthly meetings at the library involving seminars during which members can help each other tracing their family trees and history.

Also the meetings could involve speakers on a wide range of subjects related to the history of the area's population.

"We are hoping that the meeting at the library will get a lot more people coming along and we can then become a much bigger group," said Derek.

The first meeting at Nantwich Library is to take place on Monday, September 11, at 7.30pm and is open to anyone interested. Derek emphasises that anyone is welcome to ring him for more information on 625535.

With the new county service all researchers need to do now is log on to the societies' websites and do an index search from which registrars can immediately obtain the vital copy certificates.

"Whilst it will still be some time before we can include every entry proposed, from 1837 to 1950, the first phase of an estimated 350,000 records is now on-line," said Registration Service Manager, Martin Smith.

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Nantwich History Society members Derek Poppleton, Sue Barlow, left, and Anne Ostridge are pictured with a family tree dating back hundreds of years.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.