Monthly Archives: August 2012

Writing memoirs

I’m really pleased to say I have a won a competition in Family Tree magazine and won a study place on Cherry Gilchrist’s University of Exeter-run e-course ‘Writing Memoirs and Family History’ and a copy of Cherry’s book, Growing Your Family Tree.

The e-course looks really interesting and I really hope it will help me improve my writing style. I’m looking forward to the sessions on Creating written portraits of the people in your story’, ‘The craft of writing: eg structure, tenses, dialogue, story line and presentation’, ‘Caption writing for photos and illustrations and Writing ‘brief lives’ of yourself and others’. There’s also a session called ‘Daily accounts, future heritage: the use of journals and blogs’ which should be really useful as I love writing this blog!

I’m also looking forward to receiving a copy of the book as it’s the only book on the reading list and can’t wait to get started!

Family treasures

I had a quick look in some of my boxes of treasures today. I’m sure we all have them. Boxes of items kept for sentimental reasons. As well as my boxes of photographs and certificates I have two boxes of treasures which include letters, framed photographs, books with written inscriptions, medals, coins and jewellery.

I feel quite lucky to have these ‘extras’ as they all help build up a picture of my relatives. They are great clues to expanding knowledge further than just dates provided by certificates and census returns.

Two of my favourite items are a diary belonging to my maternal grandfather. Although the diary records the dates of the gigs he played in, it also mentions his first dates with the woman who became my maternal grandmother!

I also have a diary written by my maternal great grandmother, dated with lots of family news even though she mainly records which of her many children visited that day.

I will transcribe both and add them here (time permitting).

Griffiths Valuation of Ireland

I’ve heard of the Griffiths Valuation of Ireland before and I know they can be quite useful for family historians but that’s all I know.

Somehow I came across the following reference for Killea, County Waterford –

Young Matthew Dunmore Killea Waterford

no dates or amount just an entry

I’m sure this is significant I’m just not sure what it really means or how I can find out more. Presumably it relates to Matthew Young (1786-1855)  who was a Commander in the Royal Navy. Another thing to add to my ‘to do’ list.

 

Wedding Wednesday – Winchcombe/Day 1945

This is a lovely tinted photograph of William (Bill) Winchcombe and Frances Day on their wedding day 25th August 1945. He was the younger brother of my grandfather, Robert Winchcombe.

Winchcombe_Day

I presume this was taken at St Barnabus Church, Swindon.