The Greenwood Tree – March 2025
Posted on 27th February 2025
The theme of the March issue of The Greenwood Tree is First Steps in Family History. Editor Paul Radford previews the edition which will be mailed to members at the end of February and which SDFHS members can already view or download from the Members’ Area of the Society’s website.
The March edition of The Greenwood Tree is the first to mark the 50th anniversary of our Society and comes with a front page banner headline stating the fact as well as a new colour. The Greenwood Tree must, of course, remain green but we have opted for a lighter and brighter shade which we hope will meet the approval of our members.
There were plenty of contributions on our First Steps theme with members recounting how they got into family history in the first place. Bob Kelley writes that it was to please his snobbish mother who hoped he would find landed gentry in their tree. (Spoiler alert – he didn’t).
Karen Hansen found an old wooden trunk when she was clearing her grandmother’s house and discovered a treasure trove of old pictures, postcards, documents, papers and receipts which she is still working through 20 years later.
I wrote about how I was inspired by a television series launched in 1979 by newscaster Gordon Honeycombe to begin my own family history journey. Ron Holley knew little of his ancestors till he interviewed his Uncle Chuck to find out about the Purple Heart award he received for serving in the US Navy in World War Two. Further research led him to Scotland, Ireland and eventually Somerset for a connection he had never thought he had.
Unlike Bob Kelley, Jeannette Simpson did find aristocrats in her family, or at least her husband’s. Ryan Weller started his research more recently, during lockdown, Maureen Lucas set out by helping her daughter with a school project and Richard Smith’s curiosity was piqued by a chat with a Weymouth cousin.
There are other stories outside the theme too, notably one written by the editor about a lady, who has to remain anonymous, who found her real father, a GI who had served in World War Two, through DNA, discovered he was still alive and met him for the first time when he was 99. Darcey Moore tells us of the Dorset roots of the great writer George Orwell.
In our continuing interview series, The Greenwood Tree editor meets John Tanner, who recently became a life member of the Society. He speaks of his highly unusual route into family history.
Regular features include Dorset Spotlight, this time on Fordington, the SDFHS Photo Project, the Dorset History Centre Roundup and Letters to the Editor.
Paul Radford