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The SDFHS Blog

The Sherborne Pageant Project on our website

Posted on 18th July 2016

In the August edition of Who Do You Think You Are magazine respected writer, Alan Crosby, gave the SDFHS a real boost by featuring one of our current projects - The Sherborne Pageant of 1905 How did Alan know we are undertaking this project He read about it in the Projects' section of our website which he went on to recommend that his readers should explore as an example of 'a superb website' This is the direct link to the Sherborne Pageant Participants Project Just think before the days of... more

Washing Day

Posted on 24th May 2016

For centuries ‘Washing Day’ was always women's work and in cottages and houses up and down the country it was usually done on a Monday You may see the name 'Laundry Cottage' on your travels which reveals that this would have been an early and vital cottage industry This photograph of the laundry in the Dorset village of Nether Compton (by kind permission of Michael Goodden) was taken around 1904 and it shows in the foreground the long cottage where all the work was done and where the... more

The Greenwood Tree – May 2016

Posted on 26th April 2016

The May edition of The Greenwood Tree will be mailed to members this week The Editor, Bob Barber, gives a preview of the contents The rather startling front cover of the May issue of The Greenwood Tree highlights an important new venture by the Society: The Somerset and Dorset Photographs Project Photographs are an important part of family history, triggering and cementing memories of the past, as Barbara Elsmore described in a previous post A major new initiative for the Society has been the... more

Collecting and Sharing Family Photos

Posted on 16th March 2016

On Saturday (19 March) we will be holding our first Photographic Project Open Day at our Family History Centre in Sherborne (for details see below) Barbara Elsmore describes her own rewarding search for family photographs which she will be adding to the SDFHS database Imagine my surprise last week when I was leafing through A Dorset Camera 1855-1914 in the library at the SDFHS Family History Centre, and a photograph of my great grandfather, George Collings, leapt off the page at me He was... more

The Charge of the Dorset Yeomanry at Agagia on 26 February 1916 – a personal view

Posted on 26th February 2016

Exactly one hundred years ago today the charge of the Dorset Yeomanry at Agagia, in Egypt's western desert, played a major role in the WWI campaign in North Africa Barbara Elsmore shares her own family's memories of this important military event Back in the 1950s and 60s, while visiting my grandparents’ house in Nether Compton, we would have all our meals in a room dominated by what seemed to me like a huge picture of men on horses brandishing swords charging towards a lot of other men in... more