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The SDFHS Blog

Family History in Focus

Posted on 7th September 2014

I’m not sure where to start in summarizing yesterday's brilliant talks about early photography and family history, held at our Family History Centre in Sherborne - there were so many fascinating facts and wonderful images that any summary is bound not to be fully representative All of the three speakers gave well-thought-out and wonderfully illustrated presentations and they were all fluent, interesting and entertaining - it isn’t often that you can say that about a multi-speaker... more

Archival conservation, book binding and some historical insights.

Posted on 9th August 2014

We had a fascinating talk this afternoon at our Family History Centre by Rex Lancefield, a professional conservator whose family business specialises in archival conservation and book binding Rex illustrated his talk by describing some of the many projects on which he has worked, relating in detail how books, royal charters, legal documents, official registers, etc have been conserved, restored and protected for display or storage He brought with him examples of archivally sound papers,... more

Commemorating the start of World War I

Posted on 3rd August 2014

This weekend is the centenary of the start of World War I and yesterday (2nd August) we marked this with three fascinating talks at our Family History Centre by Col Iain Swinnerton, the Society’s Military Advisor and a renowned military and family historian Iain started by discussing the causes of the war and then moved on to talking about the history of the Somersetshire and Dorsetshire regiments and the role they played during the conflict After a tea break Iain then provided helpful... more

The Greenwood Tree – August 2014

Posted on 20th July 2014

The August issue of the SDFHS journal, The Greenwood Tree, is now at the printers and will be distributed to all members shortly The Editor, Bob Barber, previews the contents of this very special edition As the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War approaches we will be subject to a rolling barrage of books, newspaper articles, television and radio programmes and local and national events and exhibitions The SDFHS is no exception in attempting to acknowledge the sacrifice... more

Sherborne’s vanished pubs

Posted on 18th July 2014

Yesterday evening (17th July) saw Barry Brock, the Manager of our Family History Centre, suitably kitted out in a luminous safety jacket, guiding a group of us around the streets of Sherborne, on the trail of the town’s vanished pubs This was the first of four such pub walks (definitely not pub crawls!) that the Society has organized this summer We originally set three dates but these all booked up so quickly that we recently added a fourth - on Thursday 7th August (places still available... more