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Dorset

Creating and printing your own personalised family tree

Posted on 18th May 2017

I fell into using a desktop publishing package quite by chance In the village in which I was living a skilled resident had taken the local parish council newsletter, sent three times a year to all residents, and the parish church news, distributed six times a year, to church parishioners, and turned them into very satisfactory publications from the cutting and pasting of paper and photocopying that had been done before He liaised with a helpful local printing company and the results were much... more

The Greenwood Tree – March 2017

Posted on 24th February 2017

The March 2017 issue of The Greenwood Tree is now being printed, and will be posted to all members of the Society next week This is the first under the new schedule, where the publication dates will be at the beginning of March, June, September and December So if you’ve been wondering where your copy of The Greenwood Tree has got to, don’t despair – it will be with you soon Once the print copies are in the post, the PDF version will be uploaded to the Members' Area of our website We... more

The Greenwood Tree – November 2016

Posted on 1st November 2016

The November issue of The Greenwood Tree is now in the post to members The Editor, Bob Barber, presents a few items to whet your appetite The cover includes a number of photographs collected recently by the the Society's Photographs Project They also act as a Who Do You Think This Is feature Go to page 113 and see if you know any more about the people portrayed With thanks to Allan Collier for permission to use his photos, and also Sylvia Creed-Castle, Tony Chew and the Sunshine Coast... 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

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

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