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Somerset & Dorset
Family History Society

Robin Ansell

Finding and dating unknown family photos

As anyone interested in family history will know when facts come to light that enable a name to be added to a family tree it is not long before starting to wonder what this person might have looked like Many of us will have photographs back to our grandparents and some are lucky to be able to go back to the great grandparents but beyond this it may well be much more difficult It is often tricky too to travel out sideways as great uncles and aunts and all the associated cousins are likely to...
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Somerset Photographers 1839-1939

On 31 August 1844, an advertisement in the Warwick and Warwickshire Advertiser announced that, during the following week at the Bowling Green, Warwick “Master Augustus Gyngell, only eight years of age, the child with the iron nerve, will make his daring and astonishing flight across the Green, from an immense altitude, surrounded with fireworks, as the Spirit Ariel, travelling at the rate of 200 miles an hour” We’ve not found a report which might have verified the height or the speed of...
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Christmas Star(s & Stripes)

Robin Ansell continues Barbara's 'transtlantic connection' theme for Christmas tree decorations Following Barbara’s story of tree decorations on both sides of the Atlantic, I offer our ‘stars & stripes’ Christmas tree star! It has adorned our Christmas tree every year since 2006 – when it was presented to us in Pennsylvania, by our then newly-discovered American cousins Connecting with them was in large measure due to the hallowed pages of the Society's journal The Greenwood Tree...
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Family History in Focus – hands on!

Yesterday we had the second of our Family History in Focus events when we were able to be really 'hands-on' and try to apply the criteria for dating and identifying images that we had learned in the first session on 6 September, augmented with more good advice from our two speakers - Mike Bolton and Robin Ansell To enable everyone attending to get the full benefit of their expertise, we had limited the number of participants to 14 and had a full complement on the day Mike started the event...
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Member and Guest Blogs Welcome

We welcome guest and member blog posts on any topic with a family history connection and invite you to send your contributions, which should include photo/photos, to the editor Barbara Elsmore

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