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Sherborne

Tracking down John Deacon – basketmaker in Bristol

Posted on 13th May 2015

Barbara Elsmore is researching the Deacon family of basketmakers and here describes how enlisting the help of other SDFHS members helped her to track down a missing son On Saturday 16 May Barbara will be talking in Sherborne about basketmaking as an occupation in the first of our occasional series of events What did your Ancestors Do The other speaker will be John Damon on 'Families in the Utilities': full details I have just read Patricia Spencer's excellent article in the latest Greenwood... more

The US Civil War

Posted on 14th April 2015

2015 marks the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the end of the US Civil War and to commemorate this we had four talks at our Family History Centre in Sherborne on Saturday 11 April The event was the inspiration of our Librarian Emeritus, Robin Ansell, who has had an almost life-long interest in the War and who brought along part of his extensive collection of books and memorabilia Fittingly Robin was the... more

‘The Ridouts of Sherborne’ – writing up your family history

Posted on 10th February 2015

SDFHS member, Karen Francis, describes how she started investigating her Ridout ancestors and encourages other family historians to publish their research so that it can be preserved In March 2004, I decided to find out a bit about my maternal grandparents, Reg and Elsie Ridout I started off with what I knew: Reg had run a fish and chip shop at 38a Kingsmead Street in Bath; Elsie smelt of lavender and baked gorgeous chocolate cake Not exactly a lot to go on, but what do children ever... more

Preview of the February 2015 ‘Greenwood Tree’

Posted on 25th January 2015

Bob Barber previews the first edition of The Greenwood Tree in 2015 which will be reaching members shortly Remember, if you haven’t renewed your membership then you won’t receive your copy So don’t miss out, see: wwwsdfhsorg/ 2015 is an important milestone for our Society as it marks the 40th anniversary of its founding The Society was the brainchild of Mervyn Medlycott, who convened a meeting in the village hall at Sandford Orcas in June 1975, following an appeal in the spring to anyone... more

Zulus in Sherborne

Posted on

The first of our 2015 Sherborne events took place yesterday when Col Iain Swinnerton described the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, followed by a wine-tasting of six South African wines The main events of the Anglo-Zulu war are very familiar to anyone who has seen the film Zulu (all but one of us present yesterday had seen it - some many times!) and its later prequel Zulu Dawn (rather fewer had seen this film) but we all welcomed the opportunity to hear the expert views of the SDFHS Military Advisor,... more

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