August 2008

Royston Town Football Club

We have received this very interesting request for help from Alan Barlow the Club President of Royston Town Football Club. I do hope that some of our members are able to help him and I quote :-

You probably already know that the RTFC is the second oldest club in Hertfordshire - dating back to 1872 (Bishops Stortford is the oldest) so we've been around a long time. I'm particularly interested in any information relating to the following:

• Sir Cecil Gustavas Newmann (Baronet)
• Archibald Samuel Seeley (Draper)
• Ralph Staley (Manager & Secretary of Royston Gas Company Ltd)
• Edwin Haywood (Surveyor's Clerk)

These four purchased the freehold of our Garden Walk ground on 27th June 1931 for the princely sum of £200 from Augustus George Haywood - they were in effect the Club's first Trustees and what a legacy they have left to the Club and the Royston Community. It's hard to believe that in the height of Britain's worst ever recession these four were brave enough to make such an investment - we must be extremely grateful!!

I'm also interested in anything to do with the Club, old photos, programmes and "memories".

Alan's contact details are as follows :-

From the Federation of Family History Societies

Can you Transcribe the 1851 Census?

Do you get annoyed with errors in the online censuses?

Most of these, other than the 1881, have been transcribed overseas and despite quality checking there are inevitable differences. Many of us have found that alternative transcriptions of the census have a value in their own right such as one index has obvious errors where another gets it right.

You now have a chance to help in transcribing the 1851 census and assist the family history society that covers an area of interest to you.

Many family history societies have previously indexed the 1851 census in many different formats ranging from surname only indexes to full transcripts and these have been published in booklets, on fiche and CD-ROM with several being available also on the Federation's FamilyHistoryOnline web service. Some of these indexes were produced in the days before the widespread use of personal computers and are only available in typescript format.

In this new project many Societies that are members of the Federation of Family History Societies and findmypast.com will be working with you to produce a full index to the 1851 census that will allow searching by virtually all fields, including occupation, age and sex. This index will be connected to images of the pages from the census enumerators' books.

Societies will receive a small payment each time a researcher views the results of a search that's been indexed by a volunteer working for that Society. This will be an important source of revenue for societies as sales of other versions of the census have seriously declined.

You can work at home using your own computer and broadband connection whenever you have a few spare minutes. All you need is a recent web browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox and the Adobe Flash player - this will install semi-automatically in the unlikely case that you don't already have it. Views of the "transcription tool" showing the image of the census page and the spreadsheet-like grid where you enter the information plus more details about the program can be found at www.familyhistoryonline.net/fmp/1851.html

If you are interested in taking part please email 1851census@ffhs.org.uk with your contact details and the names of any counties where you have a particular knowledge or interest. Not all societies will be taking part, so not all areas will be covered. Those areas "unclaimed" will have to be completed overseas. Findmypast.com are aiming to produce most of the 1851 census online by the end of the year, so please don't delay and help today!.

People have said that your education as a family historian cannot be complete unless you have done some transcribing as only then will you appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of the original records. So now's the time to educate yourself and give that special help to so many others with their searches.

Also from The Federation, they have a new postal address which is –

“Memory” Books

Doreen Oakman has asked me to remind you all about the series of "Memory" books available on the book stall. These are attractively produced books with places for you to fill in your memories to pass on to either children or grandchildren, something I'm sure that most of us would have loved our grandparents to have done.

“Thanks”

We have received an official letter of thanks from the Churchwarden of St John the Baptist, Cottered for their copy of the M.I.'s of their Church and churchyard. It is very nice to hear how grateful the churchwarden, Mr Neville Chuck is for all Mr Neville Chuck and Mr Eddie John's hard work!. If we see a strange expression in Neville's eyes it will be the poor soul's personality splitting again. Seriously though Neville, you're welcome. 

Research

A contact of Kay Curtis recently sent her this email address because it had some Curtis's on it. Kay thought it might be useful to any body else researching that neck of the woods.

www.knottingley.org/history/genealogy.htm