Our talk on April 8th welcomed Sue Honoré (a very experienced researcher & long standing Oxford Family History Society member).
Based on over 40 years of family history research, Sue’s talk was a helpful introduction to resources available to the beginner and the more experienced.
Sue covered important elements of the research process, key research strategies to encourage the use of information sources wisely and with care, as well as hints and tips for success, plus common pitfalls and ideas for projects.
Family History Explored
Sue introduced her talk by reminding us of the deep overlap between “Local” and “Family” history. Research into family connections will always reveal important stories. These revolve around, for example, the houses our ancestors lived in, the wars in which they fought as evidenced in war memorials in every village, the ownership and sale of land and much else which is the warp and weft of local history research.
Sue also reminded us of the importance of talking to family members and recording their memories through the generations. She reminded us also that memories of neighbours can also be important and useful. Every long life is lived with a backdrop of events, decisions, family moves and other stories. These all help to further research, but also to create a living history around the creation of a family tree.
Thus setting the tone, Sue then discussed the many and varied potential resources available for family research: for one’s own family, or indeed any family of interest.
Family History Resources
Sue directed us to the extraordinary list of resources shown on the Oxfordshire Family History Society website here [ Link opens in new tab]
The OFHS website has easy to follow links to all these resources and more.
- Ancestry/FindMyPast/FamilySearch/The Genealogist
- Victoria County Histories (British History Online). The Wychwoods is No.19
- National Archives Discovery
- Oxfordshire Heritage Search
- Maps, military records, wills, Google Books, real books, newspapers & many more
- DNA – FamilyTreeDNA, Ancestry, MyHeritage
Full details are on the OFHS website. It is well worth a look.
Advisors and Helpdesks
Sue also reminded us of the services offered by OFHS advisors around the county. These advisors offer expert help in all aspects of family research. Advisors are always keen to meet new people.
Here is a list of libraries currently offering this service, including the Wychwood Library in Milton. [Link opens in new tab]
Tips for Family and Local History Research
For the rest of her presentation, Sue demonstrated how family history research is best seen as an iterative process, building on different strands of research to cross-verify findings, making sure to avoid any tempting leaps towards easy answers.
She chose surname examples to watch patterns over centuries, as well as a case study featuring a local Wychwoods family, which demonstrated by example some of those easy assumptions.
The evening was again – as have been all our talks this season – well-attended, and gave us the opportunity for questions, and to remind our membership of the extensive range of family history stories in our archive.
About Sue Honoré
Sue Honoré has no Oxfordshire ancestors but has been working with the Oxfordshire Family History Society in a number of roles for the last 14 years, including Editor of the journal and DNA project co-ordinator. Currently she manages the database of details of over half a million records of Oxfordshire people from 1100 to 1946. Her ancestors are mainly from Scotland, Northumberland, Derbyshire, New England and 4000 years ago, the Rhine Valley.
