TRACING, A BOOK, NO VACANCIES AND A DOT by Bryan Pledger His granddaughter is studying at a local College and each student had to work out how to overcome the problems of working without the College equipment.  The project title was TRACING and his granddaughter decided to continue with her idea of family history tracing and actually making a 3D Family Tree.  Granddad was asked for help in sourcing family photographs (the older the better!!) and interesting stories about her ancestors.  It soon became apparent that he had a problem as the boxes of pictures, documents, and Family Tree Maker information was not something easily passed on.  Using “Individual Records” from FTM, by adding pictures etc and researching events detailed he was able to write the Life and Times of over 30 ascendants.  He tried to bring to life each of them and e-mailed them to give the basic information to use.  He discussed the Life and Times of Phillip Pledger 1710 whose…

Three Wokingham Families by Peter Must reported by Bryan Pledger. The talk started with a photograph of the blue plaque on Montague House in Broad Street stating the house was named after Henry Montague, a schoolmaster in 1654. The Winkfield records of the Mountagues from 1538 in the Berkshire Record Office has the Will of Thomas Mountague 1628.  There is a plaque to him in Winkfield Parish Church.  He died on 31st March 1630.  His Will divided his estate between Henry and his sons Henry and Zacheus, and his brother Jonas and his son Thomas. From the Book of Clerics, Henry c1573 -1632 was in 1610 a schoolmaster in Oakingham.  William Whitlock, Lord of the Manor of Beches, Wokingham’s mother -in-law in her Will appointed her friend Henry Mountague to be an overseer.  Henry married and had children including Henry, Thomas and Zacheus.  He died in 1634 and in his Will, signed Henry Mountague, listed a house in Wokingham that included a School…

'Heroes of Woodley Airfield' talk by Joy Pibworth. Many key figures in aviation history have ties with Woodley and this fascinating talk used the names of streets as the basis of their stories.

Reported by Christopher Singleton The Edwardian Era, sometimes referred to as the Golden Era, spanned the years from the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.  Tony King’s talk provided a framework to this period, from early Victorian times to 1918, with a wealth of images, film and sound. Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Prince Edward, born in 1841 and later King Edward VII, were guests of Napoleon in Paris.  Edward, who had a constrained existence in Windsor, was enthralled by Paris and wanted to stay.  However, he did travel to Canada, USA, Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge.  Whilst attending Cambridge in 1861, an affair involved the intervention of Prince Albert.  Albert contracted a fever from this visit from which he died and for which Victoria never forgave Edward. Edward, whose London home was Marlborough House, became known as the “Prince of Pleasure” with his country house parties, shooting and fishing.  He was keen on…

Henry Cole (designer of the first birthday card) and Digby Wyatt (from the Slade School of Art) approached Prince Albert, patron of the Royal Society of Arts, and suggested a visit to France to see the exhibition with the idea of staging one in the UK.  This led to a Royal Commission with a committee of fifty to organise it and to be called “The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations” or “The Great Exhibition”