Reading Branch meeting 25th April 2019  Speaker: Gill Thomas Gill started by outlining the differences one might find when tracing Welsh ancestors. These are language, culture and geography. Parish records are affected by non-conformity, and migration. There are resources online to help. English language has been used since 1733, prior to that you may encounter Latin. There were many Welsh Chapels of differing sects such as Baptists, Strict Baptists, and Particular Baptist. People were married in a Church and required a baptism certificate if they were to be buried in a churchyard. Worship was conducted in Welsh. Other non-conformists include Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Quakers and Unitarians. A synagogue for Jewish worship was established in Goat Street, Swansea c1750. The Catholic faith was only missionary status prior to 1850. Principalities Gwynedd, Powys, etc are different from present county boundaries. In the 1830’s Merthyr Tydfil was the largest town, by 1850 Swansea became the largest city and in 1955 Cardiff became the capital. In 1973…

Reading Branch meeting 28th March 2019 Speaker: Tom Doig  Tom started by suggesting it is more accurate when dating old photographs to look at the type of image created rather than the costumes worn by the sitters. His reasoning is that fashion does not travel very fast around the country and what may be fashionable in a city like London may not reach a town like Reading for five or ten years. Also, the subject’s photographed may be more, or less, well-off and be more, or less, likely to buy latest fashion. Sitters sometimes also used costumes provided by the studio taking the picture. Tom believes that a more reliable method is to look at the materials of the picture and its surrounding mounts. These can quite often be used to accurately identify a certain studio as records are available to compare the styles used. Tom also spoke of the early history with up to fifteen hours exposure and glass plates, through the…

Reading Branch meeting 28th February 2019 Speaker: David Cliffe  David opened by recounting that he had first given his talk, now updated, to our branch in 2014 after encouragement from us and the History of Reading Society which resulted in the publication of his book “Reading Cinemas: Picture Palace to Penny Plunge”. He recalled drawing upon information from Leslie North’s 1958 book and Daphne Phillips’ book which mentioned some cinemas but was far from comprehensive. He set about researching as many picture houses with the help of the records in the Berkshire Record Office and from “Woodeson”. His biggest regret is that no account books have been found, which would give the readers an idea of how profitable these places of entertainment were. He was also disappointed at the lack of “internal” photographs available and has had to use mostly exterior shots in his book and talk. David outlined the historical development of cinematography, from 1896 Luminarie Brothers and its arrival in Reading…

Reading Branch meeting 31st January 2019  Speaker: Mike Swaddling  Mike, a retired marketing communications manager living in Sandhurst, after full time work, he was able to follow up an idea inspired by his father's memoirs to help retired people with their reminiscences. Over 10 years, he visited retirement homes and recorded first-hand stories of lives of five hundred people stretching back almost 100 years. These were compiled into ten or twelve anthologies. The stories are as varied as human nature itself, and his talk brought a handful of them to life in an entertaining fashion and with lots of humour. He also shared some of the techniques he learned on how to get people to talk about their past lives. Firstly, one needs to have the background, then a technique, and finally anecdotes. There is no such thing as an ordinary life. His father’s life story up to 1997 would not be considered “P.C.” today but times were different. He developed a “talking…