16th March 2002
Impington Village College

Index of the Help Desks that Were Present

This is an outline only further information can be found down the page

Staff from the County Record Office will be on help desks all day, as well as staff from the Cambridgeshire Collection, museums & libraries. Staff from these two organisations will be giving a number of the Lectures

Tom Doig will be identifying old Photographs, from 1-00 until 4-30 (so please bring those old photographs that you would like to know more about), he can also answer questions on a number of other subjects for the Family Historian

Mac Dowdy, from the TV programme "The House Detective" will be giving advice for most of the day, on "How to Research your House"

Mike Petty, a very well known "Local  Historian" will help on a wide variety subject. His regular articles in the Cambridge Evening News are considered vital reading to the county historian

Michael Bowyer, who has written many books about the 2nd World War Aircraft and the East Anglian Air Fields, will answer questions from 10-00 until 12-30.

Derek Palgrave has written several books for the Family Historian, and will answer questions on Heraldry and Surnames, How to Tackle your Family History, and lots more.

Pamela Palgrave will answer questions on Parish Registers.

Bernard Amps will do look ups from our fiche on the price list

Ann Thompson & Geoff Sewell will answer questions on World War 1

Martin Edwards will answer question on War Memorials and other subjects.

Janet Hurst has transcribed many of the Non-Conformists Records, and will answer questions about them.

Lilian Gibbens, Chairman of the London & North Middlesex FHS was Westminster Heritage Researcher at the City of Westminster Archives for 9 years, and is currently the Official Researcher at Hackney Archives Department. Lilian has published several books, her specialist subjects are Apprenticeship and Death & Burial will answer questions on Manorial Records & much more.

Liz Carter, well known lecturer on many aspects of Local, Social & Family History, will answer questions about the "The Parish Chest" and lots more.

Brian Jones will help beginners and do look ups using the 1881 Census for the UK

Jill Wallace will help answer question on "Convicts transported to Australia"

Members of the CFHS will look up names on our "Personal Names Index" for Cambridgeshire.

MIKE BOWYER

This month sees publication of ‘THE STIRLING STORY’ (Crecy Publishing), the latest book by one of the most prolific of aviation writers, Michael Bowyer, whose aviation interest was awoken when the huge R101 airship passed over head. It was September 1930, and a few weeks later as a small child he watched enthralled as the airship left Cardington on its dreadful journey.

Stage two in the further awakening of his aviation interest came when a serving RAF officer, later to reach high rank and help formulate plans for Britain’s nuclear deterrent, entered the family circle. He brought along a friend whom curly headed young Michael knew as Frank. Only much later did he discover the surname - Whittle, the jet engine pioneer, who lodged for some time at a Trumpington Road address.

They plied him with photos they had taken using one of the then still novel 35mm Leica cameras, and initiated his amassing of one of the largest aviation photo collections and which is ever growing. In July 1935 the RAF Jubilee Review took place at Mildenhall and it was then that he began recording details of the aircraft he saw - their markings and colouring at first, to apply to his growing ‘Skybird’ model aircraft collection. Decades later he made considerable input into the huge Mildenhall Air Fete, for many years writing and producing photographs for its internationally popular Air Fete Calendar distributed world-wide. Where gathering and assimilation of information is concerned he has always been meticulous (and demanding of himself!)

Through the 1939-1945 war he compiled every day - as he still does copious notes relating to the East Anglian air activity around him. His first entry into print came in 1945 in the famous ‘Aeroplane Spotter’ so much loved at the time. After leaving the RAF he became one of the country’s leading aviation writers and’ historians, wrote many magazine articles and has lectured widely. Of his many books; ’Mosquito’ - which he wrote with Martin Sharp and for whom the editor was T. S. Eliot - will always be his favourite, because the backing of de Havilland and The Service generated wonderful writing experiences. ‘Mosquito’, in the RAFs 50th year, won the coveted Robertson Memorial Trophy, the RAF annual Public Relations award, which ultimately he and his co-author shared with four Chiefs of the Air Staff, The Red Arrows aerobatic team, films including ‘The Dam Busters’ and ‘The Way to the Stars’, the architect who restored St Clement Danes in the Strand as the RAF church and others who similarly have specially promoted the RAF’s image.

For the international top selling 10-volume ‘Action Stations’ books of which he wrote two he was Series Editor. Still a busy writer he is a contributor to the forthcoming major history volumes entitled ‘A Reader’s Guide to British History’ (Fitzroy Dearbon).

Mike will be pleased to meet and chat with you at our event, between 10 am and 12.30 pm

MAC DOWDY

One of the guest contributors to the Society's 25th Anniversary Celebrations at Impington Village College this coming Saturday, 16th March, is architectural historian Mac Dowdy. He may be well known to many of you for the lecture courses that he has given all over East Anglia for the Cambridge University's Board of Continuing Education, and some of you maybe familiar with the documentary films that he as presented for Anglia and BBC television. The series 'The House Detectives" was initially based upon the work of the Architectural Research Group, based at Wolfson College, Cambridge, where he is a Fellow.

A part of Mac's work is making historic surveys of houses and settlements, from farmsteads to cities, for private individuals and corporate bodies. Throughout the day at Impington there will be times when he will be available to discuss details of the houses of the public attending. He will also be able to give Information on the method of work and cost of the survey that he offers.

Mac Dowdy can be contacted at Wolfson College. Cambridge, CB3 9DB.

TOM DOIG

Tom Doig has travelled widely, in the UK and abroad, lecturing and researching various aspects of rural life in the Victorian Era. The one-time Director of the Cambridge & County Folk Museum and the Amberley Industrial Museum in Sussex, he is particularly interested in the role of women from agricultural labouring communities in the early 1800s.

He has written articles for a wide range of local history magazines including the 'Barkway' entry for the Hertfordshire WI County publication and monthly columns in the Barkway, etc Parish Magazines. This year, Tom Doig spoke on BBC Radio 4 Women's Hour on Women's Lying-in Clubs and is a regular speaker on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. He has recently written a series of radio programmes on aspects of Victorian childbirth and death. In the early 1990s he co-presented part of the Anglia TV 'Portrait of a Village' series and appeared on BBC Network TV speaking on May Day and on Country Cures and Remedies. During 2000, he published 'A History of Reed, Hertfordshire.' He is currently working on a photograph book on the history of Much Hadham in Hertfordshire, and an 'Antiquarian's History of Kelshall.'.

With David Hillelson, Director of the Heritage Network's archaeological team, Tom Doig edits and produces Hertfordshire's local history and archaeology journal, 'Hertfordshire's Past.'

A qualified teacher, he is also involved in a spectrum of educational activities ranging from work with pre-school playgroups and holiday clubs through to adult education courses and geriatric reminiscence therapy sessions. He recently completed a series of lectures for the University of Cambridge Board of Extra-Mural studies, as well as two 'Millennium Histories' for villages in Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire. During 2002, Tom Doig will be running a number of courses for the WEA and for the Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire Adult Education Initiative and organising a series of village 'open-days', etc in north Hertfordshire.

As well as his writing, lecturing and broadcasting interests, Tom Doig is an active member of the Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire Family and Local History Societies. His aim in life is to own a Daimler SP250 sports car similar to the one he drove before he took on a mortgage.

DEREK PALGRAVE

Derek Palgrave was born in Norwich where he attended the City of Norwich School. After reading Natural Science at Cambridge University (Selwyn College) he embarked on a career in the Chemical Industry. For several years he was Technical Director of an I.C.I. subsidiary company. As a Chartered Chemist he remains involved in chemistry in his capacity as a freelance lecturer, university extra-mural tutor and occasional consultant.

His interest in history began in the early fifties when he started to study both medieval churches and his Palgrave genealogy and heraldry. During the late sixties and early seventies he became associated with several newly-emerging family history societies. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Federation of Family History Societies from 1976 to 1982 and also from 1994 to 2000. He has been involved in the Federation’s publishing programme since 1977. He was the first Editor of Family History News and Digest and since 1989 he has compiled and edited the abstracts for inclusion in the Family History Digest section of that Journal. He has been elected to Fellowships of the Royal Historical Society and the Society of Genealogists. He is also a Member of the College of Teachers.

During the 1970s his specialist knowledge of chemical fertilizers was applied to the drafting of technical specifications when he became a long-term British delegate and group convenor to the International Standards Organisation. He was also responsible for numerous scientific papers and patents in this field. Later he was invited by a U.S. publisher to edit a series of textbooks devoted to these matters.

He is currently Vice-President of the Federation of Family History Societies, President of the Guild of One-Name Studies, President of Doncaster and District Family History Society, Vice-President of Suffolk Family History Society, a member of the Advisory Committee to the British Newspaper Library, a member of the East of England Regional Archives Council and Editor of The Escutcheon,The Journal of Cambridge University Heraldic & Genealogical Society, in which he also holds office as Secretary.

He has written well over 200 articles, papers and booklets on various aspects of history, contributing on a regular basis to local newpapers and to the magazine, Practical Family History. Currently he is compiling the history of an agricultural chemical company. As an experienced speaker he lectures very widely to adult audiences on scientific and historical topics both in this country and in the United States. He has taken part in several television programmes and is a frequent broadcaster on radio.

PAMELA PALGRAVE

Pamela Palgrave has been a Member of the Association of Genealogists and Records Agents for almost 30 years. She has undertaken extensive research in a wide range of local records in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Nottinghamshire, Suffolk and Yorkshire.

She belongs to the Society of Genealogists, the Guild of One-Name Studies (researching the surname Spilling and it variants), Norfolk FHS, Suffolk FHS, Doncaster and District FHS and Cambridge University H&GS. She is a member of the committee of the Friends of Suffolk Record Office

For the last 20 years or so, she has been involved in Society project work and is currently the Suffolk Marriage Index Coordinator, so far having been responsible for the publication of 13 volumes of indexed material. She is now in engaged in transcribing and indexing the 17^th Century Protestation Returns for the Cambridge Colleges.

MARTIN EDWARDS

Martin Edwards is an amateur family and local history historian with a zest for the Internet. Having played rugby for 28 years he gave up and replaced that interest with that of history based around Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire mainly. Until December 2001 he was the Chairman of Cambridgeshire Family History Society but his other commitments and being in full-time employment forced him to stand down.

He maintains the England Genweb pages for Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire; the GENUKI pages for Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire; the Cambridgeshire History portal, the Local Ancestors site and pages for several family history societies, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Hertfordshire and the Fenland FHS.

One major project that has been undertaken with several other researchers is to document and research the war memorials in Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and Bedfordshire. There are now nearly 400 of these memorials with between 15-20,000 men individually researched. This led to visits to Malaysia and Singapore to visit the last resting places of men from the many regiments who fell in World War II and instigated a further site relating to the Far East.

Additionally he also maintains pages for Cambridgeshire Record Society and Cambridgeshire Local History Society and the Fulbourn Village History Society. To help others he has offered local history societies and historians web space notably the pages for Mike Petty.

Recently he has been interviewed by BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and BBC Look East about the war memorial projects and Cambridgeshire family history.

JILL WALLACE

Jill is from Tasmania and undertaking research for her Master's Degree on the convicts of East Anglia. During the period of transportation almost 70,000 British convicts were transported to Tasmania then known as Van Diemen's Land (VDL). She has the numbers and location of the records of the vast majority of the convicts sent to VDL but would also welcome any information that anyone may have on East Anglian convicts.