People can find out more about family history with a pop-up shop in Huddersfield town centre.
Huddersfield and District Family History Society, which is based in Meltham but covers the whole of Kirklees, is opening a pop up shop on March 10, 11 and 12 in the Pack Horse Centre from 10am to 4pm each day.
It will feature historical information about Huddersfield and District.
Society secretary Susan Hutson said: “Many of the Society’s volunteers will wear the dress of our ancestors and will welcome people to find out more about what the Society does in terms of collecting family and local history records and helping everyone to undertake their own research. There will be displays of local historical material and the chance to search Ancestry and FindmyPast to find some of their own ancestors. The Society also has its own database of records.”
The Society has been running for almost 30 years and over that time many volunteers have transcribed baptism, marriage and burial information from churches of all denominations across Kirklees and these are published in booklets. These records are invaluable when researching family history.
The Society has recently announced the release of publications covering over 10,000 baptisms from St Stephens Church, Rashcliffe and Christ Church, Moldgreen which has followed the painstaking transcription of handwritten records from West Yorkshire Archives by volunteers.
While some of this information will be available through subscription websites, the Society publishes it in a form which is not available online and which allows the family historian to search whole family baptisms.
The pop-up shop will have books to buy related to family and local history as well as all the church transcription publications.
A few months ago FindmyPast released thousands of records from the 1939 national register which was taken at the start of World War Two to enable the provision of national identity cards, rationing and conscription among other wartime needs.
Initially this was available by a ‘pay to view’ via FindmyPast but Huddersfield Family History Society has now made this data available to family historians through the Society. There will be access at the Pop Up Shop and at their research rooms in Meltham.
The Pop Up Shop will also feature a display of wartime memorabilia.
Susan added: “It’s a great way to find out what your ancestors were doing and where they were living in 1939. This is goldmine of information in terms of the social history of the time and detailed information is given, for example, about our ancestors’ occupations and whether they were helping the war effort by volunteering as ARP wardens or first aid officers.”
