Western Australian Genealogical Society Inc.

Did your ancestors come from the UK? Then there's a fair chance they lived in, or near London. Or perhaps they passed through that great city on the way to Australia. Many of us have roots in, or connections with London. And that's why we have a LONDON group at WAGS. Or, strictly speaking, ‘The London and Home Counties Special Interest Group'. This means we cover London, Middlesex, Surrey, and where London has spread into the adjoining counties of Kent, Essex, Herts, Bucks and Berkshire.

We meet quarterly and keep in contact by e-mail in between meetings. At each meeting, one of our members leads a discussion about a London-based topic. In the last few meetings we've had talks about: the coming of the Railroads, the Thames legacy (watermen, lightermen and pilots), the London Blitz and, of course lots of problem-solving discussions.

Our goal is to increase our understanding of London and its history, to help us with our research - where our ancestors might be found, what they did, how they lived. We also help each other with queries and problems... we may not be able to solve your problems but we can often come up with ideas to follow up. And we're very sympathetic!

Come along to one of our meetings - you'll be very welcome. 

LMA records on Ancestry - a great resource for Londoners

Last year Ancestry.com released a large number of parish records for London, including images of original baptism and marriage entries, taken from the London Metropolitan Archives. Marriages (1754-1921) are fully searchable; baptisms and burials are searchable from 1813, and earlier records (back to 1538 in some cases) are browsable by parish and by approximate date. If you have a subscription to ancestry you'll find them at 'new records'. If you haven't, book a time on the computer at WAGS and have a look! 

We meet every three months, on the first Saturday of March, June, September and December, from 11am to 1pm, at WAGS Unit 4/48 May Street, Bayswater. At each meeting one of our members leads a discussion on a specific topic. As well, we spend time looking at successes, problems and queries. We're a self-help group, aiming to improve our general knowledge about London, as well as solving members' problems. Between 25 and 40 members attend each quarterly meeting.

All WAGS members are welcome to come along to our meetings and join our mailing list. A gold coin donation at the meeting helps to build up funds to purchase additional resources for the library. Maybe we'll see you at one of our meetings soon.

Co-convenors

Mike Murray            tel: (08) 9339 8078

Lesley Silvester     tel: (08) 9339 8078 

Email:                     Convenors - London and Home Counties SIG

 
Next Meeting/s - Have a look at:

 WAGS Event Calendar

 London & Home Counties SIG Events List

Saturday 4 September 2010. 11 am to 1 pm

London burials. With the huge growth of London in the 1800s, many churchyards filled up and it became necessary to create large cemeteries on the outskirts of the city. We will discuss what this means for genealogists searching for their London ancestors.

June 2010 (meeting held 22 May)

Another of our regular brick wall sessions. Even if you don't have a candidate for examination by the group, these meetings are a great opportunity to think of various ways to look for elusive ancestors. And we even managed to solve a couple of old problems!

March 2010

 Lesley gave us some chilling insights to the fate of those caught up in the great plague in London in 1665. Luckily, our ancestors must have survived (or we wouldn't be here). Bills of Mortality and parish records show what happened to those who died.

December 2009 (meeting date 28 November)

 Marian Crew gave us a revealing glimpse of life in the  London Hospital over the centuries, ranging from its beginnings to more recent times when she worked there.

September 2009

 Lee Ann Atkinson gave us a fascinating insight into the lives and times of the Thames watermen, lightermen and pilots. 

June 2009

 We had another Brick Wall session. Six cases were looked at and some notes made of possible approaches, We've summarised them here for posterity.

  London Group Minutes - Jun 09 70.13 Kb 

March 2009

Discussion on the Coming of the Railways and their impact on London and its people. Mike presented a brief overview with some nice illustrations and hints on finding your railway ancestors. Email the convenor if you want a copy of the presentation.

December 2008

Discussion on Social History, particularly the use of the Booth Maps and workhouse books. Mike and Lesley presented three case histories showing how much material can be found to flesh out the lives of some of our 19th century London ancestors.

September 2008

Presentation on London repositories.  Mike and Lesley reported on their recent visits to The National Archives and the London Metropolitan Archives.

June 2008

Meeting focused on bashing down some London Brick Walls.  Members brought along their most difficult cases and the meeting tried to help them by offering up suggestions for further research. Before that we reminded members about Batch Number searching the IGI, and some good search tips for the Census records.

March 2008

Special on the London Blitz. A panel of four members, all of whom had lived in London during the Second World War, enthralled us with stories. Thanks to Jane Innes,Terry Dean, Malcolm Ginn and Maurice Burns for allowing us to share their memories and their stories.

* BKM Buckinghamshire
* BRK Berkshire
* ESS Essex
* HRT Hertfordshire
* KEN Kent
* LND London
* MDX Middlesex
* SRY Surrey