Yes, I know it’s only June and the Festive Season might seem a million miles away – though the weather might seem drab enough for winter, with summer so far seemingly deciding to give this year a miss. But if you do want to guarantee some family, local or house history research before Christmas, now’s the time to start making those booking enquiries. Because you will find that popular, expert researchers are in great demand, and they do get booked up months in advance.
Whilst I do my best to slot in requests for last-minute pieces of research, I am already taking bookings for work to start in late September. In fact, I’ve already a piece of work scheduled for December completion.
So if you’re wanting to commission a piece of research for a Christmas gift or, come to that, for any upcoming special occasion or ancestral visit, please get in touch as soon as possible to discuss your requirements.
To re-write a well-known nursery rhyme:
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, If you want to research 3x great grandad John, now’s the time for that. Brick wall, house walls, trees – root and branches too, Get in touch, book it in, to find out what makes you.
This is my regular look back at the posts added to the Batley St Mary of the Angels One-Place Study during the previous month. This update contains the list of all the St Mary’s posts published up to the end of May 2024 , including links to them, with May’s new and updated posts signposted.
Batley St Mary of the Angels
If you want to know the background, and what is involved in a one-place study, click here. Otherwise read on, to discover a wealth of parish, parishioner and wider local Batley history.
Six posts were added during May 2024, bringing the total number of study posts to 322. Two other posts were updated.
These additions and updates included four new weekly newspaper pages for May 1918. I have accordingly updated the surname index to these During This Week newspaper pieces, so you can easily identify newspaper snippets relevant to your family.
There is one new post in the Miscellany of Information section. This is a post about the harsh consequences of refusing to work, even if ill. It does not have a happy ending.
There final post this month is in the Bulletin for Batley St Mary of the Angels and Birstall St Patrick section – it is the parish history snippets which were included in the bulletins during May 2024.
No new biographies have been added this month. However, the final updated post is to the men who served and survived the First World War section, with more men being identified during May.
Below is the full list of pages to date. I have annotated the *NEW* and *UPDATED* ones, so you can easily pick these out. Click on the link and it will take you straight to the relevant page.
Finally, if you do have any information about, or photos of, parishioners from the period of the First World War please do get in touch. It does not have to be War Memorial men. It could be those who served and survived, or indeed any other men, women and children from the parish.
I would also be interested in information about, and photos of, those parishioners who were killed in World War Two, or others from the parish who undertook any war service and survived. This can be as broad as serving in the military, or work in munitions factories, the Land Army, even taking in refugees. This is an area I’m looking to develop in the future.
Postscript: I want to say a big thank you for the donations already received to keep this website going. They really do help.
The website has always been free to use, and I want to continue this policy in the future. However, it does cost me money to operate – from undertaking the research to website hosting costs. In the current difficult economic climate I do have to regularly consider if I can afford to continue running it as a free resource.
If you have enjoyed reading the various pieces, and would like to make a donation towards keeping the website up and running in its current open access format, it would be very much appreciated.
Please click 👉🏻here👈🏻 to be taken to the PayPal donation link. By making a donation you will be helping to keep the website online and freely available for all.
Past To Present Genealogy 