By Tony Storey
I must start by congratulating John Deichner on his appointment as The Sole Society’s Ambassador for North America. He will be able to offer us some expertise on American records and where to find them, as well as raising our profile and perhaps recruiting more American members.
The title of Ambassador for North America is just something we made up, but John, who lives in El Dorado, Arkansas, really does hold the title of Lord of the Manor of Sewell, near Bedford. England that is, not Massachusetts!
I have also had a great deal of help over the last two years from John Chipper, who lives in New Zealand. He allowed me access to an extensive biography of his great-grandfather, whose achievements I described in ‘A Farmer’s Lad from Cumberland’, which appeared in Soul Search August 2024. Of necessity I had to restrict the story to an outline of events and it still filled six pages. Much of the detail of his engineering work was too technical for a family history article. During my research I discovered other notable New Zealanders but it can be difficult to establish family details as they do not seem to have the same access to records that we enjoy in this country. However, John Chipper has supplied a couple of sources for press cuttings which have already yielded information.
The Sewells are by far the most numerous and widely spread of our four surname groups and that fact alone probably deters members from volunteering to help. After two years as an unofficial Sewell co-ordinator I have had to stand down, so my name should no longer appear in the box on the journal. However, I am still around and would be happy to help if people put themselves forward for the job. If assisting people with their family research isn’t something you want to get involved in, there is another way you can help.
I intend to continue contributing articles to Soul Search as that little booklet is currently our only advertisement to announce our presence to the wider public. Our Internet guru, Tim Soles, uploads articles after every issue and I know they are read all over the world. I have had e-mails from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and South Africa, sometimes years after I wrote the original article. My ‘best seller’ is probable the one about the Sawle Family of Penrice, which I wrote in 2002. One year I received half a dozen enquiries, all from young students. It seems the Penrice Sawles, now extinct, were on the history syllabus of the local college and my humble efforts had been identified as a valuable source of information.
I think that counts as my fifteen minutes of fame!
What I’m trying to say is that advertising nowadays is expensive but this is virtually free. We know that people who take up genealogy often begin by Googling their surname. The more articles we have on the Internet, the greater our chance of attracting new members.
So if you are able I would like you to keep your eyes open for any notable events, particularly involving Sewells, that you come across in your travels. Old books, magazines or local newspapers can be a good source for an article in Soul Search. There might be the usual birth and marriage announcements and obituaries, perhaps reports of criminal proceedings, advertisements and notices of the sale of property and households. You could visit your local library or record office or just trawl the Internet at home. There are no deadlines to worry about. If you don’t want to write it yourself but find something that you think would make a good article, just send it to me and I’ll do the rest. Your help would be acknowledged and greatly appreciated.