by John Slaughter  

New enquiries have been relatively quiet in recent months but will no doubt pick up in the winter. This does however give me more time to concentrate on other matters such as continuing to input information into our software database.

I have recently upgraded my computer and took the opportunity to also upgrade to Generations, which other coordinators have been using for some time. The main Saul file now has nearly 4,000 individuals therein. In addition Rosemary and Maureen have completed inputting the Cornish Sawles which amounts to a further 1300 entries. However there is still a lot of further information and individuals that need to be entered and at our recent Conference we were discussing ways of how to organise this so that others can help with this task. Of course this also depends on members volunteering to assist so if there is anyone willing to help, other than those whom I already am aware of, please let me know. The Society offers a generous contribution to anyone that acquires the Generations software to assist the Society.

Jane Weston has recently joined. This is another success story for our increasingly impressive web site. Jane found my November 1999 report in the web site and this contained a reference to a John Saul who married Mary Preston at Hawkeshead, Lancs. in 1817 and the baptism of their first child William also at Hawkeshead in the same year. Jane is a descendant of this family and has considerable additional information on their descendants. There is also a link to Glenda Mainwaring, who was a member in the Society’s earlier days, and whose ancestor Jeremiah emigrated to Australia. William and Jeremiah were brothers. Incidentally Jane found the reference to Hawkeshead from trailing through the web site. Her task would have been even easier if she was doing this now as a search facility has been added. As more and more information is continuously added to our web site, this search facility is an important aide to our research.

Another task, which I am attending to, is to tie up the GRO birth, marriages and deaths entries with known individuals. This can be very revealing as it can demonstrate whether we are aware of all the individuals in a certain registration district and reveal gaps in our knowledge that can lead to further lines of enquiry. In the later years the indexes provide sufficient information to enable family groups to be constructed.

Tony tells me that all the Saul entries have been extracted for 1837-1950 but marriages 1926-50 and deaths 1901-50 are awaiting checking. Once again I express my thanks to all those that have helped in this invaluable project. Attention is now being turned to others projects, which Tony refers to elsewhere in this journal.

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