NDFHS Family History Tynedale
The Bates Room,
Hexham Golf Club,
Spital Park,
HEXHAM,
Northumberland, NE46 3RZ
Contact: John Parker
Email: tynedalebranch@ndfhs.org.uk

Meetings on 2nd Thursday in the month at 2:30pm ( No meeting in August )
Visitors are always welcome

 

Date Subject of Talk Speaker
13th February 2025 Using Family History as a work tool John Parker
13th March 2025 AGM and Gibside in the Derwent Valley David Butler
10th April 2025 Prizes, Awards and Medals Members’ Forum
8th May 2025 The West Road Cemetery Project (Prudhoe) Ed Graham
12th June 2025 Ag Labs to Academics – our families’ occupations Members’ Forum
10th July 2025 Writing Your Family History Jane Gulliford Lowes

 



Reports of meetings

January 2025

Group meeting held at 2.30pm on Thursday 09 January 2025
Attended by : 9 Members
John Harrison :- DNA Workshop

Branch Member John Harrison distributed a handout which explained, step by step, how to take a list of DNA matches provided by the DNA testing company and analyse the results so as to maximise the value of the information in our family trees – either by validating the results of our researches or by providing new information to research around.

Using his own Ancestry DNA test results and the list of his own DNA matches, John showed how each matching person can be identified as belonging to either the Maternal or the Paternal side of the family tree, and then how each person can be attributed to a particular set of Great Grandparents.

The information resulting from this analysis can then be recorded in a tabular format on a spreadsheet which embodies the principle of the Leeds Method (named after its creator’s surname, rather than the Yorkshire City) for analysing family data.

Once the chart has been filled in – using a manageable number of the DNA matches listed, which tend to run into the thousands – it can be used to further your research. For those matches who have a public family tree available online, this is a matter of looking at their trees to find out how they are related to you. Those without trees can still be resolved by looking at their relationships to other people in the list of matches.

Once you have added new people to your tree, you may feel that is enough. However, you may wish to make contact with them – which is facilitated by Ancestry and other DNA testing sites. John suggests that the best approach is to give the person plenty of information about how you think you are related and to offer to share information with them. This line of approach is more likely to elicit a response than just saying you seem to be related and not offering your new-found distant cousin some kind of benefit in replying.

After the meeting, John emailed a copy of his Leeds Method Chart spreadsheet to all branch members so that those who are interested can follow through the process with their own list of DNA matches. He also expressed a willingness to provide further advice and guidance to any group members who would be welcome to email him with their queries.

Several members expressed an interest in trying out these techniques in order to make more sense of their own DNA test results, so there may well be scope for a follow-up workshop in the future, if John is willing to take that on.

November 2024

Group meeting held at 2.30pm on Thursday 14 November 2024
Attended by : 12 Members

John Heckels :- Chirupula Stevenson : Tyneside’s African Explorer

John Heckels introduced Chirupula Stephenson – born John Edward Stephenson in 1876 – to whom he was connected by the marriage of his aunt to Edward Stephenson. The Stephenson family were ships’ chandlers in North Shields, but at the age of 20, John Edward was a telegraph operator and he headed to Africa.

Having heard from his uncle back in 1972 about this this family member who had “gone native” and to whom many colourful tales were attributed, John Heckels researched John Stephenson over the years.

On arrival in Africa, Stephenson found employment with the British South Africa Company. As he progressed within the company, he was given the responsibility of taking part in, and later leading, expeditions to areas further North in Africa. For about 20 years he was in and around what is now Zambia as a senior figure in the British South Africa Company which was, in effect, the British Empire. But far from being an imperialist despot, it seems that Stephenson was very diplomatic and sympathetic to the local peoples and their traditions and culture. At the same time, he introduced European ways and the Victorian social order : Stephenson is recognised as the founder of the town of Ndola in the Zambian Copper Belt.

After resigning from the BSAC, Stephenson set up as a citrus farmer and remained in Africa until his death in 1957. By that time, his assimilation into local society was so deep that his funeral was attended by hundreds of Africans, as well as dozens of Europeans. Stephenson had managed to retain his standing as a man of substance in European eyes while at the same time being accepted by the African society within which he lived.

As is so often the case, the stories that had been passed down were mostly based on fact, but had been amplified and distorted when re-told. It was certainly true that John Stephenson had acquired names in native languages – “Chirupula” from his time as a Commissioner and Justice of the Peace, and “Luchere” from his initial encounters with one of the indigenous peoples he came across on his travels. It is also true that he had three native African wives, with whom he had a total of nine children : however, it appears that these were genuine partnerships with all the domestic rewards and tribulations which would be associated with conventional marriages back in England.

This was a fascinating story, told in a very entertaining way and backed up with a huge amount of research. There was also an unexpected, unlikely postscript to the tale which made this example of family history research even more rich and enjoyable

October 2024

Group meeting held at 2.30pm on Thursday 10 October 2024
Attended by : 10 Members + 2 guests

Elizabeth Finch – The Rise and Fall and Rise Again of Seaton Delaval Hall

Elizabeth Finch, a volunteer speaker from the National Trust, gave a thoroughly engaging and very interesting presentation covering the history of Seaton Delaval Hall and the families who had built it and lived there prior to the property coming in to National Trust ownership in 2009. She also described and illustrated some of the restoration work which has been undertaken to date and outlined future plans for further works.

The original Delaval family had been minor nobility who had arrived in England with William the Conqueror. Little is known of them until the 17th century, when salt and coal production provided their living. Sir Ralph Delaval’s invention of a sluice gate to facilitate the loading of commodities into ships created what we now know as Seaton Sluice, and the family’s fortunes grew. However, financial problems arose when Sir Ralph’s widow married a member of the Blackett family and he lost most of her money.

The estate was bought up buy a cousin, Admiral George Delaval, who engaged John Vanbrugh to demolish the existing Jacobean hall and replace it with the basis of what we see today. No expense was spared in the construction of the Hall between 1719 and 1721, but George Delaval’s death in a riding accident led to Francis Blake Delaval inheriting the property and subsequently adding extension wings. His family were the “Gay Delavals” of the Georgian era, and many examples were given of their frivolity and their lavish – if eccentric – entertainments at the Hall.

The last of the Delavals was John, who died of tuberculosis aged 19. On his death in 1821, the hall was inherited by the Ashley family from Norfolk, who were connected to the Delavals by marriage. In January 1822 the Hall was consumed by a fire which started in a chimney. In the 1860s, the Astley family appointed John Dobson to demolish the remains of the extension wings and to restore the main hall. The hall remained empty until the 1950s, when Edward Astley (later Lord Hastings) moved in and remained there until 2009, when he passed the property on to the National Trust.

September 2024

Group meeting held at 2.30pm on Thursday 12 September 2024
Attended by : 7 Members

Members’ Forum – What did your non military ancestor(s) – male or female – do for the war effort?

One member knew that her grandfather – who had been a salesman in Manchester in 1911 – had moved to Newcastle to work as a wharfman by 1914 and wondered if he had done so in order to move into a reserved occupation. Her uncle had joined the army in the 1930s and left the service by 1939.

Several examples were quoted of relations who were in reserved occupations (railwaymen, miners, nurses, printers, engineering workers at Vickers producing ammunition). Some of these people also did additional work such as driving electricity supply workers to carry out infrastructure repairs, acting as a cycle messenger for the ARP , working as a Land Army girl, or volunteering for the Auxiliary Fire Brigade.

One member’s mother had been “living in” in domestic service at the start of the war but was recruited to work in an armaments factory and was able to return to the family home and have a more enjoyable life as a result.

Another member recounted his mother’s experience of being a fire watcher on top of the tower of Durham Cathedral when it escaped enemy bombing as a result of the miraculous appearance of a mist which obscured the cathedral.

The Auxiliary Fire Service volunteer was almost court-martialled after the fire appliance he was driving on a training exercise crashed. His wife was nursing in a (pre-NHS) hospital in Leeds, where the staff were treated to the fish and game killed by the hospital owners, who were very active in the traditional pursuits of hunting, shooting and fishing – although the regularity of being fed salmon became too much after a while.

The grandmother of one member had been a teetotal non-smoker, but apparently always had a sideboard full of brandy, fruit, sweets and other hard-to-get rationed items. It is suspected that she might have been engaging in a little black market activity!

July 2024

Group meeting held at 2.30pm at the Black Bull Inn, Corbridge on Thursday 11 July 2024
Attended by : 9 Members

David Waugh – A walk around Corbridge through chronological time

The group met in the Black Bull, with the intention being to go on a guided walk round some of the historical sites of Corbridge. However, the combination of threatening weather conditions, concerns over members’ mobility and the occasion of a prayer meeting in the Parish Church resulted in a change of plan. David Waugh gave a fascinating talk in the comfort of the pub, with reference to an illustrated pamphlet, which gave a very good picture of Corbridge’s fluctuating fortunes over the centuries.

Originally established by the Romans as a military settlement around Corstopitum Fort, the town declined by about 400 AD along with the Roman Empire. A couple of hundred years later, the Saxons had built a new settlement in a better site, up the hill from the fort. A monastic church was founded and the town flourished until 1296 when it was sacked by the Scots under William Wallace. Further Scots incursions and the Black Death left Corbridge impoverished and de-populated, and it was the seventeenth century before the town’s fortunes revived. The village centre developed, but all the stages of its growth are still visible in the buildings, nearly all of which have been additions to the built environment rather than replacements for existing buildings. Although the mix of retail premises has changed dramatically in recent years, the major chain shops were always sited in nearby Hexham and so the village centre has an unspoilt quality.

When the talk had concluded, some members joined David Waugh on a walk to the Parish Church to see some of the points mentioned for themselves – particularly the various changes and additions to the original structure, which have taken place over several centuries.

June 2024

Group meeting held at 7pm on Thursday 13 June 2024
Attended by : 9 Members

Members’ Forum – Why did they leave and where did they go?

Not surprisingly, the majority of the histories and anecdotes related to economic migration. The need to find work, to survive economically, was the dominant theme of the discussions. Mechanisation of agriculture drove farm labourers into the newly-established industrial cities. As the demand for labour decreased in one industry or location, a new demand sprang up elsewhere. Our ancestors often lived a subsistence lifestyle and so they moved to wherever they could make a living, doing whatever was on offer the would keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.

One member cited the example of three brothers out of a 12-sibling family. Knowing that the family farm could not support them all, they had – at different times – emigrated to Australia and New Zealand, only for all three of them die in tragic and rather bizarre circumstances (although one of the three at least reached the age of 82 before drowning in a rainwater tank having fallen through the roof or lid while attempting to repair it).

Sometimes, skills were portable – a member whose family were overwhelmingly from the 4 Northern counties had one branch who had come to the lead mines of County Durham from the tin mines of Cornwall. The daughter of another member’s ancestor – who was a shipowner on the Tyne – had gone to Nova Scotia with her future husband (a mining engineer). She had later returned, having inherited a ship on her father’s death, with her daughter – but apparently without the husband.

From the other end of the economic migration story, one Tyneside-born member reflected that none of his grandparents originated in the North East – one was from Lincolnshire via Yorkshire (for work), another from Kent (a soldier stationed at Fenham Barracks, married a local girl and stayed), a third from France and the fourth from Germany (at the time, with the English royal family being the House of Hanover, some Germans were classified as British subjects).

Other reasons mentioned included religious beliefs (passengers on The Mayflower and, much later, Mormons making the epic journey from the UK to Utah) and members of the Armed Forces, whose offspring often made their own long-term lives in places where their fathers had been stationed.

May 2024

Group meeting held at 7pm on Thursday 09 May 2024
Attended by : 7 Members

Julian Harrop – A Treasure of Memories – A glimpse of images from the Durham Advertiser newspaper 1934-1961

Julian Harrop has worked at Beamish Museum for more than 30 years. His role includes responsibility for a photographic archive containing more than 2 million images as well as countless artefacts, many of which are the result of donations from organisations as well as the general public.

This evening’s talk concentrated on a specific donation. When the Northern Echo newspaper group were clearing the Durham Advertiser building they came across more than 35,000 photographic images held on the old glass plate photographic format. Over a period of more than two years, Julian and a group of volunteers have catalogued and scanned these images, which cover the period from 1934 to 1961.

The images displayed covered many aspects of public life during the mid 20th Century and encompassed subject matter from coal mining to coronation celebrations. Incidental to the actual subject matter illustrated, these images showed details of domestic and commercial life and changes in clothing styles, hairstyles, domestic decor and furniture at specific dates. As well of being of great interest from the social history point of view, this kind of visual record is invaluable in informing the work of Beamish Museum when they develop the site by re-creating homes and businesses from different time periods.

Because of the nature of the collection, the images are very particular to places in County Durham. However, this geographical specificity did not detract from the interest of seeing high quality images from an era within living memory. Julian mentioned that, when giving this talk in various places, several of the images had resulted in audience members knowing the names of people shown on the photographs – or even being present in the photos themselves, usually as schoolchildren in the 1950s or 1960s.

To round off a fascinating evening, the presentation concluded with some themed groups of images and some contemporary photographs of current developments at Beamish – including the cinema and the aged miners’ homes.

April 2024

Group meeting held at 7pm on Thursday 11 April 2024

Attended by : 10 Members + 2 Guests

Hilton Dawson – The Newbiggin by the Sea Genealogy Project

Hilton Dawson, Chair of the Newbiggin by the Sea Genealogy Project, gave a fascinating and entertaining presentation about the history of the project. The project started in 2012, with 65 people attending a public meeting.

Since 2019, the group have had shop premises at 82 Front Street, Newbiggin as a base for their activities. Monthly meetings of volunteers are held, which are shared globally via Zoom.

The aim of the project was to build a database of everyone who has ever lived in Newbiggin by the Sea using shared family histories. In just over ten years, the volunteers have constructed a complex structure of interlinked family trees which currently holds records for more than 39,000 people and includes more than 9,000 photographs. The group are supported in their work by MyHeritage, the company which hosts the database – which is thought to be the largest community family history record in the world.

The earliest recorded inhabitants of Newbiggin go back to 1200 A.D. The majority of the modern population of Newbiggin can trace their heritage back to the Robinson family in the 1620s – a 400 year anniversary celebration is planned for 2027. The population of Newbiggin in 2024 stands at about 6,500, but this figure has varied widely over the years – peaking when the village had a coal mine in the late 19th/early 20th century.

The project itself is centred on constructing a historical record, but the organisation and the process involved have contributed significantly to the local community. The volunteers – mostly local, but some far-flung – have been able to discover a great deal about their heritage, both individually and as a community

March 2024

The meeting on the 14 March 2024 was attended by 10 members. This was a Members Forum – ‘Memories of Schooldays’.

Not surprisingly, there was a very wide range of experiences recounted, covering the whole spectrum of loving schools to loathing them. A common theme was the segregation of girls and boys, which was normal for the times in the 1950s and 1960s- as was the expectation that the life choices for girls were to become a teacher or a nurse or just to get married and have a life as a housewife.

Several members remembered schools that no longer: one member had managed to acquire the attendance register for her class, which had been salvaged from a skip when the school was demolished years after she had left. More than one school attended by members had a playground on the roof of the building due to constraints on space in the urban setting. School dinners were, inevitably, a subject for discussion – from the delicious home-cooked meals in a village school to the “inedible”.

Unfortunately, the conversation was limited due to the time spent on the AGM and the other business dealt with in the ensuing meeting. Given more time, we would no doubt have had more time for more entertaining anecdotes and reminiscences. Generally, while some members had very much enjoyed their schooldays, it seems that they are not necessarily “the happiest days of your life”.

February 2024

The meeting held on Thursday 08 February 2024 was attended by 11 Members + 1 guests, the theme of which was an AncestryDNA Workshop.

Branch Member John Harrison gave a very interesting talk on DNA – what it is, how it is fundamental to genealogy and how – and why – anyone can take a DNA test. He gave an overview of the three main types of DNA and what their significance is, and identified several commercial companies which offer DNA testing. Once a test has been taken, the individual taking the test is provided with a list (often of thousands of people) who have also taken a DNA test with that company and who have varying amounts of DNA in common. The greater the quantity of shared DNA, the closer the familial relationship is with the person taking the test.

John then went on to outline the potential for using these results in building family trees, resolving difficult issues and breaking down “brick walls”, as well as establishing collaborative relationships with other, often distant and hitherto unknown, wider family members. He also identified the limitations of what DNA testing can offer, and re-iterated the well-known caution that you should never take the contents of other peoples’ family trees as being complete or accurate.

Another branch member illustrated some of the features of AncestryDNA results which John was describing with some “live” navigation of his own AncestryDNA results and gave examples of how mysterious strangers’ connection to your own DNA test can be resolved. In a year or so of exploring his AncestryDNA matches in depth, he had discovered at least three new and significant branches of his own family tree, including over 1,400 “new” relatives including 65 DNA matches. Given that this type of research involves hundreds of individuals, the member had developed a spreadsheet to manage the data, which had proved to be both useful in terms of resolving matches and more manageable than pencil and paper.

It is to be hoped that this meeting will encourage branch members to take a DNA test, or to feel more confident in dealing with the initially intimidating lists of total strangers which result from taking a test.

January 2024

Group meeting held at 7pm on 11 January 2024 attended by: 8 Members + 3 guests

Members’ Forum -Old Family Items I have kept

There was a wide variety of objects on show ranging from family photographs through a pottery dachshund, an American hand mirror, a regimental sporran memento from the Tyneside Scottish Regiment, a Mobil Oil company long service award and an embroidery sampler from 1856 to a Goliath watch in a silver mantlepiece stand. Other items described but not seen were a wooden football rattle and a Gold Cup awarded for a heifer which won Best in Show at Smithfield, together with photographs of that cup being presented to the member’s father by the King.

The common factor linking all this eclectic mixture of objects was the sentimental value – a reminder of an ancestor or even a close family friend and a sense of connection to people who had been important parts of members’ lives. Very few of the items had significant financial value, although the model dachshund from a grandfather’s china shop had been valued on Antiques Roadshow around £300.

One member had intended to bring her late father’s bowls bag containing his woods. When she retrieved it and investigated the contents in detail for the first time, she discovered in the bottom of the bag some letters, photographs and a photograph album documenting her father’s travels in the Merchant Navy – none of which she had ever seen before, so this particular meeting resulted in the discovery of some additional family history!


(Last updated 16th January 2025)