Our Salem Base is open as usual  every Tuesday from 10am – 3pm for all researches and enquiries.  Everyone welcome.
With increasing interest for Family Tree researches we have invested in more websites to accommodate these enquiries.  Now we have all the censuses throughout all of the country including Scotland and Ireland at our fingertips.  Plus WWI Military Records, local Church, Parish and Burial Records, and also School Log Books and Records as well as Newspaper Reports now going back over 180 years.
Sue is researching her Bullock family tree from Great Wyrley and she believes they were caretakers at the local school and lived in the schoolhouse for a time.  She emails ‘My great aunt Florrie did ‘emigrate’ to Cheslyn Hay when she married my uncle Owen Whitehouse but the others stayed close to home.  Some lived in the old cottages on the Walsall Road and the other girls married names were Hartwell, Knowles and Pritchard.  I have a couple of second cousins from the Hartwell side – Aunt Nancy (baptised Ann Marie Bullock) had two daughters, Doreen (who I don’t think had any children) and Joyce (had two sons Malcolm and Terry Brown).  I have no idea what happened to them but they would be in their early sixties.  My gran’s married name was Standley and I seem to remember second cousins called Robert and Brian Bullock – one of them had a newsagents in Great Wyrley. Hope someone will help me to track them down but my main interest is in finding out who my great grandfather was as I only found out in later life that my grandmother was illegitimate.  And the lady I’d always thought fondly of as a lovely auntie was actually my great grandmother.  I think this often happened in families !
And John appeals for help in finding where his g-grandmother Eliza Buckley (née Walker) is buried.  She was returned from Bedworth to Cheslyn Hay in December 1935 but the records show that there are no Buckleys buried at all in the Cheslyn Hay cemetery.  And a desperate plea from Margaret who has spent some years trying to trace the Bate and the Whitehouse families back to the late 1600s to either Cheslyn Hay or Great Wyrley and has continually drawn a blank.  Can anyone help Margaret please?
Also re the Beardsmores, Sheila emails saying that ‘Aunty Ivy Beardsmore  was  my dads sister and last year I came across John Beardsmore, my long lost cousin, on Friends Reunited but he went off  the site before I could contact him.  So I would love to find him as he was my dad’s favourite nephew.  I am also looking for Susan Robinson  whose dad was Les and they moved into the cottage we lived in at  101 Littlewood, next to the Woodman.
Correction from the last Newsletter’s ‘Responses’ re Benny Thompson the bookie.  Alf reminds me that he was referring to Tommy Beardsmore driving the three tonners with his mate Jim Bates. My fault and my apologies!
And we have now been able to trace the Bridgtown addresses of the Startin family, and also details of the widow who remarried in 1915.  And Elaine responds to the Newspaper Report of 100 years ago on the death of Josiah Dawkins due to a pit accident with sad details of his orphaned children.
Peter Cadman has drawn up a family tree for the Hortons back to 1790′s and is also forwarding copies of BMD certificates of this family for our records.  Peter also now confirms that he and David from Canada are 5th cousins and that their g-g-g-g-grandparents are George Whitehouse (b1758) m Lucy Brindley (b1772) on the 10th May 1790.

In Mike Belcher’s column of what happened 50 and 100 years ago this week, he covers the funeral of Mrs Mary Ann Perrins of 1 Chapel Square , Cheslyn Hay with full details of the mourners and of Mrs Perrins life.

But 100 years ago Haydn Whitehouse was sentenced to hard labour in prison.  Whilst on a lighter note the Cheslyn Hay Social Class convened their annual re-union with a full programme of entertainment with George Evans, Arnold S Hawkins, Laurence Hawkins, Joe Baker, George Wooton, T Garrett, S Altree, Miss E Horton,  Miss Nellie Carter, Raymond Hawkins, Laurence Hawkins, Mr Altree, Miss Horton, Kelly Carter, R Brough, H Perks, F Goodman, Sam Wheat,  Ed Brough, Mr Johnson  and J Warburton.

The Cannock Chronicle are starting a new weekly ‘Memory Lane’ series and we were asked to provide them with the opening column.  We were happy to oblige and chose ‘The Bleak Midwinter of 1947′ including five of our photographs and it was printed last week – December 22nd.   Also, thanks to the Great Wyrley LHS, Carl Chinn published a two page spread in Thursday night’s Express & Star on Harrison’s pit and local coal mining.

trevor.cheslynhayhistory@talktalk.net

Memories this week comes from Peter Cadman’s ‘Things Ain’t What They Used To Be’ covering life in the fifties with local characters Percy and Emma Poole, Jean Hemmingsley and Mr Eggerton.

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