Macclesfield Group

Unfortunately due to ill health  the advertised speaker has had to cancel his talk. The meeting of the Macclesfield group on Tuesday 25th April will now be a Virtual Tour of Macclesfield with Howard & Rosie Rowley.

The Macclesfield group of the Family History Society of Cheshire will be hosting

A demonstration of TWILE by Kelly Marsden one of its founders.

Twile is a timeline of everything that's ever happened in your family. It pulls together all of your family history, memories, photos and stories in the same place which all the family can explore and add to.

This will take place on 23rd May 2017 starting at 2.00pm at The Salvation Army Church, Roe Street, Macclesfield SK11 6XD (Entrance on Wellington Street, opposite the Churchill Way Car Park.)

All members of the society are welcome although booking is essential as places are limited – please email  to book a place.

To get the most out of the demonstration you need to bring a laptop, ipad or similar device.

The next and final meeting of the year will be on Tuesday 22nd November at 7.30pm at the Salvation Army Hall, Macclesfield. The subject will be Pinpointing the Origin of a Surname and how it may help locate the origins of your family.

Congregational Church, Wilmslow, early 1900s

This postcard was published by Jones Stationers of Wilmslow
and posted in Manchester in 1912 to Miss Dora Rogers, Wootton Villa, Eccleshall, Staffordshire.

The Congregational Church, now the United Reformed Church, stands on the corner of Alderley Road and Chapel Lane in Wilmslow.

Some of the resources held by the FHSC Research Centre at Mobberley for Wilmslow:

On microfiche or film: 

Wilmslow, Dean Row Chapel Baptisms 1864-1980, Burials 1893-1899
Wilmslow, Dean Row Unitarian Burials 1751-2000
Wilmslow, Dean Row MIs
Wilmslow, Lindow St.John the Evangelist MIs
Wilmslow Quaker Burial Ground, Water Lane, MIs
Wilmslow St.Bartholomew Bapt. 1558-1830, Marr. 1558-1887, Bur. 1558-1902
Wilmslow St.Bartholomew Bapt. 1877-1910, Marr. 1863-1919
Wilmslow St.Bartholomew MIs + Grave Plan & Index

Printed:

Wilmslow United Reform Church 1844-1982, Pleasant Pastures - W. Lazenby & F. Morgan
Wilmslow Methodist Baptisms 1811-1962
Wilmslow Hawthorn St. Methodist Marriages 1937-1949
Wilmslow Morley Green School-Chapel Baptisms 1882-2005 + List of Members 1881
Wilmslow St. Bartholomew Parish Register 1558-1652 transcript vol.1
Wilmslow St. Bartholomew Parish Register 1558-1652 transcript vol.2
Wilmslow - Pownall Hall
Wilmslow & Alderley Edge Official Guide
Wilmslow area, Buildings of Architectural & Historic Interest  - Wilmslow Trust 1970
Wilmslow at War
Wilmslow Past and Present
Wilmslow, A Portrait of  (Hodson 1974)
Wilmslow, Bollin Fee Settlement Examination - Thomas & Sarah Shirt 1704
Wilmslow, Handforth & Alderley, Portrait of  (Lee 1996)
Wilmslow, Handforth, Styal & Alderley, Looking Back at  (Garratt 1983)
Wilmslow, The Story of - Howard Hodson 1971
Wilmslow, Three Sundays in 1851, 1861 & 1871
Wilmslow, Water Lane Chapel & Methodists of
Wilmslow Methodist Church the First 200 Years

Myko Clelland from FindMyPast will be coming along to two of our groups to tel us more about this major release.  Tameside on the 11th November and Macclesfield on the 24th visist our EVENTS page for more details

Astbury, c. 1907

This postcard was sent on September 18th, 1907 to Miss H. Brugess (sic), The Lowe farm, Buglawton, Congleton and bears an intriguing message:

"Dear Harriett, will you ask your mother if she will let you meet me at the Town Hall at quarter to seven on Thursday night. I sent to J.R.(?) and he will tell T. with fond love from a Friend N. I."

So - who is the mysterious N.I.? Did he meet Harriett at the town hall?

Alderley Park, c. 1905

This postcard was sent at 7:15pm on Christmas Eve 1905 to Master R Haigh, Post Office, Chelford. It reads: "With best wishes for Xmas from Bainy (?) Alderley Dec 1905".

The postal service must have been a lot better in 1905 than now, if a postcard franked at 7:15pm on Christmas Eve reached its destination in time for Christmas Day!

Alderley Park was the home of the Stanleys, but the house was damaged in a fire in 1931 and later demolished. The park and remaining buildings were purchased by ICI in 1950 for its fledgling pharmaceutical business which eventually became AstraZeneca.
More information can be found on the Nether Alderley Parish Council website.

‘Lord of all he Surveys’ by Gwyneth Mitchell

For our first meeting of 2015, we welcomed back Gwyneth Mitchell to talk about estate owners and their families.
Unfortunately Gwyneth was feeling rather ‘under the weather’ but still managed to give us an interesting insight into the lives of the landed gentry in the 1700s-1800s.

We learned that the country house was the powerbase of the nation’s ruling class until about the 1880s. The family who owned the estate had an effect on the local people even if they didn’t live or work on the estate, as these were usually the men who became the local MP, the judiciary, the clergy, set up the local militia or became officers in the forces.

The first son of the family was usually the heir to the country estate by a process known as entailment: his life was mapped out for him from birth and his education was completely geared towards the day when he would become the estate owner. The whole estate, including all the employees and villagers, would often participate in a huge celebration when the heir came of age, as that meant the estate would pass on to the next generation as a whole and their future lives were secure.

Gwyneth explained how the young men in the family were educated: first at home, then at a boarding school, where they were often treated harshly, with cold baths, cross-country running in the rain, one meal per day with remaining meals to be obtained out of their own allowance. This was intended to give the boys self-sufficiency and strength of character. She went on to tell us about the ‘grand tour’ which many young men, and later young women, undertook in order to further their education. These tours through France, Italy and other European countries often lasted for a number of years and cost several thousand pounds.

The papers of many local families, such as the Stanleys of Alderley, include many diaries and letters which give us a good picture of life in the 1800s – 1900s, with eyewitness accounts of events including the workers riots of August 1842, military exercises, elections and society weddings. Letters written by the Stanleys in the 1800s were published in the 1930s, edited by Nancy Mitford, and can be found on the Ancestry website.

The Annual General Meeting of the Macclesfield Group was held on Wednesday 24 September 2014, at St John's Church Macclesfield.
Click here to download the Minutes of the Meeting.

AGM in a Nutshell:

Committee
The Committee Members were re-elected:
Group Leader - Rosie Rowley
Secretary - Howard Rowley
Treasurer - Babs Johnson

Meetings - change of day, venue, and admission charge
From January 2015, meetings will be held on the 4th Tuesday of the month at the Salvation Army Hall, Roe Street, Macclesfield, SK11 6XD - park in Churchill Way car park (free in the evening) and enter the building through the new main door on Wellington Street.
Meeting admission charge will be £2 per person including refreshments.
Computer Group meetings will no longer be held, but computer-related topics will be incorporated into main group meetings.

A selection of Our Macclesfield Group newsletters from 2013:

June          July         August          September          October

Christmas Social Evening and Quiz

At this year's Christmas Social the 4 Teams had their memories challenged by a round of Talk Bingo, a Video Round, an Audio Round and two rounds of questions covering Occupations and Places.

Whilst our quizzers tucked into the refreshments during the breaks, our Group Leader Rosie put her organisational skills to the test and provided the tea and coffee refreshments.