May 28, 2013
“Your English Ancestors: Upstairs or Downstairs?”
Ed Dorroh
6:30 pm – Refreshments and Get Acquainted
7:00 pm – Program
This meeting will provide an introduction to finding your English ancestors. Since the most important rule of genealogy is to start with the present and work backwards, Ed will first talk about Census records and the mandatory Civil Registration records of births, marriages, and deaths beginning in 1837. One of the best sources of BMD and other information are the Parish Registers of the Church of England and other churches. Ed will discuss the registers as well as the wealth of information available in the County Record Offices, most of which, unfortunately, is not available online. But, as Ed said, this will give you all a good excuse to visit England!
Ed Dorroh began his family history research in 1997 when he retired from Lockheed Martin, where he had worked for over 25 years, designing and building spacecraft for NASA’s planetary missions.
He is presently researching four family trees: his own, that of his first wife Zelma, now deceased, who was from South Africa, that of his present wife Jean who is from England, and that of Jean’s first husband John Barford, also deceased, who was from England.
Ed has traced most of his own family tree back six or seven generations in this country, the earlier generations emigrating primarily from the British Isles. Zelma’s family has been difficult to trace since South Africa does not allow public access to census records, but fortunately her parents were only second generation South Africans who emigrated from England. For the last five years, he has been tracing the trees of Jean and John. Several of those lines now go back to the late 1600s.
For his children, Ed has scanned his ancestors’ photographs onto CDs, written brief histories and interesting stories about them, and written his own “childhood memoir” in hopes of someday interesting them in their roots.
Ed is a past president of the Ocean Springs (Mississippi) Genealogical Society and is presently a member of both the Austin Genealogical Society and the Williamson County Genealogical Society. He has taught classes for beginners and has given land records talks on several occasions.
He and his wife Jean presently share their time between Round Rock and Bury St. Edmunds, England as they each have children and grandchildren in their respective countries.
All monthly meetings are held at the Highland Park Baptist Church, 5206 Balcones Drive, in Austin.
For more information, please contact the Programs Chair.