Know Your Rural Roots

 

Beginnings

The ‘Rural Roots Project’ is an exciting new development that began life in January 2007 to help the people of the East Riding of Yorkshire find out more about the histories of their own communities. It is part of a £50,000 project that has been paid for by Heritage Lottery Funding and aims to open up opportunities in learning more about the past lives of people’s homes and villages. To this end it is making the archives collection of the Treasure House more open and accessible.

 

What do we mean by archives?

Archives are original materials that tell us about lives, events and places at any given time. They are the first hand documentation as opposed to second hand opinions, or the writings in history books that have based their information on such materials. Archives include: photographs, diaries, parish records of baptisms, marriages and burials, census records, deeds, wills, maps and numerous others. (We all have some archives of our own if we dig deep enough.) By using these archives you can get a true glimpse of what life was like in times gone by, rather than just taking the word of a published book. Rural Roots is also about achieving the satisfaction of finding out something for yourself.

 

Making archives available

The Project is about taking the archives and local history services of the TREASURE HOUSE out into the villages, as well as adding to it new information brought in by the Bolton group members themselves. These new archives provide an extremely valuable resource and so far have included:

 

  • Fangfoss School logs, photos and registers
  • Local wills and deeds
  • Sales and particulars of farms, houses and Full Sutton Airfield

 

A large part of the project has been to ‘digitise’ as much of this combined information as we can to make it readily available to anyone who wants to use it. Eventually, the actual documents – both from the Treasure House and the Bolton/Fangfoss community - will be able to be viewed on the archives pages of the East Riding of Yorkshire Council web site. There will be a direct link via this site, So, watch this space!

 

The story so far......

The outreach worker, Sue Fraser, based at the Treasure House in Beverley, meets with the group on a monthly basis to provide outside expertise in a variety of subjects, as well as bringing in archived information from the Treasure House. To date, the Bolton meetings have covered:

 

  • Researching family histories. A presentation given by Richard Walgate from the East Yorkshire Family History Society
  • How to locate and use archive materials from the Treasure House, followed by a visit in August

 

Still to come

  • Undertaking oral histories, capturing the voices of local residents talking first hand about their experiences in times gone by.
  • How to put on an exhibition that will give village residents a taste of the group’s findings.

 

The Rural Roots Project (but not the local history group itself) will last until March 2008, by which time the group will launch their exhibition to showcase what they have achieved so far. This will be held first in Bolton, and then at the Treasure House in Beverley some time after that. The treasures of the villages are for all to share and the exhibition will hopefully generate even more interest in the group – as well as produce more untapped resources!

 

If you want to start looking at what resources are available to you, there is a free booklet available from the Treasure House called ‘Getting Started’. To get a copy, or more information on the Treasure House, just call Sue Fraser on 01482 392788, or e-mail susan.fraser@eastriding.go.uk

Now, go dig out those old pics at the back of the drawer!

 

Sue Fraser

Rural Roots Project Outreach Worker

August 2007

 

   The group gets to grips with the archives at the Treasure House