Unusual Forenames

This is a Zoom meeting.  The Zoom meeting will open at 7:15pm (UK time) and the talk will start at 8pm.

Note: Between 7:15pm and 7:55pm we will have breakout rooms where members can talk about various topics, determined nearer the date of the meeting.

Speaker:  Denise Bates

Talk Summary: Denise says: Alongside traditional forenames that have been used across many generations, birth, marriage and death records reveal that there have always been some parents who have selected non-standard names. I became interested in the use of such names after discovering several examples whilst researching my family tree.
This inspired me to conduct my own extensive research into the topic, and enabled me to which identify particular naming patterns. I linked this into wider social history, considering what the use of certain names might reveal about individual parents, the times or the community where they lived.

Speaker Background: Debbie was born in Sheffield and studied Modern History at St Anne’s College, Oxford, where she specialised in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A few years as a Chartered Accountant followed, until she swapped paid employment for bringing up a family, and a range of community roles. During this time she wrote features on subjects including child welfare, school governance and IT for children and reviewed books and software. When she returned to work it was to the charitable sector.
Discovering her family tree rekindled her passion for history. When an opportunity arose to research and write about the hidden world of the women who used to work underground in coal mines she decided to take it. Her bookPit Lasses challenged a century of misconceptions about these hardy women and their lives.

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