Liverpool WW1 day

[alcavtay]

Is anyone on here interested in helping to organise a WW1 research/info day?

I am hoping to get some Heritage Lottery Fund money (then and now, WW1 fund) to put on an event at St James, linked with the St James Memorial Project.
The aims of the day would be
to share information about Liverpool's WW1 heritage,
show people how they can research their own families' WW1 heritage and
have some interesting displays/talks whatever we can put together.

The event would be next Summer (at the earliest) and depending on the funding could be an annual event throughout the 1914-1919 centenary but I need to put a plan together now to make the bid for the grant. Katie and I have been talking about the possibility of forming a WW1 committee for Liverpool researchers - this could be an ideal project to get something like that started.

The church has plenty of space inside and out, we can have a refreshments available as well, the only limitation of the building is it has no toilets but we can budget for some lovely portaloos!

Is anyone interested?

At the moment I'm looking for people to join me, suggestions as to who we could invite to take part in the event(I'm thinking groups who have replica uniforms, people and resources from the museum and archive as well as you people out there with personal collections or research that you would like to share etc) an idea of costs and any comments you have about the idea as a whole

Amanda

[MaryA]

I will put this forward at the next Liverpool Group meeting, it may be that we could have a Help Desk and/or sales table as we usually do at Genealogy Fairs. Just need a few volunteers from the Society to help with these, if you consider them suitable.

[Mark Abbott]

I would be happy to help.

Mark

[alcavtay]

I will put this forward at the next Liverpool Group meeting, it may be that we could have a Help Desk and/or sales table as we usually do at Genealogy Fairs. Just need a few volunteers from the Society to help with these, if you consider them suitable.

Absolutely, thank you very much.

Mark, thank you, I'll give this some more time to see who's interested and then we can get ourselves organised!

[Katie]

Count me in as a member of the Liverpool group. I have a talk "Letters home"

[alcavtay]

Count me in as a member of the Liverpool group. I have a talk "Letters home"

I was hoping you'd say that

[valbenson]

I'd be happy to help, not much good at organisation but I can give out leaflets or something.

Regards

Val Benson

[alcavtay]

I was wondering what people would think of the opportunity to bring along family WW1 items (medals, photos, papers, letters, anything really) to be photographed or scanned and held in a database so they are available to researchers without the families having to give them up.

[MaryA]

Wish I had some, my family is sadly lacking in WWI interests, must be their ages, one generation was too old, the next too young, I feel I'm missing a whole area of research in a way.

[dickiesam]

I ditto MaryA's comment, although I do have one ancestor who fought in and survived WW1, my maternal g.father. All I know of his service is that he was gassed and partially blinded in one eye. He was a Liverpool cabbie before and after the war despite the blindness. I believe his records were among those destroyed in the WW2 fire. He didn't die until 1960 but a family bust-up in 1943 meant he and my mother were seriously estranged and contact lost. No idea what happened to his medals.

[alcavtay]

Unfortunately for us researchers, the people who were caught up in the war never really wanted to talk about it and I so often hear people say that they have photographs of men in uniform and postcards etc but they aren't really sure who they belonged to.

My own great-grandfathers had very different wartime experiences. One was constantly on charges for insubordination and overstaying his leave, the other was awarded the Military Medal and survived being gassed. We've got a few photographs and papers but no medals. knowing my family history they were probably sold long ago to buy food, my grandma used to tell me that her father (M.M. recipient) used to pawn his shirt-collars on Monday and redeem them for church on Sunday!

I know that the few bits and pieces I have would be useful to anyone researching those men or battalions, but I wouldn't want them to leave the family so this seemed like a good solution if there are other people in the same position.

[alcavtay]

Sorry for the long time since an update but I now have funding for the First World War Family History Day, the date has been set for Sat 5th July 2014 and the venue will be St James Church, Toxteth.

If you want to help out in any way please pm me, I am currently lacking info about the Liverpool Home Front and Liverpool Women in the War and would also like to rope in some people who are knowledgeable about Liverpool in WW1 to be available to take questions and generally chat to visitors! Any items for display eg uniforms, medals would be welcome (anyone with period costume or uniform VERY welcome!) Any suggestions of what to include and who to invite also welcome!

This is not a centenary commemoration event and you don't have to be an 'expert' to help out (I'm certainly not!) The aims of the day are to provide info about WW1 and how it affected Liverpool, raise awareness of the various events planned in Liverpool for the centenary and show people how they can start researching their family WW1 history or even help them knock down some brick walls. It should be a fun day!

Amanda