The Shepway u3a Family History Group is open to all individuals, irrespective of their depth of knowledge on the subject. It welcomes equally those new to the subject, as much as those who have been researching their "tree" for decades, since the idea of the u3a movement is that we can all learn from each other. The Group is now run by Wendy Williams and Richard Andrews, who share an enthusiasm for spreading knowledge of the subject with anyone who cares to listen.

The only requirement for membership of the Group is a desire to research your family history. But it very much helps these days if you have a laptop, tablet or other device to get online and view the wealth of information available on the World Wide Web. The Group Leaders subscribe to the Ancestry and Find My Past websites, which may be used during the meeting to illustrate techniques for researching our ancestors. Demonstrations will also be given on the huge range of free online resources that every member can access outside the meeting to help with their research, as well as tools for recording both ancestors and the all important source records.

New subjects are introduced at each meeting by means of online videos and presentations or talks on the topic from the leaders, as well as from any member of the Group who wishes to contribute. Wherever possible, each session will include an opportunity for individual member’s research problems to be discussed and hopefully resolved, either within small groups or by the group as a whole.

Those who wish to access paid for resources on websites, such as Ancestry and Find My Past, without paying for an individual subscription may be interested to read the page describing how to access these websites at their local library - see the link in the right-hand margin.

Where the meeting includes a formal presentation with slides, these may be made available afterwards for viewing by those who could not attend that particular session. You will find these linked in the right-hand margin of this page, and they will be in PDF format, which should enable them to be viewed within your web browser on any device.

Copies of Presentations

• Researching at Local Libraries
• Family Historian & Ancestral Sources
• FamilySearch Wiki
• Free Resources for Family History
• LDS FamilySearch presentation
• Recording Family History Research
• Recording Your Sources
• Starting Family History Research
• Understanding Old Family Photos
• Workhouses - Part I
• Workhouses - Part II
• Memorial Inscriptions
• Basic Research Strategy
• Emigration from the British Isles