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Oxfordshire Family History Society (OFHS) has started a new Oxfordshire surnames research project, examining surnames recorded in Oxfordshire parish registers from 1538 onwards, currently estimated at up to 20,000 key variants. The team is also using many other early recorded sources to build a comprehensive database of Oxfordshire surnames. The aim is to trace their whereabouts in different parishes over time, their origins, hotspots, DNA connections and many other facets of Oxfordshire surnames. The project will take about 2 years to complete.

The project team is appealing for help from those who have a good recorded family history in Oxfordshire or who manage a one-name study. They are welcome to contact the team with a brief description and their contact details, so that when their surname is analysed they may be able to participate in submitting content for that name. All significant contributors will be acknowledged.

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# At this stage the team want just a interest in being involved - so please send your contact details, name of interest, and place(s) in Oxfordshire where you have records of the name's occurrence, to the team leader Sue Honore via surname-project[-- at --]ofhs.org.uk

# Later, you will be asked for more detail, tied to place - so wills, and newspaper records, for instance - or, for instance, gamekeeper licences - would all be of interest.

# It is anticipated that the analysis will be published as a book, with a page or so on the occurrence and detail of each name, and lots of maps, and with some information also made available on the OFHS website, in the members' section.

Do join the project!

Wendy
OFHS publicity coordinator

Moderator Comment: e-mail edited, to avoid spamming and other abuses.
Please replace [-- at --] with @

The August Oxfordshire FHS journal is now with members, and a taster
version is linked from our home page at www.ofhs.org.uk . If you're not
already a member of Oxfordshire FHS, and you like the taster journal,
you might like to join the Society - you'll be sent the full journal,
plus a book detailing the parish registers of Oxfordshire.

The full contents of the journal are:
 From the Editor
OFHS News
Scene Around
Beckinsales of Brize Norton — a Dilemma
Barking up the Wrong Tree
Bleay and Goodgame: Two Oxfordshire Family Names
The Oxfordshire DNA Project
Thomas Twycross: Head Cook of Jesus College, Oxford
Finding the Right Smith
A Puzzling Headstone
Two Old Ramsden Photographs
Undervalued Women: An Interview with Mavis Curtis
Profile: Pat Ford, Family History Advisor
Emma Blake from Eynsham (1836–1919)
Meeting Reports
Book Reviews
Members’ Interests
Useful Addresses
Who’s Who
Diary Dates
Meetings at Exeter Hall.

Appreciative thanks to Sue Honore, OFHS's editor, for another excellent
issue!

Wendy

Sue Honore, the OFHS Editor, did indeed speak on Radio Oxford this afternoon, and her interview is now available on Listen Again.

Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01vf48j , and set the timer for 1hr 30mins into the programme.

I hope her enthusiasm for family history and OFHS might encourage anyone not currently a member of the Society to consider joining - you get three journals a year, and would be supporting genealogy in Oxfordshire.  Visit us at www.ofhs.org.uk

All set up and ready - nay raring - to go ! Our Oxfordshire FHS stall is ready for tomorrow at the Who Do You Think You Are? Live show at Olympia.

We'll have a team of experts, who'll be delighted to welcome visitors to browse - maybe buy - our Oxfordshire books and CDs. We have several copies of the Historical Atlas of Oxfordshire, a rackful of the Changing Faces books of old photos of different towns of Oxfordshire, the full range of the
Oxford Gaol Prisoner Portraits and other Black Sheep books, and parish register transcripts from Banbury to Henley, and from Bicester to Wantage.

By tomorrow there will be pink - very pink - carpet throughout the hall - I preferred the turquoise years!

If you're not going - you're welcome to browse our books and CDs in our virtual stand on the left at www.ofhs.org.uk . 
Wendy