MEET THE CENTRE 

After almost 35 years ago based at what is now the Havant Academy, we moved to the under ground floor, the Undercroft, of St Francis church in Leigh Park. This gave us the chance to meet in the daytime as well as evenings as the need arose. So who and what are we? Well, during our life we have done our best to keep growing with technology and so have a very wide range of research material.

It is often thought by the description of the word 'Meeting' implies that we are the same as any other Family History Society, but that is a long way from the truth in many ways. We have strong records for the Havant and Portsmouth areas together with Hampshire and Sussex and the Isle of Wight,but we go wider afield than that and cover a lot of the United Kingdom and even the rest of the world.

We are, in fact, a Record Office with microfiche readers and online computers. We have an incredible number of microfiche and CDs including the IGI for the whole world. We welcome visitors at any stage of their researches and we can also give one-to-one instruction and help if needed. There is a lot more we could say, but why not pop in and see us and find out for yourself

The pandemic has been particularly hard on us and losing members of nine families and so we are changing our outlook a bit wth a wider coverage of subjects but still relating to family history. This has created a knock-on effect and for the immediate few months we will not hold fortnightly meetings but make arrangements with callers as to when we will be open. Not the best of arrangements but just one of the changes we have had to make until numbers improve..

                                Our Leader is still Phil Hammond

                                Treasurer is still Ernie Oliver with

                                Publicity Officer/Librarian covered by Sue Renault

At the moment both our Chairman and Treasurer have been, and one still is, hospitalised in Queen Alexandra and Southampton General Hospitals and we wish them both well for their recoveries.

The Ups and Downs of names in your researches

The Office for National Statistics has just published its annual figures of the most popular baby names in England and Wales and found that perviously popular names are at risk if becoming extinct. Birth registration data shows that the latest list for 2020  give fine names - Jane, Christine, Keith, Graham and Colin coming close to extinction.

In 2020 itself, just five babies were call Keith, the lowest ever figure for the name, despite all being in the top 50 between the 1930s and 1970s.

The top five boys names in the year 2020 were Oliver at 4,225, George at 4,100, Arthur close at 4,052, Noah at 4,042 and Mohammad at 3,710.

How did the girls fare?- well Olivia was top at 3,640 followed by Amelia at 3,139, Isla at 2,749, Ava at 2,679 and then Mia at 2,303.