📅 All Events & Talks

Date: Monday, 7 September 2026

Speaker: Sue Steel

Location: Zoom

Electoral Registers can be fascinating and not just to find out where your ancestors lived.
This talk looks at the What, Why, When, Where and How we can use electoral registers as Family Historians.

Date: Thursday, 17 September 2026

Speaker: Helen Baggott

Location: Zoom

Messages written before WW1 reveal stories from both sides of the Atlantic. And finally, a sobering story of how quickly disasters become old news.

Date: Monday, 5 October 2026

Speaker: Nick Barratt

Location: Zoom

Exploring the impact of WDYTYA on how we research our family stories with an explanation on how the show was conceived and produced.

Date: Thursday, 15 October 2026

Speaker: Debbie Bradley

Location: Zoom

Following on from the Beginning your Family History this talk concentrates what records are available to view beyond Civil Registration and Census. Where do you go from here? Where can you find these records? The talk looks at these records and wh…

Date: Monday, 2 November 2026

Speaker: Brian Joyce

Location: Zoom

The talk on the history and role of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) will illustrate how the CWGC ensures that the 1.7 million men and women of the Commonwealth that died in the world wars are commemorated across 23,000 sites in over 150…

Date: Thursday, 26 November 2026

Speaker: Stephen Miller

Location: Zoom

A mysterious letter arrives from someone claiming to be a relative. Scam or genuine family connection? What followed was an extraordinary investigation combining traditional family history research with modern-day sleuthing, uncovering unexpected dis…

Date: Thursday, 23 July 2026

Speaker: Stephen Miller

Location: Zoom

A Special Interactive Zoom Playground

Curious about Artificial Intelligence but not sure where to start?

Join us for a relaxed and informal Zoom session where we'll explore what happens when AI meets genealogy. This isn't a lecture or a PowerPo…

Date: Thursday, 18 June 2026

Speaker: Stephen Miller

Location: Zoom

Meeting is on Thursday 18th (not Tuesday 16th as listed in the Journal)
Speaker Steve Miller: It always begins innocently enough — a quiet wander through a cemetery, a quick look at a headstone, maybe a photograph or two. Before you know it, you ar…

Date: Monday, 1 June 2026

Speaker: Steve Manning

Location: Zoom

Family stories can be great fun but they may not be universally welcomed. Particularly when they have been slightly embellished over time - or by the telling!

Date: Thursday, 21 May 2026

Speaker: Andrea Hetherington

Location: Zoom

Although Lawnswood is a cemetery in Leeds, an examination of a cemetery's gravestones can tell the whole story of the First World War beyond soldiers' names on a war memorial.

Date: Monday, 11 May 2026

Speaker: Janet Few

Location: Zoom

Helping family historians with British ancestors to research those whose conditions or behaviours may have led them to become marginalised or discriminated against.

Date: Thursday, 16 April 2026

Speaker: Penny Walters

Location: Zoom

Led by a person who was adopted this session will stimulate a deeper understanding of the nature odadoption and impact on all parties concerned.

Date: Monday, 13 April 2026

Speaker: Anne Mealia

Location: Zoom

Looks at the customs and process of making and proving a will and explores how people ensured their loved ones received their inheritance.

Date: Thursday, 26 March 2026

Speaker: Stephen Miller

Location: Zoom

Several members have requested a demonstration on using Excel spreadsheets to help with transcribing and organising family history records. This beginner-friendly session will cover the basics, along with a selection of useful tips to help you get st…

Date: Thursday, 19 March 2026

Speaker: Linda Hammond

Location: Zoom

How many of the “facts” in your family tree are truly proven - and how many are just educated guesses? In genealogy, it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of assumptions: a family story that must be true, an “obvious” connection that fits neatly, o…

Date: Monday, 2 March 2026

Speaker: Karen DeBruyne

Location: Zoom

Where to find the stories behind the facts in birth, marriage, death and census records

Date: Thursday, 19 February 2026

Speaker: Dai Davies

Location: Zoom

Looking beyond your direct ancestors is the key to many brick walls and this talk answers the question of how our ancestors’ spouses can help us do that!

Date: Monday, 2 February 2026

Speaker: Christine Woodcock

Location: Zoom

Learn the basics to start finding your Scottish ancestors. We will learn about using the ScotlandsPeople website, gleaning information from the documents, the importance of understanding the Scottish Naming Pattern, Irregular Marriages and so much mo…

Date: Thursday, 15 January 2026

Speaker: Gillian Waters

Location: Zoom

Heraldry can provide useful clues to genealogists to help push a line further back into the medieval period.

Discover the story of medieval Heraldry, including a famous feud in the Court of Chivalry in the 1300s over the right to bear a particular…

Date: Monday, 5 January 2026

Speaker: Stephen Miller

Location: Zoom

Presented by Stephen Miller, Webmaster

Join Stephen for an informal and informative tour of the new Airedale & Wharfedale Family History Society website. He’ll uncover some of its hidden gems, demonstrate features designed to make your research ea…

Date: Thursday, 20 November 2025

Speaker: Paul Jennings

Location: Zoom

We’re delighted to welcome Dr Paul Jennings, a leading social historian of 18th and 19th century England, to give a fascinating talk on the history of the census. From its beginnings in 1801 through to the detailed household records we know today, Pa…

Date: Monday, 3 November 2025

Speaker: Gill Blanchard

Location: Zoom

Learn how to bring the story of your ancestors to life. How to stop researching and start writing, choose a format and what to include.

Date: Thursday, 16 October 2025

Speaker: Richard Holt

Location: Zoom

The 1939 Register is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to available records, but knowing what exists and how to access information is an entirely different matter. Discover how the registers were used from 1939 until 1991. Also, what informat…

Date: Monday, 6 October 2025

Speaker: Ian Waller

Location: Zoom

A large proportion of the population did not follow the established religions. At its height nonconformist religions had more members than the established church. This talk looks at the various denomination which evolved, how they functioned, what re…

Date: Thursday, 18 September 2025

Speaker: Mark Bayley

Location: Zoom

Join us for an inspiring evening with Mark Bayley, the expert behind TheGenealogist website. In his talk, “Pinning Down Your Ancestors,” Mark will show how the latest online tools and smart search techniques can help you track down elusive relatives,…

Date: Monday, 1 September 2025

Speaker: Nick Barratt

Location: Zoom

A review of the ways family history research is changing as a result of technology and the media, with some opportunities that this may present for future activity.

Date: Thursday, 19 June 2025

Speaker: Alison Spring

Location: Zoom

A tour around some of the tools, resources, and records on FamilySearch.org that you may not have heard of. All free, too!

Date: Monday, 2 June 2025

Speaker: Tim Neal

Location: Zoom

Talk on the artwork and life of Keighley artist Stanley R. Boardman who created a series of paintings known collectively as 1920's Boy

Date: Thursday, 15 May 2025

Speaker: Sheila Harris

Location: Zoom

Were they father and son or not?

Date: Monday, 12 May 2025

Speaker: Jude Rhodes

Location: Zoom

Following the story of a deaf girl who came to Steeton to work in the mill.

Date: Thursday, 17 April 2025

Speaker: Kelly Cornwell

Location: Zoom

Exploring English and Australian records to help you discover more about your female convict ancestors;  demonstrated via the case study of a young girl from Shoreditch, her conviction, transportation and ensuing escapades in Tasmania.

Date: Monday, 7 April 2025

Speaker: Jenny Hill

Location: Zoom

A history of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Airedale and Craven.

Date: Thursday, 20 March 2025

Speaker: Jude Rhodes

Location: Zoom

Looking at research methods to help to grow your family tree; looking at Timelines, Gaps and the FAN methods.

Date: Monday, 3 March 2025

Speaker: Claire O'Grady

Location: Zoom

A talk looking at the different types of sources you can use to research those ancestors who found themselves in poverty, including:

Settlement Examinations
Parish Apprenticeships
Accounts of Parish Overseers
Parish Charities
Vagrancy Records
…

Date: Thursday, 20 February 2025

Speaker: Stephen Gill

Location: Zoom

Photography from 1840 to today, the people, the processed and how it affected our lives. A brief and entertaining look at the history of photography

Date: Monday, 3 February 2025

Speaker: Debbie Bradley

Location: Zoom

Our ancestors moved and sometimes great distances. A practical talk about things you need to think about to find your ancestors if they moved around the country.

Date: Thursday, 16 January 2025

Speaker: Frances Hurd

Location: Zoom

The life stories of three men who made fortunes in mills and mines are contrasted with those of their workers.

Date: Monday, 6 January 2025

Speaker: Gillian Waters

Location: Zoom

Were we invaded by thousands of Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans – or does the place name evidence in the ancient kingdom of Craven tell a different story? Gillian Waters gives an overview of the changing nature of place names and wha…

Date: Thursday, 21 November 2024

Speaker: Janet Few

Location: Zoom

Delivered in period costume describing cooking, cleaning, the making and laundering of clothes, maintaining the garden and the many other tasks of the Stuart housewife.

Our Stuart female ancestors may be people we can identify, or they may be lurk…

Date: Monday, 4 November 2024

Speaker: Jean Renwick

Location: Zoom

When Elizabeth Addy died in 1849, her grieving husband commemorated her life with a mourning brooch. In The Mourning Brooch Book One An ending. A beginning we learnt how her two young daughters grew up in Yorkshire and married. In The Mourning Brooch…

Date: Thursday, 17 October 2024

Speaker: Julie Goucher

Location: Zoom

Exploring the fascinating subject of surnames – types, geographical spread, why genealogists begin surname research & how to and why build a surname project.

Date: Thursday, 19 September 2024

Speaker: Linda Hammond

Location: Zoom

Uncover the hidden depths of the 1939 National Register, often likened to an additional census for England and Wales. Decode annotations, revealing family history insights, and master the art of discovering hidden secrets within the register.

Date: Thursday, 20 June 2024

Speaker: Celia Heritage

Location: Zoom

What to look out for and how it would have been when your ancestors were there. Covers church interior, gravestones, styles, symbolism, Reformation and burial.

Date: Thursday, 16 May 2024

Speaker: Frank Shiers

Location: Zoom

Researching Across the Border

Date: Thursday, 18 April 2024

Speaker: Gill Blanchard

Location: Zoom

Where to find records, locate monumental inscriptions and graves and how to use them in research.

Date: Thursday, 15 February 2024

Speaker: Dense Bates

Location: Zoom

Investigates the social and cultural history of broken engagements between 1780 -1970 and why the law allowed the person who had been jilted to claim damages from the person who had broken the engagement.
Meet the law that gave nineteenth century wo…

Date: Thursday, 21 September 2023

Speaker: Natalie Bodle

Location: Zoom

Irish ancestry research can be tricky, but this talk will cover how you can get started, which records are available and best of all which are free. This will give you a good grounding to making a start on finding your Irish ancestors.