We don't sit back and wait for somebody else to provide information, we go out and actively seek it both in record offices and from private institutions. We try to involve as many of our members as possible in adding to our impressive collection of locally relevant research material.
Projects are increasingly organised so that members can work from home, transcribing and/or indexing from scanned copies of original archive material. In this way, every member has the opportunity to get involved.
We always have several projects on the go. Some recently completed projects and projects in which the society is currently involved include:
Bolton Workhouse Creed Registers
The admission registers for the Bolton Workhouse have, as is not unusual, been lost. However, the creed registers, which recorded the religion of those admitted have survived from 1867 onward and as well as names they record details of former residence, date of admission and (often) of discharge. Deaths are also recorded. Our Bolton Branch is currently transcribing these valuable records.
Graham Holt
John Gartside,Sue Harding, Vanita Hulme, Frank Jones, Bob Winder
The Alan Godfrey series of reproduction Ordnance Survey maps are invaluable for locating streets and named establshments between the mid19th and early 20th century. However, there is no index to identify which map is required or where on the map a particular street may be located. Work is in progress to create indexes to all of the maps which cover the Greater Manchester area.
John Marsden
Harry Bebbington, John Gartside, Sheila Goodyear, Hilary Hartigan, Graham Holt, Martin Sullivan, Paul Thomas, Rita Whitefield, Chris Willis
This recent project, in association with Manchester Jewish Museum, will create an index to a number of births and marriages at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in Cheetham - now familiar to Mancunians as the Manchester Jewish Museum.
LancashireBMD
LancashireBMD is a free public index of births, marriages and deaths registered at Register offices within the pre-1974 county of Lancashire. Our members have been involved in this invaluable project since it started in 2002 and have indexed the substantial majority of events registered in Manchester, Bolton and Oldham as well as substantial numbers in Salford.
This ongoing project has so far produced a list of over half a million burials in and around Manchester and Oldham. Most of the central Manchester graveyards have been covered and current work is expanding to cover the graveyards in the surrounding townships, including Cheetham and Chorlton-on-Medlock.
John Marsden
Geoff Edge, John Gartside, Mark Harrey, John Lippiatt, Susan Mayall, Sylvia Massey
The Irish Branch of MLFHS, working with the Salford Diocesan Archive and the Catholic Family History Society, has created one of the most comprehensive indexes to names appearing in Roman Catholic baptism, marriage and burial registers. The index contains the names of over 800,000 persons named in the registers. The indexes have been published on CDROM and can be purchased from the MLFHS Online Shop
Madeline Best
Beatrice Bentham, Rita Boulton, Audrey Bramwell, Mark Campbell, Celia Carey, Julia Casciani, Dorothy Clegg, Madeline Fogg, John Glennon, Allan Kirk, Carole Litster, Madeleine Fogg, Lawrence Gregory, Beryl Jones (R.I.P.), Marie Leonard, Elsie Lowe, Maureen Marshall, Nora McDonals, Peter MacDonald, Chris Norcross, Thelma Palmer Janet Parkes, Pat Redfern Pauline Riley, Elaine Watkins and Chris Walsh.
The records of Manchester Crematorium were lost in the 1940 Blitz. By using the memorial plaques at the Crematorium, death notices in local newspapers and a variety of other sources, information has been recovered relating to about two-thirds of those cremated from the opening of the crematorium in 1893 up to the end of 1940. The project is ongoing as British Newspaper Archive publish further newspapers for the relevant period.
John Marsden
Mike Berrell (R.I.P.)
While most of Manchester's memorials are now long since removed, many transcripts were made before their removal. We have collected these into an unparalleled database of over 600,000 persons named on over 185,000 memorials in Manchester and the surrounding area.
Barry Henshall
John Evans, John Marsden
There are plenty of indexes to those who left wills but few which name the executors, witnesses and beneficiaries, so much vital information goes unseen. This project created an index to the names appearing in the wills of Manchester residents between (initially) 1812 and 1837.
Geoff Edge
In a project supported by The Seashell Trust, the modern incarnation of the former Royal Manchester School for the Deaf, we are indexing the surviving admission registers to the school. This will be of value both to family historians and to those investigating the history and genetic aspects of deafness
Jim Chadwick
Marie Collier, Susan Hilton-Brooks, Karen Hugill, Shirley King (deceased), Janet Moores, Chris Norcross.
The basis of this project is the transcription of birth, marriage and death announcements taken from the Manchester Courier and Manchester Mercury for the period 1800 to 1844. Being before civil registration and the first census with names, these announcements can be invaluable in locating an event in the church registers and often will provide more detail. There are also some smaller collections of transcripts including persons fined for contravening the WW2 blackout regulations.
Linda Bailey
Chris Hall, Chris Norcross, Laura Lewis
The memorial at Manchester's Victoria Station records the names of 1,463 employees of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company who fought in the Great War. MLFHS volunteer Frank Harrop has researched these men and, where possible, compiled biographical information about them. In the process he identified 35 men whose names had been omitted from the memorial.
All researchers will occasionally buy a birth, marriage or death certificate only to find that it is not the one they want. We collect these 'orphans', scan and index them and make them available online as a resource for our members.
Initially launched as a part of the commemoration of the centenary of the Great War, this project to record the names appearing on war memorials in Greater Manchester has so far recorded 64,000 names from over 900 memorials, most with photographs of the memorial concerned.
Joan Secker Wlodarczyk
Mike Berrell (R.I.P.), Bob Haynes
A suitcase-full of letters written during the Great War to one of the teachers at the Zion Institute in Hulme, by servicemen who had been his students was passed on to the society. The project will involve the scanning and transcription of the letters and creation of an index to the names and events mentioned.
John Marsden
Helen Lowe
MANCHESTER & LANCASHIRE FHS was formed in 1964 and is now one of the largest family history societies in the world. Although the Society is united by a common interest in Genealogy and Family History, members also pursue interests in closely related fields.