One Place Studies Invade Who Do You Think You Are? Live

Billed as the biggest family history fair in the world, Who Do You Think You Are? Live came to Olympia, London this weekend and One-Placers were there in force. Society Chair Kirsty Gray spoke about The Impact of World War One on Rural Communities on Friday, followed on Saturday by Vice-Chair Janet Few on Reconstructing Nineteenth Century Communities. Both drew capacity audiences and extolled the benefits of combining family and local history in that unique blend that is a one-place study. Society brochures were distributed, Twitter exploded with one-place tweets and several people took the plunge and promised to join our rapidly expanding membership. Our existing members were out in force and it was great to put so many faces to names. Thanks to all who came to introduce themselves, sorry it was all a bit of a whirl but it was encouraging to meet so many people who are excited by what we do.

Fair goers could seek advice from experts, hear a wide variety of presentations, view the latest publications and chat with like-minded people. The three days are a wonderful opportunity to learn, share, network and for those lacking in will power, spend a great deal on must-have family history books and products. News has just come in that the Who Do You Think You Are? brand are to take the fair on the road to Scotland in August. We have a strong Scottish contingent amongst our membership so hopefully we can meet up there and continue to infect others with enthusiasm for one-place studies.

Janet Few