Family Gathering 2016This free script provided by JavaScript Kit
Aylesbury and the Boiling Woosters Saturday 23rd July 2016Gallery Two days in the UK are virtually guaranteed to bring out the best of the summer weather, one being the first day of the football season and the other is a Wooster family gathering in Aylesbury. The former may be two or three weeks away but the latter was upon us, and the weather certainly didn't let us down. We were delighted to have the same prime location in hall 2 as last year, and within ten minutes or so the display was ready and the only thing left to set up was the laptop. This was the only disappointment of the whole day as the WiFi wasn't working, but fortunately we had a back-up plan with the GWT on Family Tree Maker, so with a combination of that and smartphones we were able to manage. The display was a mixture of wedding photos with several unknown people, unconnected lines, an unsolved murder with a Wooster connection, a tragic accident with a horse, a write-up about methods of finding distant cousins and some Wooster occupations. The showpiece story was about Francis George Leyland Wooster and his possible connection to Bertie Wooster, written and recently updated by James Gibbs. The Wooster family started arriving in droves and we had just one query in the morning and that was about the marriage of an Elizabeth Wooster to a John Slater in West Wycombe in 1817, which we have on our list, but not yet on our tree, so this will require some research. Lunchtime beckoned and we were off to the Chandos Arms at Weston Turville to meet the rest of the Wooster group and enjoy some food as the temperature soared. More members and friends of the group were at the pub to meet and greet us, bringing the grand total to twenty-one, very ironic in the group's 21st birthday year. Lunch was enjoyed by nearly everybody, and the staff did well despite the challenge from our unexpectedly large group. Most of us returned to the school, where one member said she was returning to her Worster tree after a near ten-year absence, and what she believes is a closely linked tree consisting of large numbers of bricklayers was handed over, so watch this space! Two more members added more of their grandchildren to the tree and brought along some information about the town of Wooster, Ohio, USA and its possible link to us. A great t-shirt (see gallery) advertising the Wooster paint brush company from the same town was also brought in. Having perused the other stalls around the meeting, people began to depart into the near meltdown temperatures outside, at the end of what was a great day. A feeling may have been present at the beginning of the day that, having recently lost June Biggs, one of our founding members, that the day might be something of a sombre occasion. It turned out to be not like that at all and I think June would have been proud to see so many people at this event, contributing ideas for the display and adding to our vast array of knowledge for the group which she was so pivotal in creating.
Page last updated
24 July 2016