Celebrations at the Guild – 40th Anniversary

A week or so ago the Guild held it’s annual conference in Leicester, England which is where the first annual conference took place. Part of that celebration was the official Guild Annual General Meeting (AGM), followed a series of speakers, each focusing on the conference theme of Past, Present and Future.

On our minds was the journey the Guild been on and how far the genealogical world has come in the last 40 years and we gave some consideration to what might happen in the next 40 years.

The founder members, of which there were 10 present at the Guild conference out of a total of 38 each received a celebratory mug, presented by our President, Derek Palgrave.

The Conference dinner on Saturday provided not just good company, food and lots of laughter, but short talks from a number of the founder members, including Colonel Iain Swinnerton, Rev David Gynes (MCG) and a number of others.

The last talk of the conference was from former Chairman, Paul Howes (MCG) who gave an interesting talk on the Ruby One-Name Study which was created by the Guild in honour of our special celebrations.

The study has been a collaborative project and the surname has an incredible global spread from Continental Europe, Great Britain, Australia, United States and Australia. The study will run until and we are hoping that someone will come forward to take over running the Ruby Study. You can read more about the study at it’s blog and at the Ruby website, which is part of the Members’ Website Program. If you are interested in more information to take part please contact Paul Howes.

For those who read the Family Tree Magazine (UK) there is a two page spread, where the editor, Helen Tovey interviews Paul Howes about the project in the May 2019 edition.

The Guild also produced a 32 page booklet which was distributed with the April 2018 edition of Family Tree Magazine (UK) which is still available as either a paper copy or digital download.

The Guild’s 40th conference was a delight to attend. It was an opportunity to catch up with old friends, make new ones and learn together from the speakers.

The conference ended with delegates celebrating the Guild with a Birthday cake and tea before heading home.