Hi Vicki My father was a member of this Friendly Society too. He lived in Rockhampton in Queensland, and most of the extended family also belonged. I have his original membership certificate. An extremely beautiful piece of artwork. In 2000 I saw an advertisement in the Australian Family Tree Connection magazine, looking for people with ancestors who were members of this society. To cut a long story short - I contacted the person making the enquiry, and he sent me a copy of an article from the Family Tree Magazine of December 1996, Indexers and their indexes, The Ancient Order of Foresters by Martin Sommers. The article details the history of the Order, its origins in Yorkshire, and the information that there is a Foresters Heritage Trust in Southampton, with the appropriate address and contact person's name. The gentleman I wrote to also sent me a copy of the first anniversary meeting of Court "Pride of Australia", Cow Hotel, Parammatta, which was held on Monday, 27 July 1857. You are welcome to copies of these articles. I'll Email you off list, with details of the person I contacted. Regards Bev -----Original Message----- From: VICKI and Denis [mailto:dvmoran@bigpond.net.au] Sent: Sunday, 30 July 2006 9:52 AM To: AUS-NSW-Hunter-Valley-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [HV] Ancient Order of Foresters Maitland Hi People I am interested in finding out whatever I can about the Ancient Order of Foresters. My gggrandfather, William Young, of Elgin Street Maitland belonged to this order for 39 years up until his death in 1900. Does anyone know how I would go about finding details such as membership, what the order actually did etc? Also, William was a painter and leadlighter and many of the church windows in the towns around Maitland would have been done by him. How would I find out more about this? Thanks Vicki ==== AUS-NSW-Hunter-Valley Mailing List ==== If you change email addresses, you should unsub from all mailing lists then later resubscribe with your new email address -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.5/403 - Release Date: 28/07/2006