Colleagues The next meeting of the Oxfordshire Family History Society will take place on Monday 27 October 2008. It will be held at the usual venue at Exeter Hall, Oxford Road, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1AB. Doors open at 7.15 pm for coffee, help with both genealogy and computers, and the bookstall. The subject of the talk at 8.00pm is "Tales from the Bawdy Courts – Records of the church or ecclesiastical courts of Bishop and Archdeacon", which will be presented by Mark Priddey. He will look at the records of the church or ecclesiastical courts of Bishop and Archdeacon, particularly for the period from the sixteenth century to mid-nineteenth century when they were most prominent. These courts were often referred to as the Bawdy Courts because they dealt with cases of sexual immorality among others. The records are under-used but can be very useful for family history, as a wide range of people appear as accusers, defendants or witnesses, and their words and biographies are recorded. Mark tells me that his case examples are all from Oxfordshire. Our speaker Mark Priddey was born in Bristol, studied Classics at Exeter University, and did his postgraduate archive studies' diploma at University College London. Mark came to Oxford for an archivist's job at Oxfordshire Record Office in 1987, and became Senior Archivist in 1999, just in time for the office's move to St Luke's Church in 2000 ! Mark still holds the role of Senior Archivist to this day, and is a well-known and friendly face in that repository. All members, potential members and their guests are welcome. For directions as to how to get to the Exeter Hall, please see :- _http://www.ofhs.org.uk/ExeterHall.html_ (http://www.ofhs.org.uk/ExeterHall.html) For a list of future OFHS meetings, please see :- _http://www.ofhs.org.uk/meetings.html_ (http://www.ofhs.org.uk/meetings.html) Any queries, please contact me off-list. Paul Gaskell Publicity Officer Oxfordshire Family History Society Web : _www.ofhs.org.uk_ (http://www.ofhs.org.uk/)