My husband Brian and mother-in-law Dorothy descend from a SHEPHERDSON Family in East Yorkshire.  We held a SHEPHERDSON Get Together on June 9, 2012.  This Get Together had been in the planning for over 6 months.  A number of people from the List asked me to let them know how the event went.  FANTASTIC!!!   First of all the location of Goole, Yorkshire was chosen due to finding somewhere in Yorkshire where the hall was large enough to hold this event, reasonable in price and easy access for transportation.  There were approximately 130 people who attended.  We had 6 people from Singapore, a family from NZ, a family from France, 4 different families from Canada, people from 10 different counties in the UK.  We held it at The Courtyard in Goole which is a very old school that is now converted to a Community type hall.  They have several large rooms that could be rented and we used the room that could hold up to 200 people seated.  Their facilities are excellent.   I am doing a one name study on the SHEPHERDSON surname and our group has compiled many different SHEPHERDSON family trees which we number SHEP Family 1, SHEP Family 2, etc.    Over the years a number of these  have been amalgamated with others as research often proves links.  About 7 years ago, we had 7 male SHEPHERDSONs with origins from Yorkshire participate in DNA testing sponsored by Kevin SHEPHERDSON from Singapore.  The results helped us to prove theories of certain families connecting to others.  This year Kevin SHEPHERDSON and his family visited Yorkshire for the first time and he sponsored an additional 9 DNA testings.  We knew that Kevin's line did not connect with any others, his line being from Ramsgate, Kent and before that in Durham.  His ancestors were part of the East India Trading Company and they eventually moved to Penang, Malaysia.   We had several speakers on the topics of WW1 and the SHEPHERDSONs with my son Sean speaking about his 2X Gt Uncle William SHEPHERDSON who was killed in WW1.  Thanks to Della PETCH of Driffield, we were able to relate some stories from the Driffield Times about SHEPHERDSON individuals during the wars.  One lady in attendance was very emotional when I read 3 different newpapers clips about her Grandfather Jack, as she never knew about these articles.  The last article indicated that Jack's parents had been advised that he had been seriously wounded and had head injuries and his arm was shattered.  However, although Jack lost his arm, he survived.  Brian, my husband spoke about the Hull Raids in WW11 and how it affected the SHEPHERDSONs.  One SHEPHERDSON Family was almost wiped out on a raid on July 14, 1943 when mother, father, 4 children were killed.  Two other daughters were seriously injured in this raid.  One of these daughters was Olive SHEPHERDSON who has since passed away, but Olive's daughter was in attendance.  We were able to provide her with a lot of researched info about that raid including copies of the police response reports and other things.  Tony SCAIFE spoke about the Driffield SHEPHERDSONs who had a major business in Driffield.  A fire destroyed the business in the early 1900's, although no mention in the Driffield newspapers.  Another topic was CRIMINALS.  Every family has stories of a few of these.  One lady had previously told me that her ancestor's brother was in a Boys school in Leeds in the 1871 census.  He was only 13 years old and she had wondered what he did wrong to be there.  I found a newspaper article on what had happened and called up Lesley to read to the group that at age 12 Thomas stole a silver watch and was given 1 months hard labour and 3 years reformatory for his bad deed.  Then there was the bad bunch from Malton who were convicted several times of poaching.  There were several newspaper articles that depicts that this lot were well prepared for a fight, with snap dog and all.  Part of this family moved around using aliases to avoid outstanding warrants as it is known that eventually they did murder a gameskeeper.  Then there was the infamous Richard SHEPHERDSON who happens to be Tony SCAIFE's ancestor.  Tony spoke about his ancestor.  Richard came from a well to do family but was always in trouble with the law, pickpocketing at Fairs.  In 1793, his Father enlists the help of his country neighbour Lord HAWKES and the Earl of Darlington to make a plea to the courts for a pardon for Richard who had been on the hulks for a few years awaiting transportation.  Well, it worked and Richard was granted a pardon.  However, it seems that Richard could not keep out of trouble and again was caught pickpocketing at the Leeds Fair several months after his pardon, so he was indeed transported to Australia.  (newspaper info courtesy of Judith Varley)  The story about Richard goes on and on, but since Richard is Tony's ancestor, he has dubbed him "Trickey Dickey".  We heard about the Singapore SHEPHERDSONs research journey, including their start in DNA testing.  They were the first Asian Family to take on a DNA project and several years back, the results of their DNA tests were hand deliverd by an executive of Sorenson, the Company involved in DNA testing.  (info at www.shepherdson.com) At the end of the program, the current DNA results were announced.  We already have some large SHEPHERDSON Families.  The earliest info known about SHEP Family 2 is William SHEPHERDSON marrying Mary STUDLEY in 1703 in Acklam.  We also know that SHEP Family 1 from Wintringham, West Heslerton does connect with Family 2 further back, but not sure where.  Well the results did prove that some of these different lines tested recently either connect to SHEP Family 1 or SHEP Family 2.  But there was also one surprise.  One Family had been previously tested and did not show any connection to any other SHEP Family tested.  However, we had another participant from that same line tested......and guess what.  He does connect to SHEP Family 1.  So there can be some negative consequences about the results.  Why does one individual connect and yet another doesn't.....hmmm.  How do we explain that to the individual previously tested.   We had a lot of info on display for the people to view.  We had Family Charts that inlcuded those in attendance and their ancestors.  We could not print the entire SHEP Family 1 which has over 6000 descendants and 5000 descendants from SHEP Family 2.  These were done as a poster printed from Staples and it extended the length of 22 pages for SHEP Family 2 alone.  We had Wills, MI's, War records, War medals, books written by SHEPHERDSONs from Singapore, Canada and Australia.  CD of Sally-Ann SHEPHERDSON, the Opera Singer.  We had drink coasters and key rings made with the SHEPHERDSON Coat of Arms.  A SHEPHERDSON Family Bible from the 1800's.  Birth, Marriage and Death certificates, newspaper articles and many other items, documents that relate to the SHEPHERDSONs.   I was interviewed on June 8th by BBC Radio about the event.  There was another interview with Tony SCAIFE and Andy PERCY on Humberside on June 12th.  There were a couple of newpapers at the event taking photos, with a story and photo in the Goole Times on June 14th, page 4.  It also helps that the Goole/Briggs MP Andy PERCY was  in attendance and just happens to be a descendant of the SHEPHERDSON Family.    After our event, we got together at the Lowther Hotel in Goole for a dinner with about 50 people.  This hotel is worth a visit from anyone in the area.  They were able to give us use of their function room for a dinner and a lovely dinner selection at a very reasonable price.  We even had a tour of this historic building which included viewing the murals on thier walls upstairs which date back to abt 1840.    All in all, this was a fantastic day.  The end of a lot of work on my part organizing this from Canada.  But the positive feedback from a lot of people makes all the time and effort spent on this worthwhile.  Thanks to Anne HARLEY for helping out on that day, to Judith VARLEY for helping with some of the research of Trickey Dickey in the past, to my friend in the USA who provided me with copies of a number of wills from the LDS in Utah.    Have just arrived home yesterday after just over 3 weeks in Yorkshire.  Will say that we are not missing the horrid rainy weather that Yorkshire experienced.  But we still had a great time in Yorkshire.   Janet

Congratulations Janet on what sounds like a very successful event! I cannot even imagine all the planning that was involved in coordinating this get together. Hopefully, one of these years I'll get back to Yorkshire and wouldn't that be fun to find people descended from some of my ancestors! Haven't quite gotten to that point yet as my direct line emigrated to the States in the mid 1850s and I haven't found any other relatives yet that were still in the YKS area, though there must have been some somewhere. I must start looking into some of these one-name studies to see if I can find any connections that way. Stupid job keeps interfering in my research time! HaHaHa! Beth in a hot and very dry Chicago --- On Sun, 6/24/12, janetlovegrove@rogers.com <janetlovegrove@rogers.com> wrote: > From: janetlovegrove@rogers.com <janetlovegrove@rogers.com> > Subject: [YORKSGEN] Family Get Together in Yorkshire > To: "yorksgen@rootsweb.com" <yorksgen@rootsweb.com> > Date: Sunday, June 24, 2012, 12:22 PM > My husband Brian and mother-in-law > Dorothy descend from a SHEPHERDSON Family in East > Yorkshire.  We held a SHEPHERDSON Get Together on June 9, > 2012.  This Get Together had been in the planning for over > 6 months.  A number of people from the List asked me to let > them know how the event went.  FANTASTIC!!! >   > First of all the location of Goole, Yorkshire was chosen > due to finding somewhere in Yorkshire where the hall > was large enough to hold this event, reasonable in price > and easy access for transportation.  There were > approximately 130 people who attended.  We had 6 people > from Singapore, a family from NZ, a family from France, 4 > different families from Canada, people from 10 different > counties in the UK.  We held it at The Courtyard in Goole > which is a very old school that is now converted to a > Community type hall.  They have several large rooms that > could be rented and we used the room that could hold up to > 200 people seated.  Their facilities are excellent. >