We've laid on talks and activities for those who will be in Liverpool on the Friday afternoon before the full conference kicks off on Saturday.

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Get Help From a Local!
The following Family History Societies will be available to answer questions and tell you what resources they have available:

• Lancashire Family History Society
• Liverpool & SW Lancashire Family History Society
• Ormskirk & District Family History Society
• Family History Society of Cheshire
• North Meols (Southport) Family History Society

The mini-fair will run from 1pm to 5pm.

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Serious surname research goes beyond collecting names - it’s about understanding connections, places, and stories. Name & Place was built with this ethos at its core, designed specifically for one-name researchers who want more than just a list of records. In this talk, Paul will explore the challenges of surname studies, how Name & Place differs from other genealogy software, and why a location-based approach is key to making sense of your data. Whether you’re struggling with fragmented records, tracking surname migration, or looking for better ways to visualize your research, this session will offer fresh insights into managing one-name studies effectively.

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As genealogists and family historians, we are driven by a passion for uncovering our ancestors - and let's be honest, we love sharing our discoveries! After all, isn't that why we gather at conferences like this? To learn from and inspire one another? FamilySearch Genealogies offers a powerful platform to do just that - preserving our research, making it accessible to others, and benefitting from the collective research of the genealogy community. In this session, we'll explore how FamilySearch Genealogies differs from the FamilySearch Tree and how it can enhance both personal and collaborative research, with a special focus on the Guild of One-Name Studies collection. Learn how you, too, can contribute and ensure more surname studies are preserved and shared for future generations.

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  Ariel McDonald-Smith

  Country Experience Manager UK, Ireland, and the Nordics | Europe North Area

  FamilySearch

Sponsors

This talk follows the theme of the conference loosely but is about migration of that valuable data that you have accumulated. Hopefully what information you pass on is going to be in a better manner than what you might have inherited. We will explore what you might received, how to deal with adding additional material to your existing database, validating your material and, planning for how it will get passed on. The latter is, of course, critical if you don't want all your work to disappear into the ether. 

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• 

  John Hanson FSG

  Research Director

  Halsted Trust

Sponsors

Join an online pre-conference meeting for remote attendees. Drop in and say hello. Share your reseach interests, meet other like-minded people, and perhaps form a team for the quiz?

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As one of the nation’s folk arts, clog dance is an important, though little known aspect of our dance heritage. It has a long and intriguing history and my presentation will aim to unravel some of its mysteries.

 To illustrate the story of clog dance I will be demonstrating some of the styles that have survived into the 20th century. All ‘dance’ is social history, and in order to understand how and why these different styles have developed, the presentation will look at the influences of fashion and social context over three centuries.

Alex will be very interested in any comments and information on clog dancing from delegates’ research.

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A fun session for the first night. Join a team to get to know other attendees and try to solve the puzzles and answer the quiz questions.

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Howard Benbrook, President, Guild of One-Name Studies will welcome attendees to the 2025 conference.

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Every ancestor has a story waiting to be told. We will follow the extraordinary journey of British Home Child Gerald Ludlow, sent to Canada as a young boy and later returning to England. Delving deeper into historical records, newspapers, and social context, his life comes into focus—offering a powerful reminder of how genealogy can restore voices long forgotten. Gerald’s story is one of resilience, loss, and homecoming, illustrating the profound impact of uncovering and sharing the past, an effort we can all support. Join us on this journey of discovery, where history is brought vividly to life.

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• 

  Jen Baldwin

  Research Specialist

  Findmypast
• 

  Ariel McDonald-Smith

  Country Experience Manager UK, Ireland, and the Nordics | Europe North Area

  FamilySearch

Sponsors

This presentation will consist of three inter-locking parts. Firstly, it will consider Liverpool as a city port which received migrants from Ireland who shaped an English urban centre with a particularly Irish ethnic character. Secondly, it will explore Liverpool’s role as an emigrant departure point and as a crucial oceangoing hub in the evolution of the modern Irish Diaspora. Finally, it will conclude by discussing archival resources and in particular, demonstrating the relevant historical sources available on the Irish Emigration Database (www.Dippam.ac.uk).

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A short session for remote attendees to ask their questions to Dr Paddy Fitgerald. Note: this session has limited places and is only available to remote attendees.

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Welsh migration and emigration feature many similar themes as other nationalities. Passenger lists and naturalization records offer minor points of detail for brief moments in time. Knowledge of the aspects related to Welsh migration can be very helpful for unravelling the secrets. The prominance of non-conformity and familial tied led to the creation of records unique to Welsh emigrants. This talk will introduce and illustrate online sources that reveal the migration history of Welsh individuals and families over many years. It will also show how much detail can be learned about Welsh migration from the comfort of your home.

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  Darris Williams

  Wiki Team & Community Trees Manager

  FamilySearch

Sponsors

A short session for remote attendees to ask their questions to Darris Williams. Note: this session has limited places and is only available to remote attendees.

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Throughout the nineteenth century Britain rapidly developed as an imperial and trading power. Goods were transported around the world by merchant vessels powered by the labour of ordinary merchant sailors, predominantly boys and men from working-class backgrounds, many of whom spent years away at sea in dangerous environments. While sailors were crucial to the development of Victorian Britain, they were often subject to caricature in literature and the press as the brave Tar, or his opposite, foolhardy Jack. Emily's research has tried to move away from these simplistic stereotypes to explore the social worlds of ordinary Victorian sailors, including the less well-understood nature of their family and kinship relations. 

In this talk, Emily will focus on the benefits and challenges of two of the main archival sources that have informed her research into ‘maritime relations’: logbooks, or sea diaries, kept on board ship by 'ordinary' sailors, and the rich British tradition of British working-class autobiography. She will suggest that these forms of life writing supply not just a treasure trove of social history, but, read carefully, they offer insight into the personal lives of seafaring authors and their complex networks of family and kin. 

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The Prize Papers are a fascinating historical collection of documents captured from ships during naval warfare, mainly from the 17th to early 19th centuries. They include letters, ship's logs and manifests, legal documents, personal items and diaries and maps and drawings.

An update on progress in cataloguing the court and supporting papers (HCA), focussing on the ships captured during the American Revolutionary War 1775-1783.

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• 

  Anne Ramon

  Researcher

  The Prize Papers Project

Sponsors

A short session for remote attendees to ask their questions to Dr Emily Cuming and Anne Ramon. Note: this session has limited numbers and is only available to remote attendees.

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Using examples from the Liverpool Home for Destitute Children Ian will discuss the records that shed light on children who were sent to Canada in the late nineteenth century. He will trace students from birth to death and debate the reasons why children were migrated. The session will look at some case studies of boys who later joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force and died in WW1. The case files of the children who were in the Liverpool home are held by Barnardo's and are only accessible to direct descendants but they contain a rich body of genealogical information. The Home Child programme is about children and their families, without whom there was no programme. 

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Restricted

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Between 1830 and 1930 9 million people transmigrated from Northern Europe to North America. Following many years of research, including retracing some of the routes the migrants may have taken, the speaker can bring to life the journey of some of those migrants.
IMPORTANT: THIS TALK IS ONLY AVAILABLE AT THE TIME IT IS BROADCAST; NOT AFTERWARDS.

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Through DNA testing for genetic genealogy, you can confirm who your ancestors are, discover new ancestors, and learn where your ancestors were from. Autosomal tests can help you confirm and discover information about ancestors within the past 5-7 generations on your tree, but what about beyond that? Y-DNA and mtDNA testing can answer questions about ancestors further back on your tree and help confirm ancestors in more recent generations with tricky cases involving pedigree collaps and endogamy. This presentation examines how Y-DNA and mtDNA can supplement your automsomal results and help you discover more.

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An online meeting open to all with access to the Hub. Say hello, share your research interests, let others know which talks you have found most useful or simply have a chat with like-minded people.

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In 1860 the Lancashire textile industry was on the crest of a wave. Liverpool docks were 7 miles long and took in 625,000 tons of cotton to support some 2,000 mills which employed over 500,000 people and earned the United Kingdom some £75 million pounds, 50% of our nation's export revenue. Most of our raw cotton came directly from the southern states of America. It was the product of some 4,000,000 slaves. President Lincoln's move to end slavery resulted in the American Civil War of 1861 - 1865 closing down our supply chain and thousands of millhands were thrown out of work with no social safety net to catch them. Unprepared, workers starved in their own homes, diseases spread and our society collapsed. Using the songs and newspaper reports of the time, Sid tells the story of how we got into it, how we lived through it and, more importantly, how we got out of The Lancashire Cotton Famine.

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Discover strategies for exploring African American family history and genealogy during the pivotal era of 1900–1950, marked by resilience amid adversity. This talk highlights the historical context of Jim Crow, the Great Migration, and the flourishing of vibrant Black communities in the face of systemic challenges. Learn to uncover family stories through records tied to churches, schools, and Black-owned businesses—institutions that served as pillars of strength and identity.

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We can trace the dislocation of families, indeed whole communities, because of war, politics, religious persecution, racial and cultural intolerance, employment or lifestyle prospects, and any of number of other societal-related reasons.

But there were many circumstances where Mother Nature had an important impact on the decisions people made to pick up and leave. Among these are:

• long-term changes to the environment through climate change,
• gradual alteration of habitat through natural processes
• loss of homes, businesses or family members from disasters

The presentation looks at some of the affects Mother Nature has had on lives and livelihoods, and the decisions taken to relocate. Examples will be presented from historical situations as well as from the speaker’s own family.

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The US is fairly accurately described as a society of immigrants, though early Virginians and New Englanders might be better described as settlers! One of the biggest problems faced by American genealogists is tracing their families back to their home country/ies well enought taht they can focus on a particular area, find records there and avoid researching the wrong family. Fortunately, there are many sources in the US that can be explored before attempting to make the big jump overseas and Paul will describe those.

Paul's presentaton is also highly relevant for One-Namers who are trying to find the home country origins of a particular immigrant family. The principles used can also be helpful for finding the origins for immigrants in other countries, though obviously the data sources available will vary.

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Thousands of War Brides came to Canada after the First World War, yet we rarely hear their stories. Many of these pioneering war brides travelled to Canada during the 1918-1919 fle pandemic and made their homes on farms and in small towns and cities across Canada after the war. Travel back in time with Annette Fulford as she explores the history of the First World War Brides through historical documents, oral histories, newspaper articles and photographs of the era.

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When searching 19th century Liverpool censuses, you may have come across an address including 'Court' or 'Cellar'. This talk will explain what that means - what the courts and cellars were, who lived in them, and what life was like.

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Over the past 40 years, family historians, academics, novelists, song-writers, poets and sculptors have researched and memorialised the 4000 young women whom the British and colonial governments transported from Irish workhouses to Australia during the Great Irish Famine. The scheme took its name from Earl Grey who was secretary for the colonies at the time. Trevor McClaughlin’s publication of names and other details has been crucial. Most of them were between 14 and 19 years of age, many of them Irish-speaking, not all had lost both parents. Having an Earl Grey orphan in the family is now something to be proud of, but that was far from the case in the past.

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Who went inexplicably missing in your surname study? Might they have been among the 162,000 convicts ‘transported beyond the seas’ to Australia between 1788 and 1868. Their convict records are now part of the UNESCO Memory of the World International Register, and the Tasmanian records are the best preserved and most complete. 

Digital History Tasmania has integrated into a single database multiple historic data sources documenting Tasmania’s 60 years as a penal colony; they are now progressively transcribing and adding the male convict records. However, each of the 13,644 female convicts sent to Van Diemen’s Land (VDL) – now the Australian island state of Tasmania – is included in the Female Convicts Research Centre database, with researchers on both sides of the world working to piece together their individual cradle-to-grave life stories. 

This presentation tells stories selected from the 615 women and girls who were tried in Liverpool and sentenced to transportation to VDL. No convict ships departed from Liverpool, so their journey south would have started by coach, in shackles. Who were they, what were their crimes and what were their experiences while under sentence and after release?

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The Lancashire Online Parish Clerk project aims to extract and preserve the county’s parish records and to provide online access to that data, free of charge, along with other data of value to family and local historians. Lynne will detail the progress of the project and explain how we can get the most out of the site.

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An online service conducted remotely by David Gynes. All welcome.

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In the early years of the 19th century, Liverpool had the unenviable reputation of being the European capital of the slave trade. The involvement of Liverpool in this despicable trade was not restricted to transporting enslaved people; the town was also heavily involved in the trade in goods cultivated by enslaved people. Many people in Liverpool were considerable benefactors of compensation paid upon the abolition of the slave trade. The dominaton of Liverpool in the 19th century cotton trade also brought involvement in the American Civil War. All of these facets will be explored in this talk.

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A short session for remote attendees to ask their questions to David Hearn. Note: this session has limited numbers and is only available to remote attendees.

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This illustrated talk will look at the lives and emigration patterns of workers in the cotton industry focussing on outcomes from the cotton famine of 1861, particularly for those who came from around Stockport from localities such as Hyde and Romiley, and their new lives in Rhode Island and Fall River, Massachusetts.

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A short session for remote attendees to ask their questions to Hilary Blanford. Note: this session has limited places and is only available to remote attendees.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) has dominated headlines in the past two years, but many of the concepts behind it have been evolving for decades. In this session, Paul will explore the origins of AI, why we’re seeing rapid advancements now, and what it all means for genealogists and one-name researchers. He’ll demystify some of the key technical terms, examine how AI tools are already being used in research, and consider what the future might hold. As AI continues to shape the way we work, understanding its potential - and its limitations - has never been more important.

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A short session for remote attendees to ask their questions to Paul Carter. Note: this session has limited places and is only available to remote attendees.

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Representatives of Findmypast and FamilySearch and others will answer your questions. Please submit your questions beforehand. Please submit your questions to the organisers by 9pm (UK time) on Saturday 26th April. You can use the email conference-team@one-name.org.

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• 

  Jen Baldwin

  Research Specialist

  Findmypast
• 

  Hilary Blanford

  Member

  Guild of One-Name Studies
• 

  Marie Byatt

  Member 5318

  Guild of One-Name Studies
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  Paul Carter

  Director

  Name & Place
• 

  Paul Howes

  Member 4836 (MCG)

  Guild of One-Name Studies
• 

  Ariel McDonald-Smith

  Country Experience Manager UK, Ireland, and the Nordics | Europe North Area

  FamilySearch
• 

  Anne Ramon

  Researcher

  The Prize Papers Project
• 

  Darris Williams

  Wiki Team & Community Trees Manager

  FamilySearch

Sponsors