The first meeting was a great success with over 40 people attending the event at Willingale Village Hall, Willingale on the 7^th December 2002.

On display were two family trees, one contained over 500 names and was over 17ft long, the other more up to date tree (just printed a few hours before the meeting) had just under one thousand names. Unfortunately this tree was somewhat smaller and more difficult to read, the result of trying out a new printing firm and getting to grips with some new software. Everyone had great fun trying to locate themselves on the tree.

A tour of the two churches followed, kindly arranged by the Church Warden. Everyone who visited the church was invited to sign the visitors book. Following the tour there was a formal presentation by the WFS Committee.

This was opened by the Chairman, Keith Willingale, who gave some background on the formation of the society, what its aims are and sought comments from the audience. Some areas of research were suggested including Willingale religions, occupations and causes of death. We have now established a research register detailing our areas of research.

Two letters were read out to the audience. One was from 90 year old Albert Ernest Willingale, who encouraged the venture, and was only sorry that age and distance had prevented him from attending the meeting himself. Both writers said how pleased they were that they now knew about the wider Willingale family.

Graham Richards, our research coordinator gave a short talk on the research done by him and Kim Willingale in tracing back the Willingale line to the 1500s, helped mostly by the Willingales being mainly Essex based and most of the records being centrally located at the Essex Records centre. The family tree now stands at over 1,000 names and is continuing to grow.

Graham and Kim explained that the main thrust of research for the next year will be trying to link the ‘London Willingales’ into the main Maldon line. (The Willingales are shown to have originated in Maldon, but during the 1800s they began to move around the country more. Due to this migration there is a gap in our records of approximately two generations, which stops us linking the ‘London Willingales’ back to the main Maldon line. To close this gap it will mean reviewing the parish records of over 500 churches in the London area).

Steven Willingale then gave a short talk on the Website and its part in initially establishing contact between the WFS committee members and that it was the main focus for presenting our research.

Ken Willingale, on behalf of the audience, thanked the committee for their hard work in arranging the day’s presentation.

The rest of the day was taken up meeting new family members, discussing further areas of research and enrolling new members  into the Willingale Family Society.

Photo of Meeting

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