This year’s Get Together venue was at the Education Room at the Sussex Archaeological Society’s Barbican just off Lewes High Street.

Friday commenced with a behind-the-scenes tour of the East Sussex Record Office and talk by Elizabeth Hughes, County Archivist on the collections and the proposals for “The Keep”.  A very interesting evening with a number of documents relating to Akehursters families - including an old (1830's?) map of Shawpits and Akehurst Farms in Hellingly, school registers, burial registers, a police defaulter's book, and a settlement certificate.

Saturday morning the eighteen present had a presentation introducing the Akehurst Family History Society, followed by a talk from Judy Excell about the SFHG and the Sussex Names Index. This was followed by a talk by Alan Pett about maps and the different sizes and types and their use for family and local history Alan brought an interesting, and eclectic, stack of maps!

A lot of time has been spent talking informally about our trees and helping each other break down brick walls. A number of breakthroughs have been made.

The Sunday activities commenced with the biennial meeting of the Akehurst Family History Society. This was followed by a talk by Geoff Bridger First World War expert and author of Great War Handbook.  Commemorating, the Akehursts who fell in World War and showing how to use local records i.e. School, cricket clubs and newspapers to find out more information about the people how fell.

This was followed by a presentation about the usefulness of contributing information to Lost Cousins website which can be found at http://www.lostcousins.com/

On Monday, Alan Pett took a small group on a walking tour around the beautiful and historic town.  Alan had used the census returns to find out where the Akehursts had lived and the route included a number of these houses.

The next Biennial GetTogether will be in Kent in September 2012