PERSONNEL

ALEC TRITTON is the elected Chairman of the Halsted Trust. Together with Geoff Riggs and Robert Gordon, then Director of the Society of Genealogists, he was one of the three Trustees when the Trust was originally set up in 2001.

He joined the Guild of One-Name Studies in 1995 where he was elected Vice-Chairman in 1997 and Chairman in 1999 which post he held till 2002. He has also served as a Trustee of the Society of Genealogists, and was elected as Vice-Chairman. In 2000 he was elected Vice-Chairman of the Federation of Family History Societies eventually being elected Chairman in 2002, a position he held until 2006 retiring by rote.

Currently Alec is a Vice-President of the Guild of One-Name Studies and he is a member of the Lectures Working Group at the Society of Genealogists. He has always been interested in genealogy, being a long standing member of Kent Family History Society, and he is also a member of the Sussex Family History Group.

Alec writes extensively on family history subjects for Family Tree Magazine completing two extensive series on "Lost London Burial Grounds" and "Worship, Weird and Wonderful" as well as reviewing a number of software packages. He has been a lecturer and teacher in family history for over ten years and has lectured extensively in England including at the Who Do You Think You Are? Live event and its predecessor the SoG Family History Experience. In 2003 he was invited to speak at the Federation of Genealogical Societies International Conference in Florida.

He was born in Hastings and as the family moved around, attended many schools before joining the Royal Navy in 1968, serving on HMS Rothesay, HMS Norfolk and HMS Brazen, leaving in 1985. Alec joined Photain Controls PLC as the Service Manager rising to become the Technical Director. The Company was sold in 2002 and the UK manufacturing operation moved to South Africa. he left the Company and has since been working part time as a licensed Florida Real Estate Agent. Married with two children, Alec lives in rural Gloucestershire keeping horses and chickens. His hobbies include reading and listening to smooth jazz.

GEOFFREY STONE is the elected Treasurer of the Halsted Trust.

He is a Trustee of the Society of Genealogists and also its Vice Chairman. He was formerly its Treasurer for six years and a Director of the subsidiary SoG Enterprises. He is a founder member of the Rayne Family History Group established last year in Essex. His interest in family history goes back to his school-days and he is currently active with three one-name studies (WEDMORE, SCARNELL and PUCKLE).

He was formerly a Computer Projects Manager with Save & Prosper Group (a subsidiary of Robert Fleming Bank). More than half of the time he was involved with Accounting and Banking systems.

(Awaiting fuller details)

GEOFF RIGGS is the webmaster of the Halsted Trust and its original Treasurer. Together with Alec Tritton and Robert Gordon, then Director of the Society of Genealogists, he was one of the three Trustees when the Trust was originally set up in 2001.

Geoff is Chairman, webmaster and former Secretary of the Association of Family History Societies of Wales, whose interests he represents as a member of The National Archives Online Advisory Panel and of the British Genealogical Record Users Committee. He is the Regional Representative for Wales of the Guild of One-Name Studies, serving on its Executive Committee from 1997-2003 and as Vice-Chairman from 2001-2003. He is former Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Director of Internet Facilities, and webmaster of The Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS), having served on its Board of Directors from 2001-2008 and then retired by rote, and was Chairman and Managing Director of FFHS (Publications) Ltd from 2003-2008.

Geoff has written articles for Family Tree Magazine, Family History Monthly, the Journal of One-Name Studies, FFHS News & Digest and the Gwent FHS Journal. He has lectured and given interviews on BBC Radio Wales Look Up Your Genes roadshow, appeared on BBC Wales Today TV news and on Channel 4's Extraordinary Ancestors. He was a guest host answering queries on the BBC web site's Message Boards during the first series of Who Do You Think You Are. As a representative of the FFHS, he presented oral evidence in 2004 to the House of Commons Regulatory Reform Committee criticising proposed changes affecting Civil Registration. Geoff has lectured at seminars and conferences of the Society of Genealogists, the Guild of One-Name Studies and the FFHS, and gives talks to Family History Societies as well as to local history and other organisations.

Having served a number of years as Chairman of the Gwent Family History Society on two occasions, he has been Chairman of its Newport Branch and of its Blackwood Branch, which he set up. He launched and maintained the Society's website from 1998-2007 and is currently Liaison Officer, representing the Society as a member of the Gwent Record Office Joint Management Committee. For several years he initiated and led a U3A genealogy class, and gave help and advice one day a week at a local LDS Family History Centre. In what spare time he has, he researches his RIGGS Surname Study worldwide, aided recently by The Riggs/Rigg DNA Study Group.

Geoff went to Lewis School Pengam, where he befriended Neil Kinnock and John Dawes (British Lions captain and Welsh rugby coach). He spent 22 years in Lloyds Bank Head Office management after 9 years in branch banking. An Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers and a member of the Institute of Management Services, he attended courses run by Henley Management College Business School, Kingston University and a number by IBM. He developed and managed the branch accounting IT systems, switched to manage O&M Research inspection teams, then liaised between IT Division and the Assistant General Managers of Retail and Commercial Banking in the strategic planning and control of future systems. He lectured at the Bank's Management Training College and was a member of the Management Grading Assessment Panel. Before taking early retirement to return to Wales, Geoff was Deputy Chief Manager of Operational Research, UK Retail Banking.

DEREK PALGRAVE, FSG, is a life Vice President of the Federation of Family History Societies, having served on its Executive Committee from 1976 to 1982 and from 1994 to 2000. He was its first Publications Director and was involved in its publishing programme since 1977. He was the founding Editor of the Federation’s Family History News and Digest and compiled and edited the Abstracts for inclusion in the Digest Section of that Journal.

His interest in history began in the early fifties when he started to study both medieval churches and his Palgrave genealogy and heraldry, During the late sixties and early seventies he became associated with several newly-emerging family history societies. He recently completed his MPhil thesis on 20th century agricultural history.

Derek has been elected to Fellowships of the Royal Historical Society and the Society of Genealogists. He is currently President of the Guild of One-Name Studies, President of Doncaster and District Family History Society, a Vice President of the Cambridge University Heraldic & Genealogical Society, and Patron of Suffolk Family History Society. He is a member of the East of England Regional Archives Council and of the Thesaurus of British Surnames Steering Group. Other organisations with which he is associated include the Heraldry Society, the Flag Institute, the Norfolk Family History Society, the Norfolk Records Society, the Suffolk Records Society and the Friends of Suffolk Record Office.

Derek edits The Escutcheon (The Journal of Cambridge University Heraldic & Genealogical Society) and the Palgrave Chronicle, which circulates to the Palgraves and their descendants all over the world. He has written well over 200 articles, papers and booklets on various aspects of history, contributing often on a regular basis to local newspapers and to the magazine Practical Family History. As an experienced speaker he lectures very widely to audiences on scientific and historical topics both in this country and in the United States. He has taken part in several television programmes and for a decade or so was a regular broadcaster on radio.

He was formerly Technical Director of an I.C.I. subsidiary company and he remains involved in chemistry in his capacity as an occasional consultant, and as a freelance lecturer, WEA tutor and University extra-mural tutor, being a member of the College of Teachers. Derek is a Chartered Chemist and has been elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is also associated with the International Fertiliser Society, the Society of Chemical Industry and the Institute of Risk Management.

ELSE CHURCHILL is the Genealogy Officer of the Societyof Genealogists. She has over 25 years of experience as a professional genealogical librarian and researcher, holding a Degree in European Studies and the Post Graduate Diploma in Library and Information Studies. Formerly the Librarian of the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies, and a researcher with Achievements Ltd and with Ancestors Ltd, Else joined the SoG in 1994, initially as Deputy Librarian before being appointed to her current post on the retirement of the Society's Director Anthony Camp in 1998. Her particular responsibilities now include external liaison and representation, education, publishing and publicity.

Else is the Convener of the British Genealogical Record Users Committee, a Council member of the British Record Society and a former Council Member of the Friends of The National Archives. She is a member of the Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Council on National Records and Archives, a member of The National Archives Online Advisory Panel and a former member of the Family Records Centre User Group. In 20004 Else presented oral evidence at the House of Commons to the Regulatory Reform Committee, in support of the Federation's submissions to Parliament criticising certain of the government proposals to modernise Civil Registration.

Else writes a monthly column in Your Family Tree magazine, and has contributed to articles to Family Tree Magazine, Ancestors Magazine, BBC Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine and of course the SoG's own Genealogists Magazine. She has written articles on advanced genealogy techniques and sources for the BBC History Family History website and has acted as a genealogical consultant for the BBC’s web based genealogical enquiries and newsgroup. She has recently edited the Society of Genealogists First Steps in Family History. Else lectures regularly for the Society of Genealogists, for the National Archives and for local groups of the family history community around the United Kingdom and in Canada, USA and New Zealand.

Her main interests lie in the seventeenth century and sources for people who lived through the English Civil Wars but Else also specializes in using the records of the Victorian Censuses which are invaluable for family historians. Occasionally she gets a chance to do catch up with her own family history research which at present lingers in Herefordshire in the late 17th century.

JEANNE BUNTING, FSG, is engaged as the Research Director of the Halsted Trust.

Jeanne joined the Society of Genealogists and the West Surrey Family History Society in 1986 when she began her researches and says that without the latter and its Computer Group she wouldn't be where she is today in either genealogy or computers. She served on the West Surrey FHS Committee, edited its journal for a short while and helped to run the Computer Group.

She has served on many genealogy related Committees including the Executive Committee of the Society of Genealogists, spent thirteen years on its Computer Committee with five as its Chairman and also served on the Committee of the Guild of One-Name Studies where she was Chairman of its Seminar Sub-Committee for several years. She became a Fellow of the Society of Genealogists in 2002 for her services to genealogical computing.

She wrote regularly for the magazine Practical Family History and still writes a 'Computer Corner' for West Surrey FHS's Journal Root & Branch. She lectures extensively on Family History and Computer subjects using her own experiences as examples.

Jeanne was born, as Jeanne Attersley, in Southend-on-Sea where she attended Southend High School for Girls, but left before taking A-levels to take up a position with the Ministry of Supply at Shoeburyness, where computers consisted of electric calculators that would only add, subtract, multiply and divide and where it took two people two weeks to work out the trajectory of a shell filmed on a glass plate using a photo-theodolyte.

It was at Shoeburyness where she met her husband Michael Bunting. They have been married for 53 years and have 5 children and 6 grandchildren. After starting their family, Jeanne became a full time wife and mother and started her computer 'career' on a ZX81 in the 1970s. Once the children were at secondary school, she returned to her first love, sewing, and worked in the professional theatre until she took up Family History which has now become a full time hobby!

JOHN HANSON, FSG, is engaged as the Data Manager of the Halsted Trust.

(Awaiting details)

MARIAN FRENCH is engaged as Secretary of the Halsted Trust.

(Awaiting details)