1831 militia men

There's a very small update to the website today, the addition of three Wing men from the October 1831 muster rolls for the Royal Bucks Militia.

Lights out

Today is the centenary of the outbreak of WW1 and  I have turned the lights out on the Wing One-Place Study website to acknowledge those from Wing that served.

If you continue on to the website, you'll find that the WW1 page has been expanded. You may recall at the beginning of the year I was planning to have profiles of each serviceman up on the website beginning this month. The rapid escalation in the number of men (and women) with Wing connections who served during the war has meant I've now declared this a four-year centenary project. Today I have updated the list of servicepeople, expanding it from 125 to 315 people, so that you can see who I've identified so far - the first step in the project. This won't be my "final" word on the names of WW1 servicemen born in, living in, or with other close connections to Wing, but it's getting there - there's around 50 more men I don't have full names or regiments for yet.

If you have a serviceman ancestor from Wing, have info to share, or are simply keen to see their profile make it online sooner rather than later, please email me so I can prioritise them (and perhaps we can work together on researching them). While you're waiting, can I suggest a trip to the wonderful new Wing At War website from my friend Sarah? She has transcribed the parish magazines for Wing for the WW1 period and collated information on a variety of topics for you to read about.

COTES memorial

There are several memorials to Charles COTES around the village. One is the memorial plaque inside All Saints Church and I've added a photo of this along with a newspaper report of the dedication of the plaque in 1905 and a photo of St Katherine's Chapel, referred to in the article and in which the memorial sits.

My new best friend Sarah has been doing some research into the village hall, another, slightly larger, memorial to Charles, and I'll point you to her findings soon.

An entirely random assortment of updates

A week or so ago I added a few snippets of information to the Wing One-Place Study website and forgot to tell you about them.

• marriages for MALLET and LANGLEY on the Methodist page
• a LANGHAM-BURROWS marriage on the marriage strays page (in a registry office!)

They aren't entirely random of course, they have all come from the Bucks Herald.

A new vicar

I understand that Wing has a new vicar - welcome to Rev Helen Barnes! She is the first female vicar of Wing and I'm very excited to be able to add her to my list of clergy of All Saints.

TATHAM memorials

Following on from yesterday's update of various memorial inscriptions for vicar Peter Thomas Ouvry, today it's the turn of vicar Francis Henry Tatham. As well as his family gravestone, now rather neglected and overgrown, there's a handsome memorial inside All Saints and the lovely lychgate to the church.

Going to the chapel

But you won't be getting married, as these chapels are no longer open. I've added a photo of the former Primitive Methodist chapel in Crafton to the Methodist webpage, and a photo of the former Union chapel in Littleworth to the Independents webpage.