How to... trace your Shropshire family history

Martin Hulme, vice president of Shropshire Family History Society, shares some of his top tips in getting started with researching your family history.

1) Make sure you start with yourself and work backwards," sayd Mr Hulme. "Family members can be really helpful in the early stages especially the more elderly members of your family – don't forget aunts, uncles and cousins too.

2) The Shropshire Archives, based in Shrewsbury, re home to over five miles of shelving which stocks local material dating back to the 12th century right up to yesterday's Shropshire Star. The archives hold registers of baptism, marriages and burials for most of the 300-plus Shropshire parishes as well as a host of other original sources which can be useful in researching your family's history.

3) The Shropshire Archives also have a free subscription to the Ancestry website, so it's not worth subscribing at home too. Here you can search an ever-increasing range of material, including national indexes to births, marriages and deaths as well as the 1841-1911 census for the whole country.

4) Before making the trip to Shrewsbury it is worth visiting their website at www.shropshire.gov.uk where you can find lots of useful advice. It is also worth having a look through the archive's online collections, however bear in mind that not all catalogues are online yet.

5) Using www.freembd.com will provide you with an index of birth, marriages and deaths from 1827 well into the 1900's - and its completely free. Census records are most often the most useful sources as they tell you where an ancestor was born. However, if people moved away from where they were born their accent may not have been understood when the census was being recorded, which led to place names being written down incorrectly. If you come across this problem find a website for the relevant county and ask someone with local knowledge who will be able to identify the correct place.

6) With over 570 topics to the Shropshire Family History Forum is a great place to look for any queries or questions your research may throw up, there are several professional and amateur genealogists on hand to share their local knowledge – who knows you may even find a long lost relative. Visit their website www.sfhs.org.uk.

• The Shropshire Family History Society is open to anyone interested to family history and non-members are welcome to visit meetings held on the third Tuesday of each month in The Shirehall Shrewsbury at 7.15pm (expect July and August).

It's that easy to start uncovering your family's hidden secrets – who knows what you will discover.

Case Study - Monica Pugh

Monica Pugh, from Shropshire, discovered an old-fashioned tale of romance when she decided to trace her family history.

"Despite being nearly 80 years old my grandfather Derek Pugh could remember every detail of what happened at Sheinwood Manor over seventy years ago," says Ms Pugh.

"Back in 1940 he was 13 years old and lived with his parents Jonathan and Jane Pugh at Sheinwood Manor in Sheinton, just outside of Much Wenlock.

"It was a normal day full of the Shropshire foggy weather when a DeHavilland Tiger Mother plane crashed landed on the field near the house. The plane had one pilot named Flight Lieutenant Smithers who was flying back from Zeeland, in the Netherlands. He told my granddad he wasn't use to flying this type of plane, he normally flew Lysander planes."

"A crew of twenty RAF men then came to the house in a lorry from RAF Cosford. They had come to fasten the plane down and camouflage it before they repaired the damage. One of the men was Richard Pitwell, commonly known as Dick. At the time he was working as an RAF rigger and it was his job to look after the electrical systems of the plane.

"My granddad's sister Nell caught his eye, and for Richard it was love at first sight. The feeling must have been mutual as they soon started courting.

"The RAF crew enjoyed staying on the farm, probably something to do with Granny Pugh's endless supply of good homecooked food!

"Eventually they repaired the plane and left the farm, though Richard continued to visit his sweetheart and the pair were married on the 1st January 1941 - less than a year after first meeting.

"Richard was immediately accepted into the family, and the pair even had a joint wedding with Nell's sister Violet and her husband, Les.

"Richard and Nell were happily married for 53 years and had five children together – three boys, David, Richard and Stephen and two girls, Christine and Cheryl.

Sadly Richard passed away in 1994, followed by Nell in 2002.

"My granddad also recalled that planes often flew over Sheinwood during the war. He said once he remembers being out on the field with his father and a low flying German Messerschmidt flew close enough for them to see the pilots face.

"Luckily he didn't fire at them otherwise this might have been a very different story."

By Beth Motherwell