The speaker this month was our own Pat Smith who gave a talk on Nonconformity. This talk looked at the origins of the rejection of the newly established church and how that impacted on the lives of the followers.
We were taken through a number of valuable sources of records and where they can be found. For those who had ancestors who were nonconformist and therefore did not worship in the local parish church this can often become a “brick wall” in their searching. It became clear that from the 16th century onward the decision to be a protestant Nonconformist or Dissenter or a Catholic Recusant had considerable consequences for these peoplein all aspects of their lives.