This email genealogy and local history list covers the counties of Monmouthshire, Breconshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire and Staffordshire. If your interests lie solely within Worcestershire or Staffordshire you might wish to consider joining the appropriate single county lists. There is also a list that covers the Black Country. For full details of these and all other email lists visit: http://members.aol.com/johnf14246/gen_use.html

The question most often asked is why is the list called MIDMARCH? The name comes from the description "The Middle Marches of England" or "Marcher Counties". March was an old term for a boundary and hence these are the counties on the border between England and Wales. This was for a long time hotly disputed and when William conquered England he gave the Marcher Lordships to his most powerful followers in an effort to strengthen the border.

MIDMARCH was set up by Rosemary Shipsey in May 1996 with the Maiser server, which promptly crashed a week later. It was then transferred to Rootsweb. At that time, the list just covered Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire, for which there were then no individual county lists.

After a few months, subscribers asked if Staffordshire could also be included. Rosemary was initially reluctant to do this, as Staffordshire was not Marcher country, but then neither was Worcestershire, strictly speaking. But taking into account the fact that the boundaries between Staffordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire were extricably intermingled and often altered over time, she decided to incorporate it, after asking the List members what they felt. However, Rosemary still had in mind that the list was really one to cover the more rural areas of Worcestershire and Staffordshire and was delighted when Dave Ogden set up his Black Country list, which covers the more industrial region of the counties.

In order to preserve the rural and Marcher aspect, Rosemary also then included Monmouthshire and Breconshire as, again, there were no lists for these counties.

Due to work and family pressures, Rosemary regretfully decided to give up running MIDMARCH in March 1999, and as my own research is centred within the counties that it covers I was delighted to take over as List Owner. The number of subscribers to the List at that time was just over 800, now it is nearing 1,000. They are a friendly and knowledgeable bunch, so please come and join us!

How to subscribe:

Just send the one word "subscribe" and nothing else to this address:

MIDMARCH-L-request@rootsweb.com

or to receive your messages in a single Digest form:

MIDMARCH-D-request@rootsweb.com

How to search the Archives

Rootsweb List messages can be stored permanently for searching at any point in time, which is particularly useful when you discover yet another new family line! This process is not automatic and must be set up by the List owner. The Archives for MIDMARCH sadly only date from when I took over, but they are still worth searching, and of course are growing daily.

To search them follow this link:

http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl

Enter MIDMARCH
Click on submit
Click on the year you would like to check (remember MIDMARCH archives are only available from April 1999)
Enter the surname, place-name, subject etc which you wish to look up.
Click on search.

Email me: Polly Lawrence