Essex heritage trail project seeks research volunteers

In conjunction with the Essex Cultural Diversity Project, Essex Record Office (ERO) is proposing to submit a bid for a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund’s All Our Stories programme.

If the grant is successful, ERO hopes to be able to create a mobile website with details of a heritage trail that illustrates the culturally diverse history of Essex.

Preliminary investigations into the diversity of the county have discovered that there is evidence of immigrant communities in Essex from the sixteenth century, right up to Ugandan Asians in the 1970s. The earliest known reference to a member of the Black and Asian community in the area was to the burial of a Thomas Parker in Rayleigh in 1579.

For the research part of the project, Essex Record Office is in need of volunteers. Training will be given to individuals unfamiliar with record-keeping systems, and the role will involve searching Parish registers for baptisms, marriages, and burials relating to members of diverse communities, and looking for further details on people and events concerned.