Millom and District Local History Society are holding their Annual General Meeting later this month.

On Saturday November 23 from 1-3 p.m. at Holy Trinity Church, Millom.  Volunteers will celebrate achievements over the past year and look forward to Millom appearing on the next series of Digging for Britain.

There will also be a talk about archival documents and Millom Families.

The Society have obtained three lots of archival documents dating from 1503/4, 1646 and 1690. The first lot were found by Richard Greer whilst he was searching the National Archive and includes four enquiries held at Carlisle - three concern gangs attacking folk and the fourth is about a suicide.

The second and third lot are from Carlisle archives. One lists local tenants who had to pay a ‘fine’ each time an old lord of Millom died and was replaced by a new one.  The third is a list of just over 900 names of men who signed an oath to King William and Queen Mary. 

All cover what was the old Seigniory of the lords of Millom i.e. Millom Peninsula.  Whilst there are a few odd names that do not appear, on the whole, the same family names appear on all three documents. 

The society said: "Looking at the 1841 census, many of these names are listed – in other words, these families were living in Millom before the coming of the iron mines, works and railway when the population increased significantly. 

"Examining the current voting lists for Millom reveals many of the names listed  share the same surname as those on the archival documents. 

"It seems likely therefore, that current Millom residents are related to those listed in the documents. Although to prove this link would need a family tree, it is possible that many families have lived in this area for over 500 years."