Dr Barbara Carter who died in February 2007, was bitten by the Genealogy bug, long before it was fashionable, and made it her mission to not only trace her own Family History as far as she could, but also to help as many others as she could to research theirs. She started this work in the mid 1960s, and went on to found the Wiltshire's Nimrod Indexes in 1969. In those days censuses could only be examined using the original ledgers, and a personal visit to London. Church Registers were still mostly housed in the parishes, but she made it her personal mission to search out and access these records for her own research, and then to campaign for their permanent protection in County Record Offices, together with copying and transcription. She was born Barbara June Dening, the only daughter of Henry Dening, an accountant at the Great Western Railway works in Swindon, and May Suter the daughter of an Ordnance Surveyor. Her early school years were spent at King William Street School in Swindon, but when she failed the 11-plus examination, she had to find a school outside of Wiltshire in order to continue her education. Thus she went to The Elms School for Girls at Faringdon in Berkshire, where she discovered the testing experience of boarding school, but also the discovery of Shakespeare, and life-long school friends. After school, she joined the Great Western Railway in their accounting department, and learnt to use their Muldivo Accounting machines, the forerunners of our calculators and computers. This was to stand her in great stead in later life, when she put modern technology to use in her Family History work. She attended the Methodist Church in Swindon, where she met Reg Carter, who had moved there from Appledore in Devon, to become an Engineer. They married in 1950. Over the next few decades, she was involved in: Sunday-School teaching, starting a jigsaw library, Church Committee work, Cradle-roll secretary, Marriage Guidance appointment secretary, Computer programming, etc. She developed the Nimrod Wiltshire Indexes (named after her ancestor Nimrod Dening), and users of these often say that Wiltshire is still one of the best-served Counties for genealogical indexes. She was a founding member of both the Wiltshire, and Devon Family History Societies, and also gave 17 years service as a J.P, and 2 further years on the Crown Court bench. She furthered her education, when in 1988 she got a Doctorate in Genealogy, after 9 years of studying by correspondence course, and forever afterwards she insisted on being called 'Dr Carter' ("because I've earned it!"). Her greatest personal achievement however, was being made a Fellowship Member of the Society of Genealogists, for her ground-breaking work in Genealogy. She was most interested in her Dening ancestry, and struck up a friendship with Lord Dening, with whom she was related. In later years she had mobility and other health problems, and could only get to the Wiltshire Record Office with help, but her mind was alert and working to the last day. She died suddenly from a rapidly-spreading infection on 26 February 2007. She was 82, and will be sadly missed by anyone that knew her, or made use of the good work that she did over many years. David Carter. March 2007. |
