History of the East FHS
The EAST Family history society was launched in 1993, to bring together people researching ancestors with the name EAST and to build a database of family trees for EAST families worldwide.
John Claydon East was born in Adelaide, South Australia, on the 11th August 1926. He married Andrée Louise Lawson in Surrey in July 1949.
John, with his wife Andrée, produced the first "Points East", the East Family Newsletter for Spring 1993. Their daughter, Marian, designed the logo. An advertisement in Family History Magazine asked "East" researchers to contact John or Andrée. The inaugural meeting was held on 20th March 1993, with 11 members present. John was the Editor and Andrée the Research co-ordinator.
In October 1995 the first meeting for all members was held at Christ Church, Uxbridge. Alan East was elected the society’s first Chairman. In 1998 Andrée resigned from the committee as Research co-ordinator. At the AGM in October 2000 John decided to hand over the Editor’s position & enjoy retirement at their home in France.
In England EASTs have been traced right back to the arrival of the Normans in England. The society has helped many members to trace their ancestors back to the 16th century. Some of these members live in Australia and we are sure that many EASTs living in America can also be traced back to these times.
In addition to the name EAST, we also research variants of the name such as EASTE, EASTES, EST, ESTE & ESTES.
In 2013 the EAST Family History Society celebrated 20 years of research and celebrated this milestone with a members lunch and a talk. The 20th Anniversary Dinner was held on the 5th October 2013 at Bishopshalt School in Hillingdon with the guest speaker, Michael Gandy.
After not meeting in person for some time, the 30th anniversary event was again held at Bishopshalt School on Saturday 14th October 2023 with good attendance by both new & long-term members. A lovely lunch was had followed by a talk given by Ken & Pam Pearce.
The most recent AGM was also held at Bishopshalt School on Saturday 19th October, after which Ron East gave an interesting talk on his childhood at West Dean Sawmills. Thanks to Pam Pearce for the organisation of the event.
Do take an active role in our Society!
Our aim is to compile a database of all East family trees (the Big Tree).
If you have traced your EAST family tree, please let us know the details of the earliest EAST ancestor that you have found - you may be able to help us record a new family line that we don't yet know about!