EVER wondered where your name originated from, and where the rest of the people who share the same name as you are?
Well that is exactly what Chris Jarman of the Isle of Man is doing, and he is coming to Powys to find out more about where the name Jarman/Jerman comes from.
Chris has been working on the family tree for the past two years.
Chris has been well travelled in his search and said: “Finding and meeting extended members of the family have taken me to groups as far apart as America and South Africa and even to a branch deported to Tasmania.”
Chris and his team now have one of the largest family tree websites and can trace nearly 10,000 of the family – which makes them one of the largest related groups online.
However, Chris’ own paternal line has led him to Powys. He said: “Sadly one of the more complex lines has been my own paternal Jarman line.
“We are able to follow it back to Llanidloes, Llandinam and Mochre but there are simply too many Jarman's for us yet to be sure the details are correct.
"The Montgomershire GenSoc have been a great help and have agreed to send us their Jarman archives so that we can sort out the complexities and put all of the material online.
“The first package was rather a monster and we have barely scratched the surface of the wealth of material available.”
The Jarmans have decided to take a different path to find more out about the line, and are coming to Llandinam, where not only they can find more out about their name, but other Jarmans/Jermans can too.
“Connecting with real people often pays dividends and we thought to capture as much of the living memories as we can.
“Our family holiday this August will therefore take us 'back to our roots' an we have rented a local cottage as a base” added Chris.
“Our plan is to meet many of the Jarman's we have already traced and also to secure a local hall and invite any Jarman's along for a 'meet the distant relations' evening. We thought to have laptops there with the tree for viewing and also plenty of blank newspaper paper so that visitors can note their details and perhaps draw out what they know of their own ancestry.
"Given solid research on our return we should be able to join all these snippets together online and then link them back to the research material from the Montgomeryshire GenSoc.”
The event will be held at the Village Hall at Llandinam for the afternoon on Saturday, August 14, and people can drop by any time between 2pm and 6pm.