AN INTEREST in family history has spiralled into something much more demanding for dad Shane Bywaters.

Mr Bywaters, from Cogges,Witney, is travelling around Oxfordshire creating a photographic catalogue of its war memorials.

The 35-year-old, who has a six-month-old daughter called Amelia, started the project a year ago, and his website – oxfordshirewarmemorials.co.uk – went live last month.

So far, he has taken pictures of 130 memorials in towns and villages.

He said: “There is an organisation that exists which has recorded the memorials, but they haven’t taken details of the names or photographs of the inscriptions and it isn’t available on the web.

“Lots of people have done similar things, but in Oxfordshire there is nothing like it.”

The pictures are taken during lunch breaks or on Mr Bywaters’s work travels as a freelance IT consultant.

He said: “Through tracing my own family history, and having located several ancestors who are remembered on memorials across the county, I realised there was no single and definitive pictorial guide to our county’s memorials that can used by family historians like myself, who are potentially located all around the world.

“There’s the obvious fun of the personal challenge and the sense of creating something new, though more so, having located my own ancestors and learned more about them, the memorials suddenly became a lot more personal.

“With our last First World War veteran now gone and Second World War veteran numbers declining, it’s more important than ever that we never forget the sacrifices that our brave service personnel continue to make.”