WILLIAM and Selina Greenaway's 1906 golden wedding anniversary photograph inspired a family gathering in Wootton Bassett on Sunday.

A hundred of their descendants from as far afield as Cornwall and the Channel Islands converged on Nore Marsh Farmhouse, home of Eileen Rogers (nee Cook) and her husband Lynn.

Two years ago Evelyn Tucker (nee Cook) was given a copy of the golden wedding photograph. With the help of another relative she put names to each of the people on it.

"I became fascinated by the number of related families I had never met, who still live in the Purton and Wootton Bassett area," she said.

"Now, at the start of another century, it occurred to me that there would be no better way of recording the present than to bring together their descendants for a Millennium picture."

Many of the people who attended were meeting for the first time, and shared family anecdotes heard from grandparents.

Some fascinating items in a display organised by Mrs Tucker and her husband Paul, included a massive family tree, birth and marriage certificates and newspaper cuttings.

A memorial card lamented the death of William's and Selina's daughter Sarah Jane, wife of Charles Iles, on Christmas Eve 1890.

She was 27, and died giving birth to a daughter, Dora, who also died. She was buried in Purton churchyard on December 29.

The widower, left with a young son, Ewart, later married Sarah's sister, Susannah, who bore six children, only three of whom survived into adulthood.

Ewart, who died in 1977, is remembered as the founder of Goatacre Cricket Club.

One of the guests, Charles' granddaughter Marie Hacker (nee Chunn), was wearing Sarah's wedding ring, a cherished family memento.

William Greenaway and his wife were both from Purton, where his father John was licensee of The Angel and her father was the local butcher. William was working as a porter at Paddington when they were married at St Stephen's Church, Westminster, on June 16 1856, and their first child, Emily, was born in London. She married Albert Wheeler and produced eight children.

The family returned to Wiltshire and William, who became licensee of the Bell at Purton Stoke, also farmed nearby. Their other children were Sarah Jane, Susannah, John who married Rhoda Sutton and had five children, Louisa who married Richard Cook and had four, and Annie, who married Henry Heath and had two sons and two daughters.

A photographic session in the Nore Marsh garden preceded a speech of thanks from Mrs Cook, and a prayer by the vicar, the Rev Bernard Garratt, whom she invited to bless the family.

Mrs Tucke said: "It's all been so lovely the atmosphere's been wonderful and I'm grateful to everyone who helped to make it so memorable."