Jonathan Oates - Tracing Your Ancestors Through Local History Records: A Guide for Family Historians

FAMILY HISTORY FROM PEN & SWORD

Tracing Your Army Ancestors

Simon Fowler

Tracing Your Pauper Ancestors

Robert Burlison

Tracing Your Yorkshire Ancestors

Rachel Bellerby

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Tracing Your Northern Ancestors

Keith Gregson

Tracing Your Black Country Ancestors

Michael Pearson

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Vivien Teasdale

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Di Drummond

Tracing Secret Service Ancestors

Phil Tomaselli

Tracing Your Police Ancestors

Stephen Wade

Tracing Your Royal Marine Ancestors

Richard Brooks and Matthew Little

Tracing Your Jewish Ancestors

Rosemary Wenzerul

Tracing Your East Anglian Ancestors

Gill Blanchard

Tracing Your Ancestors

Simon Fowler

Tracing Your Liverpool Ancestors

Mike Royden

Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors

Ian Maxwell

Tracing British Battalions on the Somme

Ray Westlake

Tracing Your Criminal Ancestors

Stephen Wade

Tracing Your Labour Movement Ancestors

Mark Crail

Tracing Your London Ancestors

Jonathan Oates

Tracing Your Shipbuilding Ancestors

Anthony Burton

Tracing Your Northern Irish Ancestors

Ian Maxwell

Tracing Your Service Women Ancestors

Mary Ingham

Tracing Your East End Ancestors

Jane Cox

Tracing the Rifle Volunteers

Ray Westlake

Tracing Your Legal Ancestors

Stephen Wade

Tracing Your Canal Ancestors

Sue Wilkes

Tracing Your Rural Ancestors

Jonathan Brown

Tracing Your House History

Gill Blanchard

Tracing Your Tank Ancestors

Janice Tait and David Fletcher

Tracing Your Family History on the Internet

Chris Paton

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Michelle Higgs

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Phil Tomaselli

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Tracing Great War Ancestors DVD

Pen & Sword Digital & Battlefield History TV Ltd

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Sarah Paterson

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Emma Jolly

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Simon Fowler

Tracing Your Huguenot Ancestors

Kathy Chater

Tracing Your Servant Ancestors

Michelle Higgs

Tracing Your Ancestors from 1066 to 1837

Jonathan Oates

Tracing Your Merchant Navy Ancestors

Simon Wills

Tracing Your Lancashire Ancestors

Sue Wilkes

Tracing Your Ancestors through Death Records

Celia Heritage

Tracing Your West Country Ancestors

Kirsty Gray

Tracing Your First World War Ancestors

Simon Fowler

Tracing Your Army Ancestors 2nd Edition

Simon Fowler

Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet

Chris Paton

Tracing Your Aristocratic Ancestors

Anthony Adolph

Tracing Your Ancestors from 1066 to 1837

Jonathan Oates

First published in Great Britain in 2016

PEN & SWORD FAMILY HISTORY

an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street,
Barnsley
South Yorkshire,
S70 2AS

Copyright Jonathan Oates, 2016

ISBN: 978 1 47383 802 4
PDF ISBN: 978 1 47388 059 7
EPUB ISBN: 978 1 47388 058 0
PRC ISBN: 978 1 47388 057 3

The right of Jonathan Oates to be identified as Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

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Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the imprints of Pen & Sword Archaeology, Atlas, Aviation, Battleground, Discovery, Family History, History, Maritime, Military, Naval, Politics, Railways, Select, Social History, Transport, True Crime, Claymore Press, Frontline Books, Leo Cooper, Praetorian Press, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing and Wharncliffe.

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CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank fellow archivist Ruth Costello for having read through the draft and having made many helpful suggestions. Paul Lang, who has read the text, has also, as always, been kind in assisting with pictures from his vast collection. Vanda Foster read over and provided guidance and assistance there. Any errors, are, of course, my own responsibility.

This book is dedicated to Ruth.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

This is not a book for the beginner in family history, someone whose enthusiasm has been kindled, perhaps by Who Do You Think You Are? Rather, it is envisaged that the reader will be someone who has already constructed a family tree, perhaps going back centuries, and has names, places and dates at their command, a task that often takes years. For many, though, these ancestors are just names, potentially mere two-dimensional figures at best. This book, therefore, is for those who want to know more about their ancestors lives and times in order to flesh them out more fully. It does so by exploring the topic of local history. Local and family history are often seen as two different disciplines. But it was not always so and need not be the case now.

The roots of the study of both local history and family history stretch back several centuries. By local history what is meant is the study of a localitys past; whether it be of a county, city, town or parish (or even a whole region, for example, the northwest of England), as opposed to national or international history, which is the mainstay of the educational curriculum or history in the media. Within that remit, such a history may be very specific, such as a history of a particular topic, for instance, the impact of a world war on a community, a local industry or political movement, or may be more ambitious, an attempt to cover centuries of a towns history. It may be the work of amateur historians or those who are professionals. Unlike family history, research often results in publication, either by a publishing house or self-published. It may be mainly made up of illustrations or may be primarily text-based. Local histories exist in prodigious numbers and there can be few places in Britain which have not been covered by a local history book and a Wikipedia website, of varying quality and age.

The materials for these histories, are, as with those for family history, numerous and varied and not to be found in one place. Many are, of course, located in the county or borough record office or in the reference section of county and city libraries. Others are held at the National Archives or specialist repositories. Finally, there is also value in viewing the place itself, though remembering that much will have altered throughout the ages, depending on the locality.

By now the reader may well be asking what local history has to do with family history. After all, the local and the family historian are looking for different subject matter; the former for the history of a place and its inhabitants, the latter for a particular individual or family. At one time, record office staff would categorise the two types of researcher as being wholly different (perhaps some still do).