Genealogical Sources

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Genealogical Sources

An Introduction to Sources;	Army & Navy Records;	Census Returns;	Dates
Early Records;	Ecclesiastical Records;	Eclesiastical Jurisdiction;	Genealogical Sources
Gravestones	Heraldry;	Libraries;	Lordships of the Manor
Manorial Records;	Newspapers;	Tax Rolls;	The I.G.I;
The Poor Laws	Where To Start;	Wills;	The Census
Chapman County Codes	Parish Registers	Maps Directories and Gazateers;

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If you want to learn more about your family, now's the time to start. With the advent of the Internet, there's more information available than ever before, and it's easier to access now than in the good old days of musty libraries and records halls. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Online Genealogy by Rhonda McClure will have you wired and digging up dirt (or gold) in just an hour or two. Even the most ardent computer-hater will have to admit that the search is simpler, and McClure makes the case clearly. Her charming prose is well-complemented by online images and hint boxes scattered liberally on each page. Specific sites are mentioned as well as general means of searching for family data, so even if one site disappears you can still get what you need. The book covers the basics of both gathering family data and online searches, so if you're not quite up to speed on one or the other, you can quickly figure it out. After you've browsed a bit and started collecting information, the later chapters help you to communicate with other researchers, mining government records, and even publishing your own results online. It's not hard to learn plenty about your family's history; whether you want to get in touch with your roots, glean medical information to improve your own health, or give your kids something to think about, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Online Genealogy is for you.

Where To Start;

Information available from relatives;

The first step in your research should be to write down all you know about yourself and your immediate family, then ask your relations to fill in the gaps. Invariably an aunt or uncle or parent will turn out to be one of those people whose minds store names, dates and details of births, marriages and deaths, this is the very substance of genealogy. Look in family bibles, photograph albums,national health and employment insurance cards, tax returns, leases, receipts, school reports, forces' call up or discharge papers, anything which will provide a name, address or date will help. Make a note of any churches mentioned. Their registers are a mine of information, and so are their gravestones, which may record details of several generations of a family and include wives' maiden names. Finding out what your relatives, especially the eldest is by far the best way to get started. Try to prompt memories by asking questions and listen you must listen to everything, writ it down or try to get your relatives to tell thier stories into a tape recorder or even a camcorder. Give them time to think and then go back to them with more questions. If you are writing to them try to get them to fill in a questionaire I have put some on the site for you to download. Questionaire text form Encourage them to tell you any family stories, but be prepared for lots of different variations, some family members may not want to participate don't force them. And apart from names, addresses dates and facts try collecting family stories, traditions, photos, recipes and such like. Looking at family bibles, address books, old post cards, diaries and birthday books can be a good source, and always check to see if anyone else in the family has done some work on the family history and tree.

Putting together your information:

After having collected some information from your relatives you can begin to compile a family tree/history, at this point you really should set yourself a target, lets us say for example to follow one of the following courses:

1. Collecting direct ancestors only (ie. not brothers or sisters) aim to complete about 5 generations, that will give you all 16 of your great-great-grandparents. This style of tree can be displayed using divided boxes, or in a concentric circle.

2. Collect as many family members of just one surname as you can, this might eventually become the basis for a one-name study.

3. Go for as I did Total ancestory, this means collecting information about every member of every family you can discover, parents, siblings, ad infinitum.

Government Records;

Until the second quarter of 1837 there was no central registers of births, marriages and deaths. Registration was in the main the responsibility of parish priests or clerks and the standard of records in the parish registers varies according to their skill and literacy.

In 1837, the present arrangements were introduced, whereby the Register General maintains a central record, drawn from the regional offices which in turn gets it from the registration districts and sub-districts throughout the country. When carrying out searches of registers, the researcher is not allowed to work from the register itself, but only from indexes which are arranged alphabetically by surname.

Information given on Birth Certificates;

Place and date of birth; sex; names; parent's names, including mothers maiden name; father's occupation; details of person registering.

Information given on Marriage Certificates;

Place and date of marriage; names, ages, marital status, occupation and addresses of bride and groom; names and occupation of both fathers; witnesses.

Information given on Death Certificates;

Place, date, cause of death; name, sex and occupation of deceased; informant.

Information available on other records;

Births, Marriages & Deaths of members of the armed forces occurring abroad. Army, from1796. Royal Air force from 1920.

Births and Deaths at sea (Marine Register Book); from 1837.

Births and Deaths in aircraft (Air Register Book); from 1949.

Consular Returns; from 1849 of Britons abroad, as registered by consular officers.

Records of Adoptions; from 1927 and include date and place of birth of child and names of adoptive parents.

Miscellaneous returns; from 1627 of British subjects overseas registered by various British High Commissioners.

Records of still births registered in England and Wales; from 1927 (Special Permission)

Chancery Proceedings;

Feet of Fines; 12th - 19th century.

Hearth Taxes; 1660-74

Patent Rolls;

Subsidy Rolls;

Inquisitions post-mortem;

Census Returns;

The first population census was taken in 1801 and it has been repeated every ten years since, apart from 1941. Originally they only counted heads, but after 1841 they show all the people living in the household at that time, the address, their age and relationship to the head of the household. In some cases, the occupation and, from the 1851 census, the place of birth of each individual is also given.

One thing that the researcher should be aware of is that the 1841 census records ages from 1 to 15 precisely, those above 15 have been reduced to the nearest multiple of 5. So someone entered as 20 could be any age from 20 to 24.

A single stroke after a group of names shows that the family's listing is complete. Double strokes, that the a household is complete. The letter Y indicates someone born in the county in which he is living; N for someone born elsewhere. S meaning Scotland, I= Ireland and F for foreign birth.

Census returns can only be researched after one hundred years has elapsed since the census was taken. This means that the next one to be allowed to be viewed, is the census for 1901 available from the year 2001. This is because census information is confidential until all those included can be presumed dead. But for a small fee, the census staff will look on your behalf if you can produce written assurance that you have the family's permission and will not be using the information gained against the person concerned.

Censuses were taken on the following dates:

7 June 1841

31 March 1851

8 April 1861

3 April 1871

11 April 1981

1891

For more information see The Census

Wills;

Wills and Admons;

Wills are probably the most reliable of the records available to the family historian and the least used. If in the course of your research you come across 2 people of the same name living in the same area at the same time a will is probably going to be the only way to establish their families.

In 1540 the Statute of Wills ordered that wills could be made by boys from the age of 14 and by girls from the age of 12. Married women could not make a will without the consent of her husband. Children, Prisoners, slaves, heretics and lunatics were also not allowed to make wills.

The law regarding married women was changed in 1883.

In England a will is revoked by a subsequent marriage.

Oral wills were valid until 1838 if there were enough witnesses.

A will gives the name of the executor who is to carry out the wishes of the deceased, if the deceased did not make a will the next of kin could apply for a letter of 'Administration' or Admons.

From 1858 the country was divided into Civil Probate Districts and all proved Wills & Admons granted are recorded and held at The Probate Search Room, First Avenue House, 41-49 High Holborn, London WC1V 6NP.

These can be viewed and photocopied.

Indexes exist for most major libraries and C.R.O.'s.

Wills made before 1858 had to be proved in one of the Ecclesiastical Courts of which there are over 300 and you may have to search a large number of these courts to find an entry relevant to your research.

It would be useful before starting your research to read about Church administration.

The Society of Genealogist is compiling an index of wills, so far it covers 1750-1800.

Before 1782 when Admons were granted a 'true and perfect inventory' of the deceased's property had to be made, copies of these can be seen at the relevant C.R.O which may also have an index. Inventories, however, do not include land or wife's belongings, but they do include leases, stock and corn (cut or uncut), rent, debts due, cash and all other goods and wares in the home usually listed room by room. This must be the best way to tell how your ancestors lived.

Local Records Offices and Libraries;

These places can be the source of many interesting pieces of information and should not be overlooked as a means of research.

Ecclesiastical Records;

The basic document is the parish register, which by law had to contain details not only of the believers, but also of dissenters and members of other faiths. Prior to Thomas Cromwell, who first made them compulsory, only 700 parishes had records going back to the reign of Henry VIII.

The period of Elizabeth I is well covered in most registers. A law of 1597 stipulated that they should be written on vellum, which wears better than paper. The person making the entries generally had handwriting worthy of the fine surface, and copied back entries to the beginning of the reign. The same law introduced Bishops' Transcripts, annual reports summarising all Church events.

The damage done during the Civil War and afterwards was accompanied by the destruction or loss of many registers.

Gravestones:

You can find out through archive research or relatives, where your ancestors were buried. Gravestone can often supply information about other family members and generations, they may also tell you about the deceased's background and profession as well as dates, if visiting a graveyard don't forget to look nearby for other family members.

Burial grounds which have been landscaped or those that were destroyed before 1906 did not have to record lost graves, but since 1906 all inscriptions should have been recorded.. Many cemetaries will have an office where a map can be consulted and plots identified. Maps or lists of churchyards are sometimes kept at the vicarage. Family History Societies are gradually buildin up collections of Monumental Inscriptions (MIs) which are invaluable to the genealogist. Remember though that dates on gravestones like in many unofficial records are not always reliable and you should always check them against parish registers or civil registration entries. Some family graves have a memorial stone that may have been erected years after the original burial, and it may also list family members who are not buried there, in my own case one family member on a memorial stone died and was buried in Canada.

Other important dates:

1652 - Oliver Cromwell took away the clergy's sole right to conduct marriages and Justices of the Peace were allowed to perform civil ceremonies.

1678 - An act to help the wool trade insisted that corpses had to be buried in woollen shrouds, and witnesses to that effect had to sign the records. Useful to researchers because names of relatives who might otherwise have gone unrecorded thus appear.

1693 - The number of entries in parish registers drops, because they were taxed. However those referring to dissenters did not fall off, as the parish priest could be fined for failing to record them. The tax did not last long.

1783 - The tax on parish registration was re-introduced which produced a greatly inflated number of pauper burials because they alone were exempt from payment. The idea was again swiftly abandoned.

1751 - Lord Hardwicke's act insisted that marriage registration had to be kept in a separate book, and Banns had to be called in parishes of both the bride and groom. Banns registers often give more information than the marriage entry. The act exempted Jews and Quakers.

1752 - Revision of the calendar causes some dating problems. Until then, the new year began on Lady Day, March 25th. In compiling your family tree, use double-dating up to 1752. An entry recorded for, say, January 2nd 1699, should be copied as January 2nd, 1699/1700.

1812 - Baptism and Burial registers were standardised.

Heraldry;

Most if not all families can trace a connection with an 'armiger' - someone who has been given the right to bear a coat of arms. But do not assume that the arms go with the surname; they go with the lineal heirs of the man awarded them, in strict accordance with the laws of arms.

From 1530 to 1687 the College of Arms held 'visitations' to check the credentials of those claiming the right to arms, and to record details of their descent.

An Introduction to Sources;

What were the important landmarks in the development of parish registers that affect their use as a source for family history?

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Parish Church and the Vestry meetings was a large part of the administration of villages throughout the country. After Henry VIII most people were effectively members of the Church of England, and most other denominations and religions were actively discouraged. In 1538, it was decreed that each parish should keep a record of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials. However, it wasn't until 1598 and the reign of Elizabeth I, that this was re-emphasised. Records had to be kept on more durable parchment instead of paper, and kept in a stout chest in the church. The result of these measures is that many of our ancestors will have their baptisms, marriages and burials recorded in the Parish Registers. In the early years, the amount of details depends on the vicar or whoever makes the register entries. Some are very comprehensive, but others are annoyingly limited.

Of course, other records were kept by the churches: Vestry meeting minutes, Churchwarden's accounts, Poor Law records and so on. Most of these will have either found their way into the appropriate County Record Office, but some will have effectively disappeared through various mishaps and misfortunes.

The reason for the decree of 1538 was probably not for any ecclesiastical purpose but more for authenticating population statistics for tax assessment, The Militia, etc. I suggest that since the ecclesiastical parish was an area empowered for the responsibility for the care of people living within the parish and that the probably the only literate people in the parish were the clergy and given that Henry VIII had established the church of England. The state decided that the church would be the ideal organisation to collect this information one must imagine the resentment that this caused among the clergy and indeed amongst the local population.

There were no rules for the clergy to follow, some records were kept on loose sheets of cheap paper or parchment others in books with baptisms at the front marriages in the middle and burials at the back. Many towns had several parishes, with 103 in the City of London. Other parishes, such as those in Westminster, dealt with large numbers of events and it can be difficult to search them all for your ancestors.

However, there is hope! Many parish registers have been transcribed and indexed, The Phillimores Atlas and Index of Parish Registers list all parishes that have been indexed.

Parish Registers and Records would have been kept by:

CHURCH WARDENS:

At least two men in the Parish were appointed to be Church Wardens, one by the Vicar and one by the Parishioners. They were sworn in at Easter for a year. Their main job was the upkeep of the Church fabric and property and had to report to the Ecclesiastical Court, the Archdeacon or Bishop about the Church or even the Minister. Church wardens kept account books and vouchers that can provide interesting information about work carried out in the parish by villagers and tradesmen. Important fee information can be found in these records.

OVERSEERS OF THE POOR:

From 1572, the overseers of the poor were started and later appointed by the Justices (1597/8). These men administered the Poor laws. The 1601 Poor Law Act, renewed in 1640 lasted until 1834. They had the responsibility for making work for the able bodied poor and administering sick relief, relieving the poor aged, providing the children of the poor apprenticeships and assisted the parish constable. They administered the tax on the people to pay for the poor and maintained the house of correction for vagrants and the poor house. Where they survive these records are quite extensive.

PARISH OR PETTY CONSTABLES:

In the Parish they had to maintain law and order, supervised by the churchwarden and the JP. Their role was reviewed in 1842 and lasted until 1862. After 1757 the Parish ballot was administered for the local Militia and these produced considerable records and names. The Parish Constable had the power of arrest and custody and had to bring prisoners to the Magistrate. Constable's accounts and vouchers should be sought for these actions. Militia papers, discharges, payments to families may be found in the Parish Records or with those of the Clerk of the Peace.

SURVEYORS OF THE HIGHWAYS:

From 1555 the Highways Act, surveyors were appointed of the roads and bridges in the parishes. They made sure that people laboured to repair the roads and bridges from the stones picked up by the able bodied poor. From 1691 the Surveyors were appointed by the JP's. Some records are kept with the Highways accounts.

Important dates:

1649-1660, The Commonwealth Period: With the establishment of the Commonwealth almost all the royalist clergy were expelled for the benefit of good puritans. To correct poor register keeping, Oliver Cromwell decided that from 1653 the keeping of parish registers should be by a layman rather than the clergy, this person was to be elected by the locals and confirmed by a magistrate. Problems arising from this are that as the only literate person in the village was probably the old clerk or vicar, that bad handwriting, and spelling would lead to many errors. Other problems were that a marriage could no longer take place in the church. The couple had to go to a justice of the peace, people thought that this was not a proper marriage and so would find a priest and marry in secret. After the monarchy was restored in 1660 keeping the parish register was given back to the clergy and many destroyed the commonwealth registers.

1753, Hardwickes Marriage Act: From 1538 to 1754 a marriage was usually recorded as

"Marriage 1644 Edmund Oldfeild and Ann Holme 14th day of Januerie" other information might be given, such as the groom's occupation and if the marriage was after banns or by marriage licence. Marriages can be difficult to trace in parish registers, they normally took place in the bride's parish, or the couple might have been married in another parish nearby or even the nearest large town. Marriage records up to 1754 are especially difficult to trace. This is the date that Harwickes marriage act came into force, the objective of which was to prevent irregular, clandestine and runaway marriages. It was not until 1754 that marriage ceremonies that did not observe church rules were irregular but still legally valid. Many marriages did not take place in church, either in the groom's parish or the bride's parish, but in marriage houses and sometimes even in prisons such as the Fleet in London.

What Hardwicke's act did was to demand that a "marriage was to be performed in the parish church of one of the couples or in a designated chapel by an Anglican clergyman, in the presence of at least two witnesses, and only after the publication of banns or by the authority of a valid marriage licence"1. The only exemptions were for marriages according to Jewish or Quaker ceremonies.

´Minors had to obtain their parents or guardian's consent and until 1929 the law still allowed boys as young as 14 and girls as young as 12 to be legally married with that consent.

´Hardwickes marriage act stated that from 1754, the records of marriages and banns be kept separate from the registers recording baptisms and burials. From 1754 marriage registers were usually books of printed forms that the clergyman would complete, entries before 1754 were usually limited to the date and the names of the couple, but Hardwickes act also required clergymen to record additional information, so entries after 25 March 1754 should include the couples parish of residence, their status, whether the marriage was by banns or licence and the groom's occupation.

´E.g. "1755 Marriage. The banns of Marriage between William Robinson of the parish of Ilkley & Jane Clemmy of This Chapelry were published the 19th & 26 of January and the 2 of February, Thos Carr.

´The said William Robinson & Jane Clemmy were marryd in this Chapel this 3rd day of February in the Yeare 1755. Thos Carr.

´This marriage was solomnized between us The x mark of William Robinson

´ The x mark of Jane Clemmy.

´Although The Hardwick Act standardised marriages baptisms and burials remained non standard.

1812, The Rose Act: Required parish incumbents to use specifically printed registers, with baptisms, marriages and burials in separate books. These printed registers are much easier to read than earlier registers. The act demanded detailed information to be recorded for baptisms, besides the date of baptism and the child's name the act also required the register to include the names of the parents, their domicile, the father's trade or profession and the name of the officiating clergyman.

For burials the act required that the register include the deceased's name, domicile, date of burial and age.

1837 , Civil Registration. Since the nineteenth century in the British Isles, when a birth was registered, a certificate was provided by the registrar showing information given at the time of registration. In England and Wales, this civil registration system began on 1st July 1837, although it was not compulsory to register a birth until 1875.

In 1836 England and Wales were divided into registration districts, each having a local Superintendent Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths.

As an aside, you might like to know that these Registration Districts were based on the Poor Law Union areas resulting from the 1934 Poor Law Act. Once every three months the English and Welsh local registrars sent copies of their records to the Registrar General in London for his clerks to compile quarterly national alphabetical indexes.

The quarterly indexes have been microfilmed and bought by libraries all over the world.

The indexes are often referred to as "St Catherine's House Index" after the place, which until recently, they were kept and available for inspection

It was quite common in the Victorian era for the bride to be slightly older than the groom, although at that time it was not thought to be "proper" .You may find, therefore, that the bridegroom "adjusted" his age upwards and the bride brought hers down by a year or so, just to make the marriage more acceptable.

Bibliography:

Ancestral Trails by Mark D. Herber.

Parish registers by Eve McLaughlin.

Act of Marriage 1753

Transcribed from the Holy Trinity register Skipton in Craven Yks.

Early Records;

Unless you have ancestors that were royal or they had landowner connections it is unlikely that you will be able to trace them back to the Middle Ages, however, there are records that survive which make very interesting reading. Medieval England had a very well organised Government and well structured archives survive dating from the Domesday Book of 1086, there are a few transcriptions available for viewing at the P.R.O. At the time the Domesday book was compiled surnames were not used and in order to identify people a description relating to appearance, character, profession, relationship, or home was used (see Surnames).

In effect the Domesday book was a census of some 275,000 names at a time when the population of England has been calculated by experts to be about 1.5 million people.

Manorial Records;

These can provide the family historian detailed information about peasant landowners, every county has its own collection many of them with a surname index. What is the Manorial system and what types of records are there?

The Manorial System in which you would find manorial documents such as copy hold, this basically means that on the death of a villein his son was by custom admitted as tenant of his land, after a heriot of the best beast or chattel of the deceased or a sum in lieu had been paid to the lord of the manor. This custom of succession grew at length into a legal right of property, so it soon became custom that villeins and tenants were proving their possession of such rights by producing copies of the court roll of the manor, setting out its customs and the services due from them and showing that they had performed these. So by the sixteenth century such tenure, when proved by copy of the court roll, was called copyhold

The Court Roll was the administrative center of the Manor or Baronial unit and basically served as a modern day court of justice would. The court rolls have a special interest for genealogists because they alone almost among mediaeval records regularly dealt with the lowest classes of rural society, the unfree husbandmen and cotters. The possibility of tracing such a family before the date when the parish register begins will usually depend on whether early records of the manor in question survive.

Then there are the 'Feet of Fines' conveyances date from 1170 to after 1300, also look for 'lay subsidies', 'tax assessments' and 'post-mortem inquisitions' which will name heirs and tenant's. The Historical Association has published a guide to Medieval Records.

English Lordships of the Manor;

Feudalism was the political and social system that developed as a result of the breakdown of strong, central government at the end of the Roman Empire. Its basis was the holding of land from a powerful local patron, who afforded protection in return. The person who held land of a superior lord, and had sworn homage to him, was known as a vassal. Under the Carolingian kings of France, the vassal relationship became extended to include the large landed proprietors and the king. In this form the institution was introduced into England by William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, following the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

From the Conquest, all the land of England was owned by the king alone, and he enfeoffed all of it, except his own royal demesnes, to earls, barons and others in return for their liability for military service. The person holding feudal land directly of the king was known as a tenant-in-chief.

The service required was based upon the constabularia of ten knights. An important tenant-in-chief might be expected to provide one or more of these units, and lesser tenants-in-chief, half of one. To obtain such knights for the king's service, the tenants-in-chief sub-infeuded some of their land. Sub-infeudation was the process by which a tenant-in-chief granted one or more of his fees to a sub-tenant. The sub-infeuding process then continued downwards to a lord of a single manor, representing only a fraction of a knight's fee. In the feudal hierarchy, the mesne lord was the lord in the middle, i.e. the lord of a manor who held (was the sub-tenant) of a superior lord, but was himself the superior lord of a lord holding one or more of his manors. The feudal service required of the sub-tenant might be knight service, or a portion of it, or something purely nominal such as the provision of a falcon or a rose at midsummer. A stop was put to any further sub-infeudation of fees by the Statute of Quia Emptores in 1291. Knight service itself was abolished in 1662.

The manor was the basic unit of estate administration. Typically the inhabitants of the early manor included villeins, bound to the land, cottagers, and one or more free holding franklins. Over a large part of England the typical manor contained a village with a church, and agricultural land consisting of two, or more, usually three, large arable fields in which the inhabitants held scattered strips. The lord's own demesne might be scattered strips or in a consolidated block, tending more to the latter as time went by. The land near the local stream was the meadow, where grass was grown for hay, and the less lush grassland was the permanent pasture for the beasts of the manor. There would usually also be some woodland. Each villein's tenement (his holding) entitled him to a certain number of strips of arable land, and grazing for a certain number of cattle and sheep.

An important part of manorial administration was the manor court, a periodic meeting of the tenantry, presided over by the lord of the manor or his steward. Every manorial court was a Court Baron, which administered the agriculture of the manor, the lord's and tenants' rights and duties, changes of occupancy, and disputes between tenants; some manorial courts were also a Court Leet, which covered the election of constables, aletesters and some other officials, and what would now be called police matters (for example, maintenance of the lock-up, disturbances of the peace, and so on).

The origins of the manorial court are lost in antiquity, but treatises on procedure were being written as early as the thirteenth century. Usually a majority of tenants held land by villein (unfree) tenure, but there were usually freeholders too, whose tenure was protected by the royal courts. In the course of the later middle ages the constraints on villeins declined, but this so-called customary tenure continued under the sole jurisdiction of the manorial court. It was only in the sixteenth century that royal courts began to protect customary tenure, known as copyhold, because on entry into the holding the tenant was given a copy of the court's record of the fact as a title deed.

During the nineteenth century the holding of manor courts gradually came to an end, and in 1925 copyhold tenure formally ended in accordance with the Law of Property Acts, 1922 and 1924.

Since 1926, all court rolls and other manorial records have had to be reported to the Master of the Rolls on request as also any changes in their ownership and custody. The Historical Manuscripts Commission maintains a Manorial Documents Register, which takes the form of two series. The first, arranged under parishes, shows the names of the manor or manors in each parish; the second, arranged under manors, shows the last-known whereabouts of the manorial records. In a great many instances the solicitors of manorial families are still the custodians of the rolls, but many have been deposited at County Record Offices. The Public Record Office and the British Library have considerable deposits, but the majority of manorial records have failed to survive.

In English Law the holding of a lordship of the manor is treated as being distinct from the actual lands of the manor. The holding, i.e. the title of lord of the manor, is regarded as being an incorporeal heridatament and is thus capable of being sold and purchased as property in its own right. It is this facility to enable landowners to raise money by disposing of their feudal title without disposing of the land it originally related to that has encouraged the creation of a market in such titles.

Eclesiastical Jurisdiction;

Parish Records/Parish Chest. In the parish you will find such records as births, baptisms, marriages and burials. These records are probably the oldest and most commononly used records, but the parish is just a part of a higher hiararchy.

Province: England and Wales were divided into two provinces, each headed by an archbishop: York (Northumberland, Cumberland, Durham, Westmorland, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, and Nottinghamshire) and Caterbury (all other English counties; Welsh counties until recent times.

Diocese: a division of a province, headed by a bishop.

Archdeaconry: a division of a diocese, headed by a archdeacon.

Rural Deanery: a division of an archdeaconry, headed by one of the parish ministers, called the rural dean.

Parish: the basic unit of geanlogical research; headed by a minister (called a rector or vicar) and forming with other parishes a rural deanery; sometimes divided into chapelries, headed by curates.

Extra parochial places: without the jurisdiction of any parish.

Non-conformists: religious organizations and their members not conforming to the established church (the Church of England or Anglican Church).

Parish registers are a major source of genealogical information from 1538 until at least 1837. Not all registers started in 1538 and not all survive, some were better kept than others, some are more legible, more complete, more detailed and more accurate. It all depended on the clergyman or parish clerk, at the time, there were no rules ecept for a short period in the 1650s until 1754, when the first printed forms for marriages were introduced forms for baptisms and burials were not available until about 1813. Some registers have gaps some have extra comments.

Most Parish registers are now kept in central record offices by law but a few parish churches still keep registers. There are also many copies indexed, computerised kept by family history societies, the Society of Genealogists has quite a large number of printed registers and also had many on microfilm and fiche.

The term Parish Register does not mean only Births, baptisms, marriages and burials. What is described as Parish records: Most records of this type are taken from the period when the parish undertook social duties now carried out by local and national government, there are various registers listing individuals in a parish. For example There are Bread Registers, Lists of Paupers, Registers of relief disbursed to the poor, Parish apprentices, Bastard Children, Militia substitutes and their wives, Watchmen, Settlement Certificates and Examinations, there may also be Pew registers, with seperate lists for those who bought their pews and those who rented them, Lists of seatholders in the church, Sunday School registers, Collection registers as well as Births, Baptisms, Banns, Confirmations, Marriages and Burials.

Lordships of the Manor:

The service required was based upon the constabularia of ten knights. An important tenant-in-chief might be expected to provide one or more of these units, and lesser tenants-in-chief, half of one. To obtain such knights for the king's service, the tenants-in-chief sub-infeuded some of their land. Sub-infeudation was the process by which a tenant-in-chief granted one or more of his fees to a sub-tenant. The sub-infeuding process then continued downwards to a lord of a single manor, representing only a fraction of a knight's fee. In the feudal hierarchy, the mesne lord was the lord in the middle, ie the lord of a manor who held (was the sub-tenant) of a superior lord, but was himself the superior lord of a lord holding one or more of his manors. The feudal service required of the sub-tenant might be knight service, or a portion of it, or something purely nominal such as the provision of a falcon or a rose at midsummer. A stop was put to any further sub-infeudation of fees by the Statute of Quia Emptores in 1291. Knight service itself was abolished in 1662.

The manor was the basic unit of estate administration. Typically the inhabitants of the early manor included villeins, bound to the land, cottagers, and one or more freeholding franklins. Over a large part of England the typical manor contained a village with a church, and agricultural land consisting of two, or more, usually three, large arable fields in which the inhabitants held scattered strips. The lord's own demesne might be scattered strips or in a consolidated block, tending more to the latter as time went by. The land near the local stream was the meadow, where grass was grown for hay, and the less lush grassland was the permanent pasture for the beasts of the manor. There would usually also be some woodland. Each villein's tenement (his holding) entitled him to a certain number of strips of arable land, and grazing for a certain number of cattle and sheep.

An important part of manorial administration was the manor court, a periodic meeting of the tenantry, presided over by the lord of the manor or his steward. Every manorial court was a Court Baron, which administered the agriculture of the manor, the lord's and tenants' rights and duties, changes of occupancy, and disputes between tenants; some manorial courts were also a Court Leet, which covered the election of contables, aletesters and some other officials, and what would now be called police matters (for example, maintenance of the lock-up, disturbances of the peace, and so on).

During the nineteenth century the holding of manor courts gradually came to an end, and in 1925 copyhold tenure formally ended in accordance with the Law of Property Acts, 1922 and 1924.

The Poor Laws:

Poor Law Records before 1834:

The Old Poor Law 1795-1834

Features of the Old Poor Law;

It relied greatly on the parish as the unit of government, and therefore on unpaid, non-professional administrators. Parishes were small and their finances were feeble so unusually heavy burdens such as those experienced between 1815 and 1821 might seem disastrous at parish level.

This was removed by the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act but the old Poor Law was more humane because those responsible for the administration of relief knew the recipients personally.

Relief may well have been greater, more well-meant and indiscriminate to individuals. Parishes had a more democratic tradition of life but by the 1820s this was breaking down. Since the ratepayers were the ones who provided the money for poor relief, they were able to change the rules.

It had a profound adherence to the principles of the 1601 Elizabethan Poor Law, which has aimed to provide social stability, to alleviate discontent and distress and to prevent riots and disaffection through outdoor relief. Actually, it created a vast and inefficient social welfare system which originally was based on the village/hamlet and was adapted in 1601 and 1750. After 1750 more extensive adjustments were needed because of ;

population increase

greater mobility

price changes

It rationalised local practises through, for example, the 1662 Settlement Laws. These laws were based on the recognised practice of returning paupers to the parish of their birth. Subsequent laws were variations on this theme. Residence of a year and a day was required for a person to qualify for relief.

There was no consistent body of practice between 1601 and 1834. Application of the old Poor Law was inconsistent, very adaptable and had much geographical variation.

The Working of the Old Poor Law

The 1601 Elizabethan Poor Law divided the poor into two groups;

The impotent poor, the sick, elderly, those unable to work, who were to be helped via outdoor relief or in almshouses. These people were classed as `would work but couldn't' .

The next group were the able-bodied paupers and it was thought that these people `could work but wouldn't' .They were to be severely beaten until they realised the error of their ways.

Relief was given in variety of ways, and not all parishes had a poorhouse or house of correction. It soon became obvious that some parishes were more sympathetic towards their poor, and this tended to result in paupers moving into that area from less generous parishes. To prevent this, parliament passed the 1662 Settlement Act which stated that a person had to have a `settlement' in order to obtain relief from a parish. This could be secured by:

birth in the parish

marriage (in the case of a woman)

working in the parish for a year and a day

If a labourer moved away from his parish of origin in search of work the JPs issued him with a certificate of settlement saying that if the man fell on hard times his own parish would receive him back and pay for him to be `removed'.

The Settlement Laws caused problems: it hindered the free movement of labour it prevented men from leaving overpopulated parishes in search of work on the `off-chance' of finding employment it led to short contracts of, for example, 364 days or 51 weeks. A man might live in a parish for 25 years, working on short contracts, and still not be eligible for poor relief later in life.

1782 Gilbert's Act

Gilbert, an MP, attempted to have this Act passed in 1765 but failed; he then spent the next 17 years attempting to have his Bill passed. He finally succeeded in 1782. The Act allowed parishes to form unions and build joint poorhouses for the totally destitute, in order to share the cost.

The Speenhamland System first saw light of day in 1795. It was introduced by the magistrates in the Berkshire village of Speenhamland (or Speen) in an effort to relieve the extreme poverty which existed and was adopted widely. The administration of poor relief was in the hands of about 15,000 parishes and few public men had any precise idea of the true situation. The general feeling was that poor relief was increasing on an unprecedented scale and the reaction to this came after 1815. The Speenhamland system became widespread in southern England and was extensively used in the so-called `Swing' counties. It offered any one, or several forms of relief:

allowances to supplement earned wages, which was the basis of the Speenhamland and other similar systems. The amount of relief to be given was calculated on the price of a gallon loaf of bread (weighing 8lb. 7oz.) and the number of children a man had. Some areas allowed between 1/6d and 2/6d per child and it was this method which caused Malthus to comment that poor labourers had large families so they could claim on the poor rates although there was no proof of this. The idea of a `supplementary benefit' of cash or flour was not new and it was intended only as a temporary measure.

the labour rate operated by a price being put on a labourer's work. The ratepayers could choose between paying a labourer or paying the rate. If the wage was less than the fixed rate, the employer had to pay the difference also. Labourers were sent round to ratepayers who employed whoever they wished, paying a set wage per man, the best workers costing more. This was not a common system

under the roundsman system, the able-bodied unemployed worked in rotation. They were sent in turn to farmers who paid a part of the wages and the parish paid the rest.

By 1796 outdoor relief was given without a workhouse test because it was a period of widespread distress and unrest. Also many paupers were not able-bodied and parishes were not big enough to cope with the problems.

Conflicting Views of the Old Poor Law

The allowance system became common during the French Wars and the general adoption of the Speenhamland (type) system met with little opposition. The cost of poor relief reached new peaks even in relation to the increased population.

In 1815 there was much political and social unrest because of the ending of the French Wars, the industrial and agricultural depression and the increase in unemployment. Attitudes towards the poor changed. There was a growing belief in the rural south that charity, over and beyond the relief of dire necessity, led to idleness and vice. There was also a belief that allowances and subsidies created excess rural population and idleness. The problem of poor relief was considered by parliamentary enquiries which led to the Poor Law Commission of 1832-34. Its report was influential and affected poor relief policy into the 20th century.

However, in the industrial north, attitudes towards poor relief were different from those to be found in the south. As industry developed, there was a need for workers and if there was work, then most people were employed. If there was no work, then everyone was unemployed. This was particularly true in the textile districts where the anti-Poor Law campaign was at its strongest. It was generally believed that the existing systems of poor relief were more than adequate to meet the needs of the unemployed and others in need of relief.

The Poor Law Amendment Act, 1834

The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act led to immediate and visible economies and a rapid fall in the cost of relief in most areas because conditions deliberately were made harsh. However, some of the `evils' it was designed to destroy were exaggerated. These included the accounts of population growth in areas where the Speenhamland and similar systems operated and the social and economic evils of giving money to the lower orders. It heralded a new administrative structure but probably harmed the relatively defenceless, rather than the idle able-bodied. On the positive side, it limited the power of the local rural tyrant, although it was less flexible than the old poor law.

The Relief of Poverty after 1834

19th-century society was poor by modern standards. Most members of the working classes were likely to be in poverty at some point in their lives because of unemployment, sickness, old age and so on. They had to rely on their children, friends or credit for support in times of hardship. The contemporary attitude was that this was right and proper, because it encouraged the poor to work.

Poverty was not seen as a social problem: destitution was felt to be the result of character weakness. This attitude led to the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act. It was believed that those in dire need would accept the workhouse. However, the alleged demoralising effects of the old Poor Law were not as bad as they were made out to be.

The new Poor Law was seen as the final solution to the problem of pauperism, which would work wonders for the moral character of the working man, but it did not provide any such solution. It improved neither the material nor moral condition of the working class However, it was less inhumane than its opponents alleged. The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act was ruthlessly and efficiently enforced in rural southern England as soon as it was passed, and was exceedingly unpopular. It was not implemented in the north until later.

In 1837 anti-Poor Law propaganda reached its climax when attempts were made to form Unions in the industrial north. The Anti-Poor Law movement was formed in Lancashire and the West Riding, led by Oastler, Fielden and Stephens. The new Poor Law was attacked in the press and on the platform.

1837 also saw the start of the `Hungry 40s', beginning with a trade depression. Industrial workers feared the workhouse which they called the Poor Law `Bastilles' .There were riots in Bradford (1837) and Dewsbury (1838). The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act was one of the causes of northern Chartism. Sir Charles Napier and his troops were based in the north of England to deal with the Chartist threat but Napier was sympathetic towards them and blamed the Poor Law Amendment Act for much of the trouble.

Army & Navy Records;

Ideally to trace a soldier you will need to know his regiment. The P.R.O also has lists of retired officers made in 1828 and an active list 1829-1919 which gives birth dates and places. The P.R.O at the family Records Center holds records of Army returns from 1761 and R.A.F returns from 1920.

Dates:

Before 1752, the year started on the 25th of March in church registers, which is why you will find a person born in December being baptised in January of the same year (this is now known as 'old style' and from 1752 it started on the 1st of January (' new style'), it is usual to show the year by double indication for dates between the 1st of January and the 25th of March; for example 24th march 1715 will be shown as 24th March 1715/16. This double indication can be found in registers before 1752.

This reform of the calender was decreed by the Pope in 1582, so you will find that some of the clergy used the new style at once, but these clergymen were soon brought to heel and reverted.

In Scotland the new style was adopted in 1600.

The later months of the year have Latin derived names geared to the March 25th start of the year and are often seen as 7ber, 8ber, 9ber, 10ber, you must resist the temptation to translate these as July to October, remember the year started with March so the firts month was April and 7ber would be September March of the following year would be the 12th month.. The Quakers did not like to use Pagan names but odly they followed the Anglican year. There was a certain confusion about the days from 25th to 31st of March, and with the change to new style, they renamed January as 1st Month.

At the same time as this reform in 1752 the calendar was corrected by removing 11 days the 3rd to 14th of September. People with their birthdates after the 2nd of September sometimes adjusted the date, which is one reason why printed biographies may not match with the birth and baptismal dates in the registers. The loss of these 11 days wa adjusted for in leases and there is no doubt that families would have made their own arrangements about birthdays, nevertheless the loss of these 11 days can make a great deal of difference in caluculations of age.

Libraries;

Many central, county and main town libraries hold collections of archives and local studies material, they may have an integrated local studies archive or heritage service, which could be considerd a prime source of relevant material. Most libraries offer superb advice and facilities. They will also provide a list or catalougue of material held for the researcher, which may not be available on the public shelves.

Newspapers;

Newspapers are one of the most easily accessible of primary sources. Local libraries often have runs of local newspapers, some dating back to the early years of the 19th century and, very occasionally, even earlier. Newspapers are valuable and much underrated sources. They can be of great help to the family historian, with their announcements of births marriages and deaths. In this respect, obituary columns can be especially useful. Newspapers often report, sometimes in great detail, particular local events and occasions, and their many advertisements provide all sorts of information concerning the sales of lands and properties, news of forthcoming events, and particular offers made by local retail outlets.

Unfortunately, apart from the Times, few newspapers are indexed. Consequently, unwary researchers can spend an awful lot of time browsing through columns of small print and although there are always absorbing stories and little bits of information to read, they will find at the end of the day, that they have added very little to their research. So newspapers should be treated with care, and time will very often be best spent when searching for information about particular known events.

The period from 1800 onwards has been a period of growth and change for newspapers: growth in the number of newspapers published, in pages printed, and in circulation figures. However, in 1800 the only daily papers printed were those printed in London. Provincial newspapers were produced weekly and, for the most part, they only provided a compendium of news taken from the London dailies. This news consisted primarily of international and parliamentary events, court news and other odd bits of information, usually there was little space devoted to local events. What is worse for the local historian, the news was printed in columns with very few headings, so that it is difficult to identify or isolate individual items quickly.

The provincial press took on this particular role of passing on the London news partly because there was no way London dailies could be distributed throughout the country quickly. Furthermore, they did not possess the technology to print huge runs of papers. It took a compositor about 5 hours to make up a page of print, and it took 1 hour for about 200 copies of a four page newspaper to be printed. It was a slow and costly business, cost were high because distribution was by stagecoach, and because during the wars with France the government imposed heavy stamp duties. In 1797, the duty was 3 pence per copy and in 1815 it was raised to 4 pence per copy. In that year the provincial newspaper the Northampton Mercury cost 7 ½ pence.

With the introduction in the early years of the 19th century, of the iron frame press and Gamble's paper making machine, the number of provincial newspapers increased. Further stimulus was given to the press when the government reduced the stamp duty to 1 pence in 1836 and abolished the duty altogether in 1855. Also, distribution costs were reduced with the availability of rail transport from the 1840's on. So, by the mid-1850's, the Northampton Mercury, although dependant on advertising revenues for its profit, was sold for 3 ½ pence, under half the price for which it was sold in 1815.

These changes meant that editors were able to increase the size of their papers and so, as well as continuing to report London and international news, they now had more space to devote to local news items. Many local newspapers were set up in the middle years of the century. Some were short lived, but most major towns had one, if not two or more local weekly newspapers by the 1850's. Local libraries will have information concerning the newspapers local to their areas, but if there is a need to research further afield, West contains an extensive list of the dates when local newspapers were started, ended or were taken over.

By the 1850's, local newspapers were providing much more of a local news service. Indeed some were employing their own shorthand reporters to cover local events. But care must be taken in using local newspapers dating from this period. First, as has already been mentioned, many towns had more than one newspaper. These papers very often represented differing political view points, so it is important to check up on the politics, ownership and editorship of particular newspapers. The Newspaper Press Directory; published annually from 1846, provides this sort of information. Secondly, some local editors were highly selective about what matters they reported. Thus one should not automatically assume, that just because the local press did not report certain local events, for example theatre events, that there were no such activities going on in the locality. Again. some editors refused to report certain controversial activities which might cause offence among their potential readership. Thirdly; special care needs to be taken by those researching villages or small towns which did not possess their own local newspaper. Although papers reported activities in the within their locality, the editor of the newspaper was invariably dependant for reports upon someone living in the village, usually the local schoolmaster or a clergyman. Consequently the reports often reflect the particular interests of the local reporter and do not necessarily give anything like a full picture of the activities within the village, However, there is one consolation for the village researcher. Reports from outside the main town are very often grouped in columns specifically devoted to local news, and the names of each village are given a small headline so that it is comparatively easy to discover reports for particular villages.

Remember, few newspapers are indexed, so that if you are not clear what you are looking for before you start work on newspapers, you can waste a great deal of time. But newspapers can be particularly useful if, for example you have established at least the rough dates of particular births, marriages or deaths of your family or local notables. Very often obituary notices can be especially helpful because the age of death is often given, and, if the individual is a person of some local standing, names of people attending the funeral may be listed, together with the church or chapel at which the service was held.

Newspapers can also be useful if you wish to explore a particular local event, perhaps in order to see what actually happened, whether and to what extent any members of your family were involved, or, in a broader sense, to see what light this event threw upon the local community. With respect to this latter point, Hammerton and Cannadine relied heavily on reports, leaders and advertisements from various local newspapers to investigate the "links and shared assumptions which bound the community" of Cambridge together during the planning and celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in the town in 1897. Clearly, care has to be exercised here because newspapers very rarely report what people other than news editors are thinking.

Local newspapers, particularly 20th century papers, can play a vital role in helping you to assess the extent of cultural activities within a town. As we have seen, more activities were reported as the 19th century progressed. By going through the editions of a weekly paper for one particular year and taking notes of reports and advertising material, you should get a good idea of the range of activities available within a given town, organised by both formal and informal associations.

Tax Rolls;

The P.R.O at the Family Records Center holds records of subsidy rolls 1524-1640, Hearth Tax Collections 1662-1689, Window Tax collections 1696-1851, and Land Tax records for 1780-1832.

Payment of land tax was a voting qualification and records gives the names of land owners anf their tennants, however, cottage occupiers were not always named.

The I.G.I;

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or The Mormons (LDS) of Salt Lake City, Utah, have compiled what must be the world's largest collection of family group sheets, there are over 10 million entries of baptism's and marriages and in addition to this they have what is called 'The International Genealogical Index' or the I.G.I for short. This is readily available for the family historian on microfilm, microfiche, cd-rom and online and what is more it is free they do not make a charge, but it is only fair that you leave as generous a contribution as you can. You should always consult the I.G.I before consulting Civil Registration, the information it gives is of tremendous use and the information it gives covers every entry of a surname occuring in baptism and marriage records indexed by the LDS in one county at a glance, here in England it spans the years from about 1540 to 1900. New and updated versions are issued about every 4 years.

The L.D.S also free of charge issue there own software for compiling your family tree this is calle Personal Ancestral File (P.A.F) see the LDS site at.

Maps, Directories and Gazateers;

Maps provide important evidence of changes in settlement and the shaping of the land by human activity. Together with other data, they provide a spatial structure on which to construct enquiry and research.

Early maps were created for a wide variety of reasons and in varying degrees by tradesmen, craftsmen, artists and surveyors.

The best place to start in seeking out maps is usually the town library or county record office, in addition, a number of specialist publications have been issued.

As a tool for research, maps are a pictorial source, but need to be evaluated critically.

There are many types of maps so it should be asked:

1. Who produced the map?

2. For what reason was it produced?

3. How was it produced?

4. How was it surveyed?

5. What does it show?

6. How detailed is it?

7. What was it intended for?

8. What was included?

9. What was excluded.

COUNTY MAPS:

The earliest useful maps began to appear in Elizabethan times, they depict counties. They show the location of towns, large villages, forests and sometimes roads, they also show the old place names. The most famous of the early county map makers are John Speed and Christopher Saxton. Saxton's county maps of England and Wales of the late 16th century are reproduced in Ravenhill.

More detailed county maps began to appear in the 18th and 19th centuries, for example, Emanuel Bowen produced a series of county maps around 1760 and John & Christopher Greenwood published maps of thirty eight counties, at a scale of one inch to the mile, between 1817 and 1834.

TOWN MAPS:

If you are researching in towns and cities, street maps can be very useful. In some places the layout of streets has changed quite little in the last two centuries, but in many other places the layout of streets would be completely different to our ancestors. Many steeets especially small alleys, have disappeared. Old street maps are useful because they show the old names of streets, they also show the local public buildings such as parish churches, chapels, workhouses, hospitals and schools, it is very helpful to know of the existence and location of such buildings.

Street maps were first produced in the late 16th century and many were being made in the 18th century. The production of urban maps grew rapidly in the early 19th century when many were produced for provincial towns especially the expanding northern industrial towns.

We must be careful though in using any commercially produced map, some incorporate proposed redevelopment's as though they had been completed, whereas they might not even have begun at all.

PAROCHIAL ASSESSMENT MAPS:

The parish levied rates to finance its expenditure on matters such as poor relief, properties were assessed for a rate, but usually by parish officials rather than surveyors. Some parish maps were prepared in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to assist the parish officials in ensuring that properties were not left out from the assessments.

The Parochial assessment maps cover both urban and rural parishes, but they are most useful for towns and cities because rural parishes are generally well covered by tithe maps.

TITHE MAPS:

Tithe apportionment maps were produced for most parishes between 1838 and 1854. These maps are useful for those studying the census records of 1841 and 1851, in building an accurate picture of places during that period. Tithe records may also provide information about the property in which our ancestors lived or the land that they worked on. Tithes were originally a payment of one tenth of the lands produce to a monastery, or later to the church for the support of the parish incumbent. Some tithe rate books, recording payments or arrears, survive in parish records at the county records office.

When the monasteries were dissolved their rights to receive tithes were often obtained by laymen to whom the monastery land was sold or granted, and the church's rights to receive tithes was also bought and sold, so that by the 19th century many tithes had to be paid by parishioners to local landowners rather than to the church. In the 17th and 18th centuries tithes were often converted by agreement into a cash payment. As the real value of the cash payments reduced with inflation, the incumbent or other tithe owner often tried to revert to the one tenth payment in kind. This resulted in many court actions, the records of which provide useful information about land in the parish. The tithe system also discouraged farmers from spending money on agricultural improvements, since the tithe owner took one tenth of the extra produce.

Tithes were converted under the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 into an annual rent on land, that varied with the market price of cereals. This was later replaced under the Tithe Act 1936, by annuities payable for sixty years by landowners to the government, the tithe owners being compensated with government stock.

From 1836 tithe commissioners were appointed to oversee or arrange the conversion of tithes to a rent charge, in some areas, commissioners reviewed and approved (by a tithe agreement) the voluntary arrangements to commute tithes that were made between landowners and tithe owners. If they could not reach an agreement the commissioners would calculate a new tithe rent charge which was then imposed. A survey was undertaken of each tithe district, usually a parish but often a township in larger parishes, to calculate the apportionment between landowners of either the agreed rent charge, or the rent charge calculated by the commissioners. The commissioners obtained evidence about the tithes that had been paid previously and included this in their reports, together with information about disputes between landowners as to how the new charge should be apportioned between them. Their decision was incorporated into a tithe award. These documents include lots of information about land, especially if there was a dispute over the tithe charge.

These surveys and agreements resulted in detailed maps and records being produced from 1838 to 1854.

ENCLOSURE MAPS AND AWARDS:

Until the 18th century much of England consisted of open fields that were farmed by a system of crop rotation. Farmers had strips in each field and also rights over the common pasture, meadows, heaths and woodland. Common land is not owned, as is often thought, by the public. It is land that was held privately (originally by the lord of the manor) but over which people had "right of common". The system of open fields, strips and commons was complex and encouraged uneconomic smallholdings. Enclosure was therefore undertaken. This involved pieces of land in different ownership being swapped and amalgamated, but also involved the division of common land between those who had previously enjoyed rights over it. The new larger fields were then enclosed, with hedges or ditches dividing the land of different owners or occupiers. Between 1700 and 1900 about 7 million acres of land were enclosed, consisting of about 4.5 million acres of open arable fields and about 2.5 million acres of common land and waste (that is marshland or moors).

At first enclosure was often carried out by private agreement between a Lord and his tenant's. Many agreements (with maps) have survived, often in landowners' estate papers. Landowners sometimes took advantage of the enclosure process to claim (for their sole use) land which had previously long been considered common land. Land was also enclosed by acts or parliament, especially during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Cole and Armstrong note that about 15,000 private enclosure acts were passed by parliament between 1760 and 1797. These acts (with maps annexed) were often only printed privately and so may now only be available in the Hose of Lord's Record Office, although some copies are held at the British, Bodleian and other libraries. The acts usually provided for appointment of a commission to survey the land, review the holdings and rights of landowners, and then divide up the land by enclosure award. The enclosure awards were usually deposited with the clerk of the peace, and are now in county record offices or enrolled at court.

Between 1801 and 1845 general enclosure acts were passed by parliament and enclosure awards were made pursuant to these acts and then deposited with the clerk of the peace or enrolled at court. The general enclosure act 1801 did not obviate the need for private acts of parliament, but simplified their passage by providing model clauses which they could include, and most acts after this date refer to the 1801 act. The general Enclosure Act 1836 allowed the enclosure of open arable fields (extended in 1840 to other types of land), without the need for an act of parliament but by an award of appointed commissioners, if two thirds of those interested in the land (in number and value of the land) agreed. Commissioners then redivided the land between those previously owning strips, or having rights of common. If seven-eights of the landowners (in number and value) agreed, they could divide the land themselves, without appointing commissioners. Awards since 1836 (with maps) were usually deposited with the clerk of the peace. The General Enclosure Act 1845 established a standing Enclosure Commission. When enclosure of land was proposed, the commission held a local enquiry and made recommendations to the House of Commons. If the enclosure was approved, it was effected by the commission. Three copies of enclosure awards (with maps) were produced. One copy was for the parish and one was retained by the enclosure commissioners. These are held at the Public Record Office (in class Maf 1). Copies were usually deposited also with the Clerk of the Peace.

Surviving enclosure awards and maps usually note the names of the new owners of the land but, if a large amount of land was being redivided, the award and map might cover most land in the parish. The extent of enclosure varied between counties. Harley notes that there was very little parliamentary enclosure in Devon, Cornwall and Kent but that about 44 per cent of common fields in Bedfordshire were enclosed by these procedures.

Tate is a detailed description of open field farming since medieval times, the enclosure process, parliamentary procedures and the work of the enclosure commission. Tate provides a detailed review or parliamentary enclosure and also includes, for each county, a list of enclosure acts and awards pursuant to private acts of parliament or the General Enclosure Acts of 1836 and 1845. Tate also notes whether a map or plan survives.

NATIONAL FARM SURVEY: 1941-1943

If your family were farmers in or around the period 1941-1943, useful information about their farm can be obtained from the records of the National Farm Survey, which are reviewed in detail, with illustrations, in Foot. These do not contain any genealogical information but, in brief, all farms of five acres or more were surveyed (that is about 3000,000 farms). The records of individual farms are in class MAF 32, noting the farmers name, whether he was the owner or tenant (and any owners name), the rent payable, the other terms of occupation, the conditions of the farm, details of crops, livestock and the number of farm workers. Maps were produced of each farm, and are held in class MAF 73.

ORDNANCE SURVEY:

In 1791 the Board of Ordnance initiated a national mapping programme but the formation of Ordnance Survey owes much to the earlier advocacy of Major-General William Roy, a renowned surveyor, engineer and archaeologist of the time. As a young man he had been responsible for the production of a military map of Scotland. This followed the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745 when Charles Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) was defeated at the notorious Battle of Culloden. In "pacifying the Highlands", as the victorious Duke of Cumberland called it, the inadequacies of the mapping then available to the army had been very obvious. Roy's hand drawn map at a scale of one inch to thousand yards now in the British Museum satisfied the military need to show routes of communication and the terrain of the countryside clearly and accurately.

Roy was later commissioned by the Royal Society, with support from George III, to measure a baseline on Hounslow Heath (where Heathrow Airport now stands) and to link up the Royal Observatories of Greenwich and Paris by triangulation, the framework upon which all scientific survey is built. For the project, and at the King's expense, Roy used a magnificent theodolite with a 3-foot diameter circle built by Jessie Ramsden, the leading instrument maker of the time. Major-General Roy's dream of a national mapping organisation responsible for the survey and mapping of the country was not to take shape, however, until one year after his death in 1790 aged 64.

The founding act of Ordnance Survey is recorded in the account book of the Board of Ordnance for 1791, when on 21 June, payment was made for a new Ramsden theodolite. This was purchased on the order of the 3rd Duke of Richmond, who as Master General of the Board of Ordnance had supported Roy's proposals for a national mapping organisation, and had been instrumental in setting up Ordnance Survey. Following the remeasurement of the Hounslow Heath base, this new theodolite, together with the original "Great Theodolite", was used to extend the triangulation until it finally covered the whole of Great Britain.

It was not until eight years later, however, when William Mudge took over as Director General, that Ordnance Survey really began to make its mark. The infant organisation was dramatically put to the test by the threat of invasion from France. The entire Ordnance Survey staff were deployed along the south coast of England to produce military maps of the counties thought to be most at risk.

So it was that the first Ordnance Survey map of Kent at one inch to one mile scale was published on 1 January 1801, not by Ordnance Survey, but by William Faden of London for the Board of Ordnance. The map was dedicated to Lord Cornwallis the then Master General of the Board of Ordnance.

These early maps illustrate that Ordnance Survey was very much a military organisation. The elaborate hill-shading and attention to communication routes highlight the emphasis given to military use. In time this military "face" would soften as map content and specification were developed to appeal to a much wider audience.

By 1805, after the decisive battle of Trafalgar, the French threat subsided and Ordnance Survey settled down to a more formal and less piecemeal programme of map publication. In that year the first of its numbered, regular maps series was produced, again at a scale of one inch to one mile - the scale which would become Ordnance Survey's "flagship". In time the One-inch map would evolve through seven distinct "series" and innumerable editions.

Thomas Colby was Ordnance Survey's third Director General. Appointed in 1820 after the death of Mudge, he held the post for 26 years - longer than any other Director General. One of the most energetic and inventive Directors, Colby brought Ordnance Survey through some momentous times, creating a number of precedents, the effects of which are still with us today. The six-inch scale, for instance, was introduced in 1825 when Colby brought almost the entire staff of Ordnance Survey to Ireland to carry out a survey of local boundaries for taxation purposes. Colby's army of Royal Engineers and Royal Artillery surveyors, together with a team of locally recruited civilians, mapped their way through the country, from north to south, producing not merely a "cadastral" boundary map, but a fully-fledged "topographical" map on which every house, stream, hill and fence was shown in minute detail.

The first map, at the six-inch scale, was of the city and local town lands of Londonderry. To establish accurate survey control, Colby set up a precisely measured eight mile baseline along the flat eastern shore of Lough Foyle. The line was measured by using a unique set of metal bars, bolted together at their centres, and known as "Colby's Compensation Bars". When the baseline was remeasured with modern electronic equipment in the 1960s, Colby's calculations were found to be only one inch adrift over the whole eight mile length. Colby also established the system of collecting and authenticating those names which were to appear on his maps. Every known variation of all proper names such as towns, rivers, lakes, hills and prominent buildings, were to be recorded in a series of Name Books, and from this selection the most widely used local variant of the name would be chosen for publication. That is still the principle used by Ordnance Survey today. The Name Book system was soon adopted for the survey of mainland Great Britain and is now regarded as a primary source for the study of the place names of these islands.

Engraving was an established means of producing printed illustrations in the industrial world. In Ordnance Survey it reached a level of technical brilliance, both on the copper plates upon which map detail was engraved and in the printing when each sheet of paper was pressed onto the plate so that the ink was literally sucked out of the finely engraved lines. Some staff became quite famous for their skills, but none more so than William Dalgleish who developed a system of copying the original engraved copper plates onto an "electrotype" duplicate, and thereby prolonged the process of copper plate printing into the era of cheaper reproductive methods.

Colby, who had moved to Southampton when Ordnance Survey took up residence at London Road in 1842, had "industrialised" the process of map-making by making each worker a specialist in one particular part of the operation. In this way each man's work was checked by the next one down the line. At the end of the day the maps were hailed as the most accurate ever made anywhere and, with their finely engraved details, were described as "unrivalled beauty".

Colby believed in sharing the hardships as well as the achievements of his staff. For example, he would travel with the surveyors and lend a hand at building the shelters and tents for his men. At the end of each arduous survey season he ordered a mountain-top feast for which a plum pudding was cooked in the field kitchen and served to all present. On one occasion the pudding weighed in at 100 lbs (45 kg).

On 30 October 1841 a severe fire badly damaged buildings in the Tower of London. As a result alternative offices had to be found for Ordnance Survey and in the afternoon of the 31 December that year the first group of staff moved into their new home, a former military school and children's home in London Road, Southampton. This was to be Ordnance Survey's headquarters for the next 101 years.

There was little time to prepare the site for such a large occupation, and staff had to find overnight accommodation wherever they could, using the town's hotels, pubs and, when these were fully occupied, the office's bare floors. They had one day, a Sunday, in which to knock the buildings into shape. Work went on all day as craftsmen, labourers and tradesmen milled around the continuous stream of new arrivals from Dublin, Cork, Cumberland and Scotland who had to uncrate instruments and documents and set up workplaces in readiness for the Monday morning start.

The atmosphere of Ordnance Survey has always been influenced by the personality of its Director General (or "Director" or "Superintendent" as the heads have successively been called). Some Director Generals have made memorable impressions on the Department; others have come and gone almost without trace. Major-General Henry (later Lt.-General Sir Henry) James was a figure who left his mark - quite literally - on many facets of Ordnance Survey. He liked to put his name on everything in which he was involved, and even some of the old buildings on Ordnance Survey's former London Road site in Southampton still bear his monogram and may be seen to this day. He made wild claims on his own behalf including, for example, that he invented the process of "photozincography" which effectively did away with laborious tracing and all its potential for error. In fact, photozincography was developed by two of James' own staff! James used Ordnance Survey as something of a great toy with which he could indulge his own interests. Using experiment as a reason he produced elaborate editions of the black-letter Book of Common Prayer and the many county volumes of the Domesday Book - all handsomely bound. He sent a bronze plaque of himself to the Ordnance Survey office in Dublin suggesting that it might be mounted on the wall of the officers' mess. Later he wrote that "it has not been treasured with the respect it deserves". But it is hard not to like this ebullient and colourful man, who, despite the aura of self-promotion which may cloud our impression of him now, took Ordnance Survey through the notorious "battle of the scales".

The scales dispute had begun in 1842 and was concerned with finding the most appropriate scales of mapping to be adopted by Ordnance Survey. The search for useful and sensible scales was complicated by changing needs as life outside Ordnance Survey changed. The One-inch map was not suitable for the detailed requirements of the Tithe surveys, or for engineers laying out the routes of new railways, or for defining the exact position of boundaries. Nor was the Six-inch map adequate for use in the implementation of sanitary reform, Land Registration and Poor Law legislation. The survey of London, begun in 1848 to meet the needs of this legislation, was in fact carried out at a scale of sixty inches to one mile. It involved observations from high vantage points including a timber structure on top of the gold cross at the very pinnacle of the dome of St Paul's Cathedral.

The battle of the scales went on until 1863 when James secured the use of the One-inch map as a general topographical map, the Twenty-five inch map for cultivated areas, the Six-inch map for mountainous and moorland areas, and the enormous scale of ten feet to the mile for built up areas with a population of 4000 or more. In some ways, the battle of the scales was still being fought out up to the time of the Davidson investigation in 1938 which finally established the three "basic" scales of fifty inches or 1:1250, twenty-five inches or 1:2500 and six inches to one mile or 1:10 560 (later 1:10 000) for built up areas, rural areas and mountainous or moorland areas respectively.

James retired in 1875 in a cloud of acrimony, especially from his civilian staff, one of whom (in a published article for a local newspaper) hoped that the next Director General would be someone "who combines large practical experience of the Department with kindliness of disposition and uprightness of character". Otherwise, the years between the resolution of the scales dispute and the start of the First World War were marked by significant events, some scientific, some domestic. Scientific activity at the time is demonstrated by the achievements of Colonel A R Clarke, who established mathematically, through international co-operation, the shape of the spheroid (figure of the Earth) necessary for accurate survey. There were new buildings at London Road; parliamentary investigations on map revision; the introduction of "continuous revision"; the South African war of 1899-1902 which took away a large number of Ordnance Survey personnel for survey and other duties and increased the Department's workload; and the arrival of Colonel Charles Frederick Close, a new and forceful Director General in 1911.

An important aspect of Ordnance Survey maps is the representation of relief in the form of contours, bench marks, spot heights and, derived from all of these, hill-shading or tints. The first national "geodetic" levelling had begun in 1841 with a datum fixed to a tide pole in Victoria Dock, Liverpool. By 1912 it became clear that a more precisely measured levelling programme was required to meet advancing needs, and so new tide gauges were opened at Newlyn in Cornwall, Dunbar near Edinburgh, and Felixstowe in Suffolk, and a network of fundamental bench marks, set on solid rock, selected after advice from the Geological Survey, was established to replace the old insecure network. This second geodetic levelling went on until 1921 when, after close scrutiny by scientists working to a European model, Ordnance Survey's levelling was found to be the equal of the best international standard. Levelling, like other aspects of Ordnance Survey's work, was to be interrupted by the Great War. The war also delayed implementation of fundamental changes to Ordnance Survey's methods of marketing and selling its maps.

Prior to 1914 Ordnance Survey's main interest centred on the sciences associated with map-making: mathematics, astronomy, and the invention of instruments to do a job which had never been done so meticulously before. Having made "the best maps in the world" (a traditional and rarely challenged claim). Ordnance Survey barely gave a thought as to how best to sell them. In 1914, the Director General, Sir Charles Close (affectionately known as "Daddy" to his staff), decided to break into the marketplace and start selling maps in a big way. This period saw the explosion of rambling, cycling and motoring as leisure pursuits, and Close was quick to see that there was a potential for huge map sales among travellers and holidaymakers.

The war in Europe, however, intervened and Close's plans for marketing maps for leisure use had to be mothballed as Ordnance Survey donned its military hat and went into the production of maps for the war effort. Many staff were posted overseas as surveyors, draughtsmen and printers, and in the ensuing four years the Department churned out over 30 million maps for the forces, and provided expert training and equipment for the armies at home and abroad. The front-line Overseas Branch of Ordnance Survey was established to keep pace with rapidly changing military conditions and narrowly missed disaster when eight enemy bombs destroyed their temporary accommodation at Wardrecques, near St Omer, in France.

The war over, Close returned to the idea of selling maps, especially small-scale maps, to the public, and a fresh new wave of map covers and advertising slogans was launched from Southampton. Close appointed a professional artist, Ellis Martin, as his Chief Designer. Martin's brief was to design map covers which would sell maps. His impact was immediate and dramatic. Within a year Close was to report the highest map sales in the history of Ordnance Survey and acknowledged in his Annual Report of 1921 that this upsurge in the Department's fortunes was due largely to Martin's attractive cover designs - one of the very few times that an individual has been singled out for praise in these official documents. Martin's success was so impressive that commercial map publishers began to follow his lead, and soon the country was flooded with motoring, cycling and tourist maps bearing imitation Ellis Martin covers. Most of these covers were pale imitations indeed.

At the same time Close engaged another new civilian professional member of staff - a radical act in an age of military dominance. This was O G S Crawford, a forceful but distinguished and likeable archaeologist who was brought in to create Ordnance Survey's new Archaeology Division. The Department had, since its earliest days, shown a keen interest in recording historical features on its maps, but it needed an expert to harness this vast and complex subject. Crawford's first publication, the Map of Roman Britain with remarkable cover design by Ellis Martin, was against all pessimistic forecasts, a runaway best seller and quickly needed a reprint. Buoyed up by this unexpected success, Ordnance Survey immediately launched its programme of archaeological and historical maps which continues to this day, although Crawford's old Division is now under the aegis of the Royal Commissions on Historical Monuments, and is no longer a part of Ordnance Survey. The rise in popularity of Ordnance Survey's small-scale maps after the First World War masked an otherwise gloomy period in the Department's life. The government had forced severe reductions in staff numbers and widened the time-lag between revisions of essential large-scale mapping. With hindsight, this was to reveal itself as a blunder which would take many years to rectify. Two Director Generals, Brigadiers Jack and Winterbotham, laboured stoically to increase government aid to the Department but were unable to change official policy, with the effect that map revision fell into serious arrears and fresh ideas floundered through lack of resources. The post-war period brought civilian and military interests into conflict as staff serving overseas with the forces returned to favoured conditions in Southampton. The Whitley Council, the civilian staff's first "voice" in its dealings with management, had been established just in time to deal with low post-war morale. The phasing out of engraving in favour of drawing brought accusations that the Department was "adopting Victorian methods of administration" as it tried to convert skilled engravers to the new drawing technique. The first moves to change Ordnance Survey from a military controlled organisation into a civilian department were made at this time, and would remain a topic for much debate for the next 60 years.

The economies imposed on Ordnance Survey after the First World War unfortunately coincided with new legislation on land registration (1925), town planning (1925), land drainage (1926), slum clearance (1930) and land valuation (1931), all of which required accurate mapping for implementation. By the early 1930s it became clear that Ordnance Survey had been left ill-equipped to supply sufficiently accurate and up-to-date maps. A Departmental Committee under the chairmanship of Sir J C (later Lord) Davidson was therefore set up in 1935 to consider how to restore the effectiveness of the national survey.

The Committee was advised by the far-sighted Director General, Major-General M N MacLeod. In 1936, MacLeod took the decision in advance of publication of the Davidson Committee Report to re-triangulate Great Britain in preparation for one of the Committee's main recommendations - to resurvey the whole country on a metric National Grid. There was no problem with the general accuracy of the Principal Triangulation, re-computed by Clarke in 1858 from the original observations of the Mudge and Colby eras, but it was established that few of the original station markers could be found. There were also inconsistencies in the lower order triangles that divided up the major framework. Major Martin Hotine was given responsibility for the planning and execution of the task which was in fact to take from 1936 to 1962, interrupted by war and other necessary triangulation tasks. It was a rugged life for the surveyors with few home comforts. Wet, muddy clothing, frozen fingers and bleary eyes caused by long hours of observing were the order of the day (and night). Two bases were measured in addition to the many thousands of observations taken. These bases were on the Ridgeway in Wiltshire and at Lossiemouth on the Moray Firth, the latter having being previously measured in 1909 to test the results of Clarke's Principal Triangulation computations. Triangulation observations in flat country were taken from special prefabricated towers known as "Bilby" towers after their American inventor. These towers, often over 100 ft high, had a totally independent inner core on which the theodolite was mounted so that the observer did not disturb the instrument's position. Nearly 20 000 triangulation stations were established, of which over 6 500 were marked by the now familiar concrete trig pillar. In 1952 one further base was measured in Caithness, Scotland. This was to put the final seal on the accuracy of an amazing network of triangles that to this day fixes the position of all features recorded on Ordnance Survey maps.

The final report of the Davidson Committee published in 1938. Its major recommendations included: the introduction of a metric National Grid as a reference system for large and small-scale maps; the recasting 1:2500 scale (twenty-five inches to one mile) map series on national instead of county lines using a national projection rather than the separate county projections which had caused problems of fit and accuracy along county borders: the introduction of a system of continuous revision for large-scale maps: the testing of a larger 1:1250 (fifty inches to one mile ) scale of survey for densely populated urban areas; the trial of a 1:25 000 (two-and-one- half inches to one mile) medium-scale map which, if successful, was to be extended to the country.

The implementation of these recommendations, which were to form the basis of Ordnance Survey's operations for the next 40 years, was however to be delayed as the Department again took on its military alter ego on the declaration of war in September 1939. This time the war came to Great Britain, and on the nights of the 30 November and the 1 December 1940, Ordnance Survey's headquarters took several direct hits during heavy air raids on Southampton. A vast quantity of irreplaceable material was lost; the buildings were severely damaged, and many completely destroyed. A lookout on the roof of the tall Jubilee Block must have been one of the luckiest men in Southampton that night when a high-incendiary bomb hit the building and passed through three reinforced concrete floors before exploding in the basement where the precious "Great Theodolite', stored there for safety, melted in the heat. This was the historic instrument used by William Roy in the work which had led to the founding of Ordnance Survey.

The damaged buildings were shored up and reoccupied as work went on, once again geared to massive wartime map production. In the years after the war, with the buildings still looking more or less as the bombing had left them, it became evident that a new headquarters was needed. Just as the fire at the Tower of London had created a similar need 100 years earlier. In the meantime, staff had to make do with working in parts of buildings left from the blitz, and several sections were scattered about in different offices. One map examiner was said to have had a tiny room to himself with the words "Broom Cupboard" on door, and to have gone unnoticed for years!

The end of the war saw Ordnance Survey's attention turned back to civil mapping requirements. High on the agenda were the Davidson Committee recommendations. With full government support work began immediately to put these recommendations to practice. The first 1:1250 (fifty inches to one mile) scale map was produced in 1947; within a year 100 sheets at this scale had been published. The face of the map carried the Ordnance Survey National Grid which was subsequently to feature on all Ordnance Survey maps. Ordnance Survey maps were also now constructed on a national projection, the Transverse Mercator Projection, and were indexed to the network of squares which formed the National Grid. This Grid provided the first truly national map referencing system by which any place in the country could be given a unique location reference number.

The first National Grid 1:10 560 (six inches to one mile) scale maps were published in 1946. These, like the National Grid 1:2 500 (twenty-five inches to one mile) scale maps first published two years later, were recompiled from old County Series sheets. The scale of 1:25 000 (two-and-a-half inches to one mile) had been used on military maps as far back as 1913 and now appeared on the Ordnance Survey National Grid in 1945 in an experimental map of the Poole area. The map was a success and coverage was extended to the majority of the country. A national map series at 1:25 000 scale - the Explorer™ and Outdoor Leisure™ map series, now superseding Pathfinder® maps - is still with us today, as are all the other scales of mapping recommended by the Davidson Committee.

DIRECTORIES:

There are many different types of directories, there are specialist directories, lists and registers of the legal and medical professions, army and navy officers, and the clergy. There are however, many commercial and trade directories were also published.

Directories were first published for cities and large towns about 1800, and a few decades later for small towns and rural areas. However, there were earlier directories for London. A directory of London merchants was published in 1677 and London directories were published annually from 1734.

Directories were originally aimed at commercial travellers and usually contained general descriptions of the city, town or village and its communications (stagecoach and railway connections). An entry for a place then listed its churches, schools, inns, Justices of the Peace, other prominent residents, farmers, shopkeepers, and other traders. Advertisements from tradesmen were often included. Directories from the second half of the 19th century are especially useful for finding the addresses of people who had their own business. This assists searches in the census records. Entries in directories of successive years may show changes of address or even a change of business.

In addition to entries for trades and businesses, directories included some private residents. Early directories included only the wealthier private residents. West shows that a typical directory of the early 19th century listed only about 6 per cent of the population of the area covered by the directory. However, as the 19th century progressed, commercial directories not only became more comprehensive in their coverage of businesses, but also began to include the names and addresses of more private residents, whether or not they were wealthy or prominent.

Gazateers:

These are an essential accompaniemnt to maps. For the 19th century the best must be Lewis's Topogrphical Dictionary this is divded into volumes covering England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, each one of them giving superb details right down to villages, hamlets and tithings. More recent publications are the Ordnance Survey & Bartholomew's Gazateers which are adequate when used with current maps.

Created by John Hugh Glen. Url http://www.btinternet.com/~johnhglen/