BOOKS
Happy New Year to all reading this. Blogging has had to take a very big back seat over the last few months. Call it having plenty of work to do, plus a holiday in France, followed by more work to do pretty much taking me up to Christmas. I have used the festive season to award myself a very much needed two week break.
Whilst on this Christmas and New Year break the Other Half and I have visited a couple of second hand bookshops, mainly at his request. Now, I love books, book shops both new and second hand, charity shops, and libraries of all sorts. I especially love OLD BOOKS and must confess to using Google Books and the Archive.org websites to download out of print topographical volumes to assist in background research to localities inhabited by families that I am researching for clients. Other ebook sources are out there but these are my main suppliers. I now have quite a collection of ebooks on a memory stick, all nicely organised [no, not in Dewey sequence although my librarian roots could almost be tempted.....] but were it not for storage and shelving space I would much rather have the real thing which is why the visits to the book shops were so very good.
Before Christmas I attended my local AGRA group meeting down in Bristol. As part of the morning we all had to recommend a book that we were constantly referring to in course of our research work. One mentioned was the Local Historian's Enclyclopedia by John Richardson 1st edition. The ultimate reference tool with dates of varying kinds, useful for those of us who forget dates on a regular basis - neatly arranged in catagories [transport, agriculture, social welfare, architecture, heraldry and so on] with glossaries and dates for each. What particularly stuck in my mind was the names of all the railway lines, date of commencement and the company taking them over before British Rail - random stuff but useful to know...maybe. On returning home, having resolved to buy a copy, I searched the usual second hand book purchase sites and found the cost prohibitive. Imagine my delight when I found a well thumbed copy in our local second hand bookshop [Courtyard Books] for just £2! There are other editions. I also picked up a copy of a Pitkin guide to The Civil War 1642-51 and an English Heritage guide to British Battles by Ken & Denise Guest.
Our second foray into the world of second hand books was just yesterday when we went for an infrequent visit to the more expensive but very well organised and stocked bookshop in Ross on Wye, Ross Old Books.
Here I managed to pick up a copy of Dr Harry Alder 'Tracking down your Ancestors' - not one I was looking for but at only £3 it was too good a chance to miss; Welsh Family History, a guide to research edited by John & Sheila Rowlands; The Story of Heraldry by L.G.Pine - in anticipation of reaching the final modules of my course with the IHGS on Heraldry; and finally The Manor and Manorial Records by Nathaniel Hone 1912 2nd ed. - again will be helpful with the above course. Using Manorial documents more and more in my research the more information and knowledge I can gain the better! At £15 this was the most expensive volume the others all being under £3 a piece. Money well spent I think.
Finally I have treated myself to a new book - the second volume in Elizabeth Jack's Discover Gloucestershire Ancestors, your guide to the Archives. This was published just before Christmas and a companion to the first volume that came out a couple of years ago. Liz, a former teacher, writes in a very easy to read and understand style using her own family research for examples of the resources she is describing. An extremely useful addition to my library covering topics such as education and occupations [including freemen], health records, emigration, maps, directories, taxes and tithes, estates and manors. Anyone with Gloucestershire Ancestors should have these volumes either to enable research yourself or to inform yourself about the resources you could expect or ask a private researcher to use on your behalf.
I hope you have found some of these titles useful and that it has inspired you to seek out and create your own little library of useful genealogical and local history titles.
Happy New Year to all reading this. Blogging has had to take a very big back seat over the last few months. Call it having plenty of work to do, plus a holiday in France, followed by more work to do pretty much taking me up to Christmas. I have used the festive season to award myself a very much needed two week break.
Whilst on this Christmas and New Year break the Other Half and I have visited a couple of second hand bookshops, mainly at his request. Now, I love books, book shops both new and second hand, charity shops, and libraries of all sorts. I especially love OLD BOOKS and must confess to using Google Books and the Archive.org websites to download out of print topographical volumes to assist in background research to localities inhabited by families that I am researching for clients. Other ebook sources are out there but these are my main suppliers. I now have quite a collection of ebooks on a memory stick, all nicely organised [no, not in Dewey sequence although my librarian roots could almost be tempted.....] but were it not for storage and shelving space I would much rather have the real thing which is why the visits to the book shops were so very good.
Before Christmas I attended my local AGRA group meeting down in Bristol. As part of the morning we all had to recommend a book that we were constantly referring to in course of our research work. One mentioned was the Local Historian's Enclyclopedia by John Richardson 1st edition. The ultimate reference tool with dates of varying kinds, useful for those of us who forget dates on a regular basis - neatly arranged in catagories [transport, agriculture, social welfare, architecture, heraldry and so on] with glossaries and dates for each. What particularly stuck in my mind was the names of all the railway lines, date of commencement and the company taking them over before British Rail - random stuff but useful to know...maybe. On returning home, having resolved to buy a copy, I searched the usual second hand book purchase sites and found the cost prohibitive. Imagine my delight when I found a well thumbed copy in our local second hand bookshop [Courtyard Books] for just £2! There are other editions. I also picked up a copy of a Pitkin guide to The Civil War 1642-51 and an English Heritage guide to British Battles by Ken & Denise Guest.
Our second foray into the world of second hand books was just yesterday when we went for an infrequent visit to the more expensive but very well organised and stocked bookshop in Ross on Wye, Ross Old Books.
Here I managed to pick up a copy of Dr Harry Alder 'Tracking down your Ancestors' - not one I was looking for but at only £3 it was too good a chance to miss; Welsh Family History, a guide to research edited by John & Sheila Rowlands; The Story of Heraldry by L.G.Pine - in anticipation of reaching the final modules of my course with the IHGS on Heraldry; and finally The Manor and Manorial Records by Nathaniel Hone 1912 2nd ed. - again will be helpful with the above course. Using Manorial documents more and more in my research the more information and knowledge I can gain the better! At £15 this was the most expensive volume the others all being under £3 a piece. Money well spent I think.
Finally I have treated myself to a new book - the second volume in Elizabeth Jack's Discover Gloucestershire Ancestors, your guide to the Archives. This was published just before Christmas and a companion to the first volume that came out a couple of years ago. Liz, a former teacher, writes in a very easy to read and understand style using her own family research for examples of the resources she is describing. An extremely useful addition to my library covering topics such as education and occupations [including freemen], health records, emigration, maps, directories, taxes and tithes, estates and manors. Anyone with Gloucestershire Ancestors should have these volumes either to enable research yourself or to inform yourself about the resources you could expect or ask a private researcher to use on your behalf.
I hope you have found some of these titles useful and that it has inspired you to seek out and create your own little library of useful genealogical and local history titles.
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