WHICH SOURCES DO YOU NEED TO CONSULT?

Before you start to research, list what you need to look up and where to find it. These will be basically as follows:

Primary sources about the building

Deeds

The most recent deeds may be with your solicitor or held by your mortgage provider. Earlier deeds may have been given to the local record office by a former occupant, or they may have been lost, in which case you’ll need to work back through other sources to try to dig up the information.

Land Registry

You can obtain a copy of the title register details and title plan for your property (in England and Wales) from the Land Registry via their online service at www.landregisteronline.gov.uk, for a small fee. The title plan is a plan of the property and shows boundaries. The register information usually includes:

• a description of the property;
• who owns it;
• the mortgage lender (if any);
• the price (if registered since 1 April 2000);
• rights of way (excluding public rights of way) or other rights affecting the property;
• restrictions or conditions.

If you don’t have access to the internet you can get the information by post. Your nearest District Land Registry office or legal stationer will have the form you need to apply for a copy of the register.

The Land Registry may be able to supply you with information about previous transfers of the property (i.e. when it was bought or sold), but the searches through their records may take some time and be quite expensive. It’s worth noting that the information in their files dates only from the time that the property was first registered with the Land Registry, which might be much later than the date when the property was built.

Manorial records

If the land was part of a manor at one point it may be listed in the rentals, extants or estate maps (see Chapter 8 for more details about manorial records). Your local record office may be able to help you find out where the documents are held.

Ordnance Survey Maps

Most libraries and record office have copies of the 1-inch series maps. There are excellent collections at the National Archives and the British Library. You can see the 6-inch editions online on the Old Maps website www.old-maps.co.uk. There may also be some earlier maps online, depending on your county’s archive; for example, Norfolk has various maps (including aerial photography) at www.historic-maps.norfolk.gov.uk/ and East Sussex has pre-1813 maps at www.envf.port.ac.uk/geo/research/historical/webmap/sussexmap/sussex.html.

Sales particulars

These may be in local record office collections of catalogues from sale houses/auctions, but you will need to know the precise date of the sale, to save having to wade through enormous amounts of information.

Building control plans and planning applications

These are held at local record offices, and at local building control or planning departments.

Road order maps and deposited plans

These are held at local record offices.

Glebe terriers

If the building belonged to the church these are held at your local record office or diocesan office.

Secondary sources about the building

Pevsner

The volumes of Pevsner’s Buildings of England series covering your area are likely to be available at your local reference library as well as local bookshops.

The Victoria History of the Counties of England series

The volumes covering your area will be available at your local reference library. You may also be able to access some of the pages (particularly those referring to ecclesiastic buildings) at the British History Online website www.british-history.ac.uk.

Department of Environment list

This is available at your local council planning department, county council offices and most local reference libraries. It is also available at the National Monuments Record, Kemble Drive, Swindon SN2 2GZ. Photographs of buildings that were on the list in 2001 are available online at the English Heritage website Images of England: www.imagesofengland.org.uk/.

Standard local history

The history for your county should be available at your local reference library (for example, for Norfolk it’s Blomefield’s An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, in 11 volumes).

Monographs

Any monographs that may be relevant to your research (e.g. a book or pamphlet on the history of a particular building, parish, town or family) should be available at your local reference library.

Primary sources about the occupant

Deeds

Sources as above.

Land registry

Sources as above.

Census returns

The originals are kept at the Family Records Centre in London (part of the National Archives), but the ones for your county should also be available in your local record office and/or local studies centre on microfilm or microfiche. You can also search digital images and transcriptions of the 1901 census online at www.1901censusonline.com. It’s free to search the indexes, although you’ll need to pay a small fee to see the census pages and transcripts. You can also search the 1891 census at www.ancestry.co.uk. The Society of Genealogists also holds copies of the returns for 1841–61 and 1891 on microfilm.

Hearth tax assessments

Assessments for Michaelmas 1662 to Lady Day 1666 and for Michaelmas 1669 to Lady Day 1674 are in the National Archives, series E179. Other years are held in local record offices, either on microfilm or microfiche. Between 1666 and 1669 the tax was collected by commissions (freelance collectors, known as ‘farmers’) and few lists of taxpayers survive.

Land tax assessments

These are available at county record offices, on microfilm or microfiche. They are usually found in the quarter sessions, in the records of the Clerk of the Peace. For the 1798 assessments see the National Archives, series IR23 and IR24.

Poll tax assessments

These are kept at the National Archives in series E179 and E182, though your local record office may have some lists.

Window tax assessments

These are kept at county record offices.

Wills and administration grants

Your local record office may have copies of proved wills and administration grants on microfiche. There may also be probate inventories.

Primary sources about both building and occupant

Tithe maps and schedules

The National Archives hold copies of each map in series IR30 and each schedule in series IR29. Copies are also held at county record offices, usually on microfilm or microfiche as well, and diocesan record offices. You may also be able to access them online, depending on your library service.

Valuation Maps 1910–15

These are also known as the Domesday maps. The working plans are held at county record offices, though it’s worth noting that not all record offices have complete collections of the maps. The record sheet plans are held at the National Archives. They’re split by region, and within each region there are up to 22 districts. The references for the regions are as follows:

• London – IR121;
• South East – IR124;
• Wessex – IR125;
• Central – IR126;
• Anglia – IR127;
• Western – IR128;
• West Midland – IR129;
• East Midland – IR130;
• Welsh – IR131;
• Liverpool – IR132;
• Manchester – 1R133;
• Yorkshire – IR134;
• Northern – IR135.

Enclosure award maps and hereditaments

These are held at your local record office and also at the National Archives in series MAF1.

Rate books

These are held at your local record office, though note that there may not be a complete series of rate books. It’s more likely that there will be gaps.

Secondary sources about both building and occupant

Street/trade directories

These are held at local reference libraries and/or local record offices. There are also some searchable copies online at the University of Leicester Historical Directories website www.historicaldirectories.org. You may be able to buy facsimile copies in book or CD form; originals do turn up in antiquarian and second-hand bookshops, but tend to be expensive.

Local newspapers

Copies are held (usually on microfiche) in local reference libraries, often in the county’s local studies area. Your local newspaper group may also have a library you can search through, though you’ll probably need to book a time slot and pay a fee to use the library as well as further fees for any copies of material you want to take away. However, the good news is that they’ll be able to advise about copyright if you want to publish any of their material.

Oral sources about both building and occupant

These might include:

• former occupants;
• neighbours;
• local historians.

RECORD-KEEPING

Organising your notes properly right from the start will save you a lot of time. If you just write everything down in a bound notebook, you won’t risk losing anything – but you’ll also have to spend ages finding it again! So you need to think about the information you’re collecting, how you want to use it and the best way of retrieving the information quickly.

While I was researching the history of Mill House I tended to make notes in the library or record office by longhand in a notebook, then transferred my notes straight to the computer when I returned home. Although this method does carry a small risk of mistranscribing the data, when you’re working in the small space next to a microfilm or microfiche reader it’s an awful lot easier to write in a shorthand notebook than it is to balance a laptop computer on the edge of a desk or on your lap!

When typing up the data I tended to use tables, which allowed me to mimic the columns of rate books, census returns and the like. This also made it easier to transfer details to a list of known occupiers and/or owners.

Noting your sources

It’s important to make a note of your sources because:

• You may need to refer to the source again later and if you’ve noted it properly it will save you time locating the information again.
• If you’re publishing your research as an article or book, you need to list your sources either as footnotes or in a bibliography.

It’s also worth making a note of sources you decide not to use (and why). You can easily forget over a period of time if you decided not to use a source, then waste time locating it again only to find that it’s not useful.

The usual way of listing sources is:

• Books – A.N. Author, Title of Book (publication date), place of publication, publisher, page number.
• Articles – A.N. Author, ‘Title of Article’, Title of Magazine, volume number, issue number, (publication date), pages where the article appears.
• Reports – A.N. author, Title of Report (publication date), name of organisation issuing the report, report number.
• Internet articles – A.N. Author (date), ‘Title of Article’, Title of Online Magazine [Online], volume number, issue number, available from [URL reference, i.e. in the form website.co.uk/pagename.html (date accessed).
• Other internet documents – A.N. Author (date, if given), Title of Document [Online], available from [URL reference, i.e. in the form website.co.uk/pagename.html, (date accessed).

Your local record office will be able to give you information about how to record the sources for original documents – for example, the tithe map and apportionment for Attleborough in Norfolk would be recorded as NRO (standing for Norfolk Record Office) DN/TA 84 (which stands for Diocese of Norwich/Tithe Apportionment). Most record offices have a system of letters and numbers which they use to locate documents; the letters will give you an idea of what sort of document it is.

VISITING THE RECORD OFFICE

Before you visit the local history section of the library or the local record office it’s worth doing some groundwork. Most country libraries and record offices have websites that contain answers to most of the questions you would ask. These include:

• How to get there (including parking and public transport).
• Whether you need a reader ticket and which documents you need to take with you to register for a ticket.
• Opening hours.
• Access for special needs.
• An online catalogue; this is useful for helping you find the basics, though the archivists will probably be able to give you more detailed advice when you get there. You can also see online catalogues at the Access to Archives (A2A) website www.a2a.org.uk
• Whether you need to book a seat, map table or microfilm/fiche reader in advance and how long the slot is.
• Whether you can use a digital camera or tape recorder; also whether you need a photography permit and how to obtain one.
• Information leaflets (these can help save time in locating references).
• Document production – how many you can order at once and how frequently they’re fetched.

There are certain rules common to all archives, which basically are there to protect the documents and the rights of other users:

• No smoking.
• No eating or drinking, including sweets or gum.
• Use pencils only as ink, ballpoint, highlighter and gel pens are not erasable and can damage documents – so can the debris from pencil sharpeners and erasers, so if you need to sharpen your pencil you’ll need to do it outside the search room.
• Leave all bags, coats, umbrellas, folders, laptop cases, plastic bags and briefcases in lockers.
• Switch off all mobile phones or put them on silent operation and don’t use them in the area.
• Silence in the room so you don’t disturb other researchers.

Things you will be allowed to take into the search rooms include:

• Laptop computers (but not the case – this also applies to cameras).
• Notebooks and loose papers.
• Pencils.
• Glasses.
• Money (e.g. for photocopying fees).

Some record offices give you a transparent plastic bag to hold your personal items while you’re in the search room.

WORKING WITH ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS

If you haven’t worked with original documents before, ask the librarian or archivist for help- it’s part of their job to help new researchers. They’ll show you how to use cushions to support the spines of books, and how to use the weights for rolled documents. A few rules of thumb, some of which are obviously common sense, but are still worth noting:

• Make sure your hands are clean and dry.
• Handle the documents as little as possible (the grease from your hands can cause damage) and try not to touch written text.
• Don’t use a pencil to point out or follow entries, or put any other mark on the documents – use a piece of white acid-free paper instead under the line of text to help you keep your place. The record office will have these on request.
• Use pencils only for making notes, and don’t use a rubber or sharpener in the search room.
• Put bound volumes on stands, wedges or cushions to support their spines, not flat on the table and turn the pages carefully.
• Make sure the whole document is on the table and nothing hangs over the edge otherwise it’s easy to damage documents.
• Don’t rest anything, including your hand, notebooks, papers or magnifying glasses, on the documents – if your document is in a roll or outsize, the record office staff will give you special weights to use.
• If you request a bundle of documents such as deeds, make sure you return them in the same order as you found them and don’t mix them up with other document bundles.
• Take the documents back as soon as you’ve finished with them.
• Make a note of the references you used before you start making notes. If your search wasn’t successful, make a note of what you looked for and that you failed to find it – it will save you going over the same ground in a few months’ time when you’ve forgotten that you looked at this particular document or bundle.
• Return documents promptly and in the order you received them.
• For microfilm, when you’ve finished using the film wind it back onto the spool it was on originally.
• For both microfilm and microfiche, return it to the correct storage slot. You should also have a ‘marker’ (usually a coloured plastic box for a film or a card for fiches) to put in place of the microfilm or fiche you’re using, with a label to show which machine is using it, to let other researchers or library staff know.
• Check with record office staff if you wish to trace something. If possible, place a clear plastic sheet between the tracing paper and the document to save wear and tear on the document.

Making copies

There are some restrictions on copying documents in a record office. Some documents can’t be copied because:

• Copying will break the law of copyright (particularly with maps and illustrations).
• Copying could damage the binding of a book.
• The document is too fragile or delicate to be copied.

It’s often possible to have printouts from microfilm or microfiche (for a fee), and you may be able to arrange photographic copies of more delicate material (again, for a fee). Flash photography isn’t usually allowed and neither is the use of hand-held scanners.

Transcribing

When transcribing (making a handwritten or typed copy) from an original document, only write what’s there – don’t modernise the spelling. Spelling wasn’t standardised until the eighteenth century, and you may also find names transcribed wrongly, misheard and even spelled according to dialect. If you write out an abbreviated word in full, put square brackets round the letters you’ve added so you have a clear record of what’s there in the original and what you’ve added. If you’re not sure what something says, either put a question mark before your interpretation of the word or leave a blank space between square brackets. For an example see Appendix 2, Transcription of Abstract of Title.

There are common abbreviations – C. T. Martin’s The Record Interpreter is a superbly helpful resource here, as it gives Latin and French abbreviations, explains the conventions of abbreviations, gives a glossary of Latin words, and gives Latin versions of place names, first names and surnames. Denis Stuart’s Manorial Records is also an excellent source of common Latin terms and you may find it useful to work through the examples for transcription/translation.

Appendix 1 contains a list of common English abbreviations in title deeds.

A couple of places to get you started on deciphering old handwriting are the course at the National Archives website www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography/ and the online palaeography tutorial from Cambridge University www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc/. There are also helpful books on reading old handwriting; the ones I found useful are listed in Appendix 5.

Copyright

The laws of copyright apply to transcriptions as well as to original material. If in doubt, ask the record office staff for advice. There is no copyright in fact (for example, that John Smith was born on 1 March 1800); but if someone has already transcribed parish records they own the copyright of the form in which the material is presented, so you would need to obtain permission before publishing it.