The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History

by David Hey (Editor)

• Used

  Paperback
  1998

  $3.25

  The last 30 years have seen a huge growth of interest in local and family history both as a subject for the general enthusiast and as an area of academic study. With over 2000 entries, this Companion provides detailed summaries of the latest knowledge in such fields as social, urban, agricultural, legal, family, and ecclesiastical history. Covering a broad canvas, from prehistory to the present day, and taking in the whole of the British Isles, the Companion paints a picture of rural and urban life. There are entries on activities from bear-baiting and Morris dancing to aerial photography and the use of computers. Individuals included range from historians, writers, and social commentators, to mapmakers, antiquarians, and architects. Institutions and organizations include the Armed Forces, manors, trades unions, Methodists, and the British Library. Cells and cellars combine with entries on cider and cinemas, emigration and employment, foxhunting and framework knitting to provide a compendium of detailed information and advice. An appendix at the back of the book lists national and major county record offices along with special collections of national interest.

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $3.25

  There has been a considerable growth in interest recently in local and family history. With the ever increasing popularity of such programmes as 'Time Team', 'The 1900 House', and 'The House Detectives' we are all the more keen to find out where we came from and what life was like for our ancestors or those who lived in our home town, city, or village prior to us. Do you know...What a dreng is? The origins of the word 'endorse'? When the first poll tax was levied? Who the Luddites were? Where the surname 'Chapman' came from? What mummers do at Christmas? What Gregory King did? The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History, now available for the first time in the Oxford Paperback Reference series, provides an authoritative and comprehensive reference work to all things associated with local and family history. With over 2,000 fully cross-referenced A-Z entries the Companion gives detailed summaries of the latest knowledge in such fields as social, urban, agricultural, legal, family, and ecclesiastical history. Covering a broad canvas from prehistory to the present day, and taking the whole of the British Isles, the Companion paints a vivid picture of past and present urban and rural life. The book also offers information on archives, how to use them and where they can be found, and defines terms most commonly known in the study of local and family history. Entries include: Individuals: writers, historians and social commentators, map makers, antiquarians and architects: 'Capability' Brown, John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, Thomas Hardy, W. G. Hoskins, Richard Jefferies, Gertrude Jekyll, Samuel Pepys, E. P. Thompson; Institutions and organizations: the Armed Forces, the British Library, the British Records Society, the College of Arms, the Inns of Court, National Register of Archives, trade unions; Agriculture: agricultural history, Board of Agriculture, cattle, cheese trade, spades, vaccary; Economic history: canals, chemical industry, Industrial Revolution, industry and trade, lace-making, poll tax, quarrying, railways, rural depopulation, smelting; Society: back-to-back housing, Black Death, Chartism, marriage, middle class, population levels and trends, Speenhamland system, town walls Church history: baptism customs, bishops' registers, Catholic Emancipation Act, minster churches, pews, Unitarians, vicar; Themes: aerial archaeology, alchemy, diet, emigration, holidays, romantic love, suicide, Welsh names; Misc.: cucking stool, belief in fairies, furlong, geese, gypsies, highwaymen, infangentheof, knitting, liquorice, nickname, postcards, rabbits, Shrove Tuesday, wall paper, wife-selling; The breadth of coverage in this Companion makes this an indispensable guide for amateur and professional researcher alike, and provides a fascinating introduction to the subject for the local history enthusiast.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1996

  $3.25

  Whether you are curious to know what your village, town, or county was like many years ago, or have an overiding desire to uncover the everyday lives of your ancestors - this is the perfect book - an unrivalled new guide to investigating how we used to live. The last thirty years have seen a huge growth of interest in local and family history both as a subject for the general enthusiast and as an area of academic study. With over 2,000 entries The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History caters admirably for this growing popularity by providing detailed summaries of the latest knowledge in such fields as social, urban, agricultural, legal, family, and ecclesiastical history. It gives guidance on where to find and how to use documentary sources, suggests books and journals to help the reader in further research, and includes entries which explain terms which may puzzle beginners in the field. Covering a broad canvas, from prehistory to the present day, taking in the whole of the British Isles, the Companion paints a thorough picture of rural and urban life . There are entries on everything from bear-baiting and Morris dancing to aerial photography and the use of computers. Individuals included range from writers, historians, and social commentators to landscape designers and antiquarians (Thomas Hardy, Richard Jefferies, Samuel Pepys, `Capability' Brown, etc.), whilst institutions and organizations ( HMSO, Armed Forces, trades unions, Inns of Court, etc.) are all fully covered. Cells and cellars combine with entries on cider and cinemas, foxhunting and framework knitting, to provide a invaluable compendium of information and advice for both the amateur and profesional researcher, and a fascinating introduction to the subject for the general reader. Contributors...Malcolm Airs, Fellow Kellogg College and Lecturer, University of Oxford John Beckett, Professor of English Regional History, University of Nottingham Anthony J. Camp, Director, Society of Genealogists Harold Fox, Senior Lecturer, Department of English Local History, University of Leicester Margaret Gelling, Honorary Reader, Birmingham University John L. Halstead, Lecturer, University of Sheffield David Hey (ed.) Ralph Houlbrook, Reader, Department of History, University of Reading Richard Hoyle, Senior Lecturer, Department of History, University of Central Lancashire David Moody, Librarian, East Lothian District Libraries D. This book is intended for general reader interested in this growing subject; students, including adult learners, of social, family, local history; amateur researchers and scholars in the field; all persons of British extraction interested in the lives of their ancestors.