Recommend Reading
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Tracing Your Ancestors from 1066 to 183
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I recently picked up a new book for my genealogy research collection. It's titled "Tracing Your
Ancestors from 1066 to 1837: A Guide for Family Historians" and it's written by Jonathan Oates. This book is a straightforward guide to exploring your British ancestry back to the Middle Ages, before 1837, which is when civil registration began.
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The book explains that tracking ancestors in the Victorian era and the 20th century is generally straightforward due to the abundance of records available. However, tracing your family history further back, especially before 1837 when birth, marriage, and death registrations began, and before the first detailed census
in 1841, is more challenging. If you want to explore your family lineage back through the early modern period, or even into the Middle Ages, this book is a great resource.
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Jonathan
Oates begins by providing an overview of the administrative, religious, and social frameworks of the medieval and early modern periods. Understanding these aspects is crucial for anyone interested in family history research. He then leads readers through a variety of historical sources that can be incredibly useful for research. These include church and parish records, professional and court records, manorial and property documents, tax records, early
censuses, loyalty lists, militia lists, and charity records. There's also a section on how to read medieval and early modern handwriting, which can be quite different from modern script.
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Overall, "Tracing Your Ancestors from 1066 to 1837" is an essential guide for anyone looking to extend their family history research into deeper history. It's a great starting point for delving into the fascinating world of ancestral research in times when record-keeping was very different from today.
