Origins Network Genealogy News: March 2008

Origins Network News: 1871 England & Wales Census now Complete

All counties of England and Wales 1871 Census, plus the Isle of Man, Channel Islands and Royal Navy At Sea, are now complete on British Origins - over 22 million searchable names and images ot the original census documents. We believe our census indexes to be the most accurate available, and over 60 million names from three censuses (1841, 1861 & 1871) are now available on British Origins (www.britishorigins.com)

The census records are searchable by name, age, birth place, parish and county. The index records include the source record references, so that users with access to CDs of the original census records can use The Origins Network census index alongside these CDs.

For full information visit: www.origins.net/help/popup-aboutbo-census1871.htm

About Origins Network   (www.origins.net)
Specialising in Britain and Ireland, the Origins Network provides an extensive range of collections for the genealogist and family historian. Most of these collection, which date as far back as the 13th century, are unavailable anywhere else online,

For details on our British Origins ans Irish Origins services, how to sign up and subscription rates, please go to: www.origins.net/signup-info.aspx. 


Old Books
By Sherry Irvine, CG, FSA Scot

All my old books, nice dry ones and musty ones, are about local history – whether parishes, or towns or counties. A few books are well over 100 years old; some of them are musty and remained carefully wrapped when I don’t need them. Reading my old books I sense something different. They speak from the past helping me gain a better understanding of what life was like for my ancestors.

I have been looking at some of the volumes now available in the Origins Store (www.origins.net/store/store.aspx) and realizing that they offer a solution to any space problems or worries about mould. The store offers hundreds of volumes published on CD-ROM by Archive CD Books, and they include many local history titles. Here are two.

  Two Local History Titles

Lyson’s Environs of London and the Towns, Villages and Hamlets within Twelve Miles of London, 5 volumes in all, are on one disk. Dates of publication were from 1796 to 1811.That is 200 years closer to the past than any modern author can get. Not only that, the description of each place contains sources and many detailed footnotes. Daniel Lyson interviewed local people, consulted original documents and read the works of historians who preceded him.

I read about Stoke Newington, three miles to the north of London. I now know how many cows were there in 1811 and who the land proprietors were in 1637. I discovered when churches were built and the names on memorials inside. I was treated to excerpts from several wills and from vestry minutes. What my ancestors experienced emerged – plague, the Civil War, and the arrival of a large number of Palatines, refugees from Germany in 1709. A few oddities were described, including the man who asked to be buried vertically, with his head nearest to the surface.

  The Gentleman's Magazine Library, 1731 to 1868, is made up of county descriptions, three or four to a volume in alphabetical order. I read the account of Westmoreland. Much of the content is in summary form: the antiquities, topographic features, public buildings, large houses (or seats), local produce and manufactures, and eminent people. There is a long section on the public schools in the county followed by sections for each of the major towns. The focus is in these accounts is upon churches and castles and prominent families. There are miscellaneous observations such as this:  

"The town (Kirkby Stephen) has no magistrate but a petty constable; the people in general are hospitable, their manners are plain and open, their constitution vigorous, and their apprehension quick."