Birth of the project
Britain has had a very long tradition of local historical studies. In terms of their duration, variety and accuracy, England has possibly the best local historical records in the world, stretching back to the fourteenth century.
'...England has possibly the best local historical records in the world...'
The growth of County Record Offices from the 1950's made these accessible in a new way. I had spent many months researching witchcraft in the Essex Record Office in the early 1960's so I was aware of the richness and diversity of the documents. Social anthropologists were showing that intensive studies of small communities could show a 'world in a grain of sand' and tell us something much more general about how a society worked and changed. Historians of population were just starting to show how valuable it was to link records together, particularly baptisms, marriages and burials - and I thought that this might be extended to other types of record.
Published: 2001-05-01
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