Become a Village Detective
If you are interested in pursuing the history of your own village, try the following:
- 1. Take a look at parish records to calculate things like population structure (age and sex breakdowns, life expectancy, family size, marriageable age, infant mortality)
- 2. The Census returns (every decade from 1801) will tell you who lived where as well as their occupation Census returns
- 3. Contact your county archives for estate records (e.g. rentals, accounts and surveys), local government archives (e.g. poor law accounts). Other classes of archives such as manorial court rolls, church court records, household wills and inventories and quarter sessions records can offer insights into life within the community.
- 4. Don't forget non-documentary sources such as monumental inscriptions.
