Get started
First choose your subject. Think about what interests you particularly. What intrigues you about your area? It might be, for example:
- the history of your house
- the history of your house
- the development of your town or village
- a local industry, craft or business
- an area of countryside near you
- the lifestyles of your family in the past
- a particular theme such as domestic servants at the nearby 'big house'
When you have thought about what really interests you, and found something that you feel 'comfortable' with, you can begin work. Don't be too ambitious to begin with - start out with modest ambitions. You may find that what you think will be a short project just grows and grows.
There are not many people who set out with the aim of writing a full-sized book, or discovering the history of an entire community, and you don't have to start out in that way either.
Published: 2005-03-03
