Online resources for English local history - accessible without a Oxford University Card

provided by Janice Rand  10/2017

Janice Rand is currently studying in Oxford, England taking 6 different classes from their Continuing Education Department to assist her in researching her paternal line, Pond, and the relationship to some Phelps.   Her branch of Ponds is very closely related to a major group of southern Phelps (both yDNA and "terminal SNPs") , all being a unique E1a1 or M44 haplogroup.  She has allowed me to give to you the Online Resources she was given. We cannot vouch for the links, but I hope some of you may find them helpful.  (The underline URLs must be copied into your browser)

 

A Vision of Britain: www.visionofbritain.org.uk  Offers a 'vision of Britain' between 1801 and 2001, with access to maps, statistical trends from census reports, and historical descriptions for every locality in Britain.

Agricultural History Review: www.bahs.org.uk Website of the British Agricultural History Society, where you can search and read back issues of Agricultural History Review on all aspects of farming and agrarian life.

The Archives Hub https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/ This brings together descriptions of thousands of the UK’s archive collections. Representing nearly 300 institutions across the country, it is an effective way to discover unique and often little-known sources to support your research.

BALH: www.balh.co.uk  The website for the British Association for Local History, the national society for all local historians and publisher of the Local Historian and Local History News.

British Cartoon Archive: https://www.cartoons.ac.uk/ The BCA is located in Canterbury at the University of Kent’s Templeman Library. It has a library, archive, and exhibition gallery, and is dedicated to the history of British cartooning over the last two hundred years.

British History Online: www.british-history.ac.uk This site makes available in digital format a very wide range of published historical resources such as VCH volumes, record society publications, calendars of state records, journals of Parliament, 19th century Ordnance Survey maps and much more. Worth checking frequently for new additions.

Clergy of the Church of England Database 1540-1835: www.theclergydatabase.org.uk

Cornucopia: http://cornucopia.orange,leaf.com/ An online database of information about more than 6,000 collections in the UK's museums, galleries, archives and libraries. Whether you are interested in painters or politicians, dinosaurs or space travel, the Romans or the Victorians, Cornucopia can tell you what is available and where to see it.

Early Modern Resources: http://earlymodernweb.org A gateway to free electronic resources relating to the early modem period, roughly 1500-1800.

Geograph British Isles: www.geograph.org.uk A public project that aims to collect geographically representative photographs for every square kilometre of the UK and Republic of Ireland, with over 4.6 million images contributed so far. A wonderful resource for images of the British landscape.

Historic England https://www.historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive (formerly the National Monuments Record) the Historic England Archive holds surveys, documents, drawings, plans and photographs for all English listed buildings and archaeological sites, and aerial photographs covering the whole of England. Enquiries can be made by email or at their search rooms at Swindon.

Historical Directories: formerly http://historicaldirectories.org, now http://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16445coll4  A digital library of local and trade directories for England and Wales from 1750 to 1919.

History of Parliament: www.historyofparliamentonline.org Articles on local parliamentary constituencies, elections, and individual MPs from 1386 to 1820.

Histpop: www.histpop.org The online historical population reports website with useful essays, the published census reports and Registrar-Generals' reports, and census legislation.

HRI Online  http://hridigital.shef.ac.uk/hrionline HRI Online Publications is the publishing arm of the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Sheffield. It hosts and maintains high quality digital research resources arising from the university’s projects, including, for example, England’s Immigrants 1330-1550; the papers of Samuel Hartlib; York cause papers (14,000 cause papers relating to cases heard between 1300 and 1858 in the Church Courts of the diocese of York).

Institute of Historical Research: https://www.history.ac.uk/ The official website of the IHR, includes podcasts, details of seminars, reviews of books on history etc

Local Population Studies: www.localpopulationstudies.org.uk Website of the Local Population Studies Society which organises conferences and publishes the journal, whose back issues you can search and read here.

Locating London's Past: www.locatinglondon.org Digital mapping of London 1690-1819 with links to the Old Bailey and London Lives sites.

London Lives 1690 to 1800: www.londonlives.org Another website by the Old Bailey team, this enables searches of many different types of sources for 18th century London.

Medieval Genealogy  http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/ more than just medieval genealogy: includes links to various online resources and digitized books useful for local history.

Newspaper collection  http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~dutillieul/BritishandIrishNews.html

[put ‘Richard Heaton newspapers’ into your search engine and the home page for this comes up]  The collection on this site consists of over c.800 free searchable extracts and some full transcripts of English and Irish, Georgian and early Victorian regional newspapers. All counties covered but principally Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, London, Lancashire Middlesex, Surrey, Worcestershire, & Wiltshire.

Nottingham University Library Manuscripts and Special Collections:  http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/index.aspx The Research Guidance area has useful sections on weights and measures, reading old handwriting, dating documents etc.

Old Maps Online: www.oldmapsonline.org Access to maps which have been digitised and put online, from many national libraries, not complete map collections, but it's a start.

Overland trade: http://www.overlandtrade.org/ Tolls were levied at the Southampton Bargate on all carts leaving the town.  The data can be interrogated by searching by place, surname and commodity over a specified time period (1430-1540).

Researching Historic Buildings in the British Isles: www.buildinghistory.org A personal website with resources and links on the history of urban and rural buildings.

The Labyrinth: https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/ All kinds of online resources for medieval studies.

The National Archives http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk  the starting point to access various resources provided by TNA, including its online catalogue which now incorporates the old A2A (Access to Archives) catalogue so you can search (some of) the catalogues of other archives at the same time. Links to other sites and information about archives all over the country as well as helpful articles about different types of documents. 

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey 1674-1913: www.oldbaileyonline.org

The Victorian Web: www.victorianweb.org/ Articles on literature, history and culture in Victorian Britain.

The Workhouse: www.workhouses.org.uk A personal website offering much information on individual workhouses, their history and archives, and on the workhouse system and experience.

UK & Ireland Genealogy (GENUKI): www.genuki.org.uk GENUKI provides a 'virtual reference library' of genealogical information for the UK and Ireland, including transcripts of some primary sources by volunteers and references to many others.

UK Data Service: www.data-archive.ac.uk  This houses the largest collection of accessible computer-readable historical data in the United Kingdom.

CHECK COUNTY LIBRARY SERVICES for online resources available to library ticket holders

Online palaeography courses:

Durham University Library Special Collections: links to various palaeography courses etc https://www.dur.ac.uk/library/asc/collection_information/understanding/deeds/

English Handwriting 1500-1700, an online course: from the University of Cambridge, Faculty of English http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/ceres/ehoc/index.html

Medieval and Early-modern palaeography: designed by Dr Dave Postles, University of Leicester, Department of Local History http://paleo.anglo-norman.org/

Palaeography: reading old handwriting, 1500-1800: a practical online tutorial offered by The National Archives http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pal