Wisdom Wednesday: Museum of London

Some of my older posts suggest resources for researching in London. Let me add one of the most obvious of all – the Museum of  London which covers all aspects of the city and its inhabitants from pre-historic times to the present.

The Museum of London www.museumoflondon.org.uk has two locations:

1.      150 London Wall, London, EC2Y 5HN

2.      Museum of London Docklands, No. 1 Warehouse, West India Quay, London, E14 4AL
 

Large history collections are a wonderful source of information about the city where your ancestor lived, filling in the story and background. There are a few collections within the museum that might yield names and employment records, if an ancestor worked for such widely dissimilar employers as the Port of London or Sainsbury supermarkets. From the museum’s main page, click ‘Collections and Research’ to begin accessing this gold mine of information.

Besides maintaining its displays, the MOL organizes walking tours with titles such as ‘Roman London’ and ‘Shakespeare’s London’.

Both locations are open seven days, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. except Dec. 24-26. Admission is free.

Note: The Museum's logo is not just an example of contemporary art, it represents the city's borders through the ages.

Wisdom Wednesday: London in 1700

    
Waller, Maureen. 1700:  Scenes from London Life. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2000.

Most of my English ancestors are from rural areas. What I know about London life I learned from Oliver Twist and Tim Cratchit.  I needed a book to fill in some details and found the one above at a used book sale. The first five chapter headings were intriguing and should catch the eye of all genealogists: marriage, childbirth, childhood, disease and death.

I am not surprised to find that the author wrote an entire book about marriage after reading the first few pages of this book’s ‘Marriage’ chapter. She points out the constraints put on marrying couples by the church, including the costs. People were put off by the reading of the banns, seeing them as an invasion of privacy. Since this practice continued into my lifetime in my childhood church, I never really gave it any thought. Waller describes the clandestine marriage mills in London where about one-third of the ceremonies in 1700 were performed, in order to avoid the church requirements.
 
Waller later wrote a book that used all the information she gathered about London in 1700 called Ungrateful Daughters: The Stuart Princesses Who Stole Their Father’s Crown. This book is about the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Mary II and Queen Anne whose reign ended in 1714.

            Other books by Maureen Waller:

The English Marriage: Tales of Love, Money and Adultery
London 1945: Life in the Debris of War
A Family in Wartime: How the Second World War Shaped the Lives of a Generation
Ungrateful Daughters: The Stuart Princesses Who Stole Their Father’s Crown
Sovereign Ladies: Sex, Sacrifice and Power – The Six Reigning Queens of England

All of the books are available on amazon.com.

 

Wisdom Wednesday: FFHS Notes from the Field

Mid-September will bring some happenings at research facilities in the UK. The Federation of Family History Societies has sent notices of these events and closings. You can get this information firsthand by subscribing to the ffhs-news at their website www.ffhs.org.uk. (It is the second link at the top right of their home page.)

Friday, 13 September 2013– Closing of Reading Room at the Royal Free (Hospital) Archive Centre, London


The Royal Free Hospital is transferring its archive collections to London Metropolitan Archives. The collections are due to become available there in early 2014. During the move, the staff will continue to answer as many enquiries as possible, subject to staff and document availability. Contact them at www.archive.enquiries@nhs.net

Saturday, 14 September 2013 - Essex Record Office, Chelmsford
75th Anniversary and Open Day, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, free admission; details at www.essexrecordsofficeblog.co.uk/ero75

Essex has one of the longest-established Record Offices in England. This year, it will celebrate 75 years of preserving the county’s past by holding an Open Day with various activities including behind-the-scenes tours, displays, archive films and an opportunity to ask questions at the research helpdesk.

15 September 2013 – Spring 2014 - Manchester City Library, Deansgate

The current temporary arrangements will change on 15 September, when the Manchester Room at Central Library, Elliot House, Deansgate, and the Greater Manchester County Record Office will both close. From then until Manchester Central Library re-opens there will be restricted access to their holdings. You can find more details at www.archiveslocalstudies@manchester.gov.uk which has a fair number of online resources available.
Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society will remain open during this period.

Wisdom Wednesday: Book Alert

Today I want to mention some new books that will be of interest to UK researchers. Please notice that my title indicates that this post is not a book review (because I have not read the books) but only an alert to titles that you should explore further.

The first is Greater London: The Story of the Suburbs by Nick Barrett. This came out 17 Dec 2012, and thus we all may have missed it in the holiday rush. It is available at amazon.com and in Kindle form.

If you have ancestors in the London area, you know that most books that cover the history of London do not include information about the outlying areas, many of which are now absorbed into the city itself.

From amazon.com: “By looking at the whole of the greater London area from Roman times to the present…Dr Nick Barratt is not only able to show how areas as far apart as Hendon and Streatham, Ealing and Leytonstone developed over hundreds of years but also to demonstrate the crucial role they played in the creation of the capital.”

The author, NICK BARRATT, PhD, began as a researcher at the BBC where he is now a presenter, reviewer and commentator on all aspects of history, with a particular interest in family and medieval history.

Barrett's Greater London could give you the background you are seeking. For basic how-to, you might want to check out this recently published book, Tracing Your London Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians by Jonathan Oates. It was published by my old friends at Pen and Sword Books in July 2011. There is another book in the series, Tracing Your East End Ancestors by Jane Cox from 2011.

Jonathan Oates has a newer book that came out from the same publisher on July 2012 and could potentially help many, many genealogists. It is called Tracing Your Ancestors 1066-1837. The last three books are available also at amazon.com and in Kindle version for less than $8.00 each. Without many city folks in my family tree, I think this last one will be my next purchase.