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The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History
If, like many Americans, you're curious about your English past, and wish to know what your village, town, or county was like many years ago, or have an overriding desire to uncover the everyday lives of your ancestors, then The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History is the perfect book,
an unrivalled new guide to investigating how we used to live before we came to the United States.
The last thirty years have seen a huge growth of interest in local and family history both as a subject for the general enthusiast and as an area of academic study. With over 2,000 entries The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History caters admirably to this growing popularity by providing
detailed summaries of the latest knowledge in such fields as social, urban, agricultural, legal, family, and ecclesiastical history. It gives guidance on where to find and how to use documentary sources, suggests books and journals to help the reader in further research, and includes entries which
explain terms which may puzzle beginners in the field. Covering a broad canvas, from prehistory to the present day, taking in the whole of the British Isles, the Companion paints a thorough picture of rural and urban life.
There are entries on everything from bear-baiting and Morris dancing to aerial photography and the use of computers. Individuals included range from writers, historians, and social commentators to landscape designers and antiquarians (Thomas Hardy, Richard Jefferies, Samuel Pepys, `Capability'
Brown, etc.), while institutions and organizations (HMSO, Armed Forces, trades unions, Inns of Court, etc.) are all fully covered. Cells and cellars combine with entries on cider and cinemas, foxhunting and framework knitting, to provide a invaluable compendium of information and advice for both the
amateur and professional researcher, and a fascinating introduction to the subject for the general reader.
Contributors...
Malcolm Airs, Fellow Kellogg College, Oxford and Lecturer, University of Oxford
John Beckett, Professor of English Regional History, University of Nottingham
Anthony J. Camp, Director, Society of Genealogists
Harold Fox, Senior Lecturer, Department of English Local History, University of Leicester
Margaret Gelling, Honorary Reader, Birmingham University
John L. Halstead, Lecturer, University of Sheffield
David Hey (ed.)
Ralph Houlbrook, Reader, Department of History, University of Reading
Richard Hoyle, Senior Lecturer, Department of History, University of Central Lancashire
David Moody, Assistant District Librarian, East Lothian District Libraries
D. Huw Owen, Keeper of Pictures and Maps, The National Library of Wales
David Palliser, Chair of Medieval History, School of History, University of Hull
Charles Phythian-Adams, Head of Department of English Local History, University of Leicester
Nigel Ramsay, Curator, Department of Manuscripts, The British Library
Brian Short, Senior Lecturer, School of Cultural and Community Studies, University of Sussex
Joan Thirsk, former Reader, University of Oxford
Kevin Whelen, Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, and Visiting Scholar, Boston College
an unrivalled new guide to investigating how we used to live before we came to the United States.
The last thirty years have seen a huge growth of interest in local and family history both as a subject for the general enthusiast and as an area of academic study. With over 2,000 entries The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History caters admirably to this growing popularity by providing
detailed summaries of the latest knowledge in such fields as social, urban, agricultural, legal, family, and ecclesiastical history. It gives guidance on where to find and how to use documentary sources, suggests books and journals to help the reader in further research, and includes entries which
explain terms which may puzzle beginners in the field. Covering a broad canvas, from prehistory to the present day, taking in the whole of the British Isles, the Companion paints a thorough picture of rural and urban life.
There are entries on everything from bear-baiting and Morris dancing to aerial photography and the use of computers. Individuals included range from writers, historians, and social commentators to landscape designers and antiquarians (Thomas Hardy, Richard Jefferies, Samuel Pepys, `Capability'
Brown, etc.), while institutions and organizations (HMSO, Armed Forces, trades unions, Inns of Court, etc.) are all fully covered. Cells and cellars combine with entries on cider and cinemas, foxhunting and framework knitting, to provide a invaluable compendium of information and advice for both the
amateur and professional researcher, and a fascinating introduction to the subject for the general reader.
Contributors...
Malcolm Airs, Fellow Kellogg College, Oxford and Lecturer, University of Oxford
John Beckett, Professor of English Regional History, University of Nottingham
Anthony J. Camp, Director, Society of Genealogists
Harold Fox, Senior Lecturer, Department of English Local History, University of Leicester
Margaret Gelling, Honorary Reader, Birmingham University
John L. Halstead, Lecturer, University of Sheffield
David Hey (ed.)
Ralph Houlbrook, Reader, Department of History, University of Reading
Richard Hoyle, Senior Lecturer, Department of History, University of Central Lancashire
David Moody, Assistant District Librarian, East Lothian District Libraries
D. Huw Owen, Keeper of Pictures and Maps, The National Library of Wales
David Palliser, Chair of Medieval History, School of History, University of Hull
Charles Phythian-Adams, Head of Department of English Local History, University of Leicester
Nigel Ramsay, Curator, Department of Manuscripts, The British Library
Brian Short, Senior Lecturer, School of Cultural and Community Studies, University of Sussex
Joan Thirsk, former Reader, University of Oxford
Kevin Whelen, Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, and Visiting Scholar, Boston College
528 pages, Hardcover
First published June 20, 1996
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 25, 2009
I'm not sure at what point one can say one has "read" a reference book such as this. But I think I've read enough to comment on it. It is quite a substantial book and comes at quite a substantial price (£25.00), which I didn't have to pay as I borrowed it from the library.
The first part of the book is devoted to twenty articles on various aspects of family and local history. They are by various contributors, and deal with topics such as beginning family history, surnames, researching Afri-Caribbean ancestry, family and society, landscape, industrial and labour history, domestic architecture, historc churches and more.
The second part is arranged alphabetically, like an encyclopedic dictionary, and consists of shorter articles, most of them less than a column in length, on a wide range of topics. A random sampling of entries includes parlour, potatoes, pottery and postcards, lectern, leasehold and leather, contraception, copper and copyhold tenure.
The longer thematic articles are a mixed bag, and generally I found them disappointing. Some were interesting and informative, while others were merely annotated bibliographies that conveyed little actual information. An example from the article on Domestic Architecture is typical (p. 143):
He tells us nothing about the original forms, or the changes - simply that you can find out about them in two out-of-print books that are probably inaccessible to many readers. Nor does he tell us about how local craft traditions responded to climate, topography, available building materials etc., he simply mentions that they did so. If you are a family historian, and want to know what kind of houses your ancestors lived in, this kind of article is worse than useless. It tells you nothing, except that you have paid a lot of money for a book that does not give the kind of information you expect to find in it.
Several of the thematic articles take this form, being simply annotated bibliographies, with no real information at all. If the book were advertised as a companion to historiography, rather than to history, that might be acceptable, but as it is it verges on fraudulent advertising. This kind of writing might be all right as a literature survey at the beginning of an academic thesis, or as an article in a scholarly journal. But at least the literature survey is followed by the meat of the thesis; here there is no meat at all. I might have given it four or five stars, were it not for this shortcoming.
The alphabetical section is generally better.
It contains quite a lot of useful information, and I've enjoyed reading it in bed before going to sleep. One can read a couple of short articles and perhaps jump around looking for references to other things. But in view of the shortcomings of some of the longer articles, I'm not sure that the book is worth the price. One can probably find more information on the Web free of charge, like this article on domestic architecture, for example.
The book does make several references to web sites, though as that kind of information can quite quickly become outdated, I'm not sure how useful it will be in a few years time.
The first part of the book is devoted to twenty articles on various aspects of family and local history. They are by various contributors, and deal with topics such as beginning family history, surnames, researching Afri-Caribbean ancestry, family and society, landscape, industrial and labour history, domestic architecture, historc churches and more.
The second part is arranged alphabetically, like an encyclopedic dictionary, and consists of shorter articles, most of them less than a column in length, on a wide range of topics. A random sampling of entries includes parlour, potatoes, pottery and postcards, lectern, leasehold and leather, contraception, copper and copyhold tenure.
The longer thematic articles are a mixed bag, and generally I found them disappointing. Some were interesting and informative, while others were merely annotated bibliographies that conveyed little actual information. An example from the article on Domestic Architecture is typical (p. 143):
From the very beginning it was recognised that a regional approach was necessary to chronicle the separate development of the smaller house in different parts of the kingdom, where local craft traditions responded to climate, topography, available building materials, farming practices and economic prosperity, to create local solutions to the housing needs of the population. The two pioneering studies both came from Yorkshire. In 1898 S.O. Addy, a Sheffield solicitor and prolific antiquary on subjects ranging from dialect to cutlery, published The Evolution of the English House, and in 1916 C.E. Innocent, an architect and another native of Sheffield, published The Development of English Building Construction. Both books drew on local examples and remain invaluable because they record rural houses at a period before the radical alteration demanded by changing perceptions of public hygiene had obliterated much of the evidence of the original forms.
He tells us nothing about the original forms, or the changes - simply that you can find out about them in two out-of-print books that are probably inaccessible to many readers. Nor does he tell us about how local craft traditions responded to climate, topography, available building materials etc., he simply mentions that they did so. If you are a family historian, and want to know what kind of houses your ancestors lived in, this kind of article is worse than useless. It tells you nothing, except that you have paid a lot of money for a book that does not give the kind of information you expect to find in it.
Several of the thematic articles take this form, being simply annotated bibliographies, with no real information at all. If the book were advertised as a companion to historiography, rather than to history, that might be acceptable, but as it is it verges on fraudulent advertising. This kind of writing might be all right as a literature survey at the beginning of an academic thesis, or as an article in a scholarly journal. But at least the literature survey is followed by the meat of the thesis; here there is no meat at all. I might have given it four or five stars, were it not for this shortcoming.
The alphabetical section is generally better.
It contains quite a lot of useful information, and I've enjoyed reading it in bed before going to sleep. One can read a couple of short articles and perhaps jump around looking for references to other things. But in view of the shortcomings of some of the longer articles, I'm not sure that the book is worth the price. One can probably find more information on the Web free of charge, like this article on domestic architecture, for example.
The book does make several references to web sites, though as that kind of information can quite quickly become outdated, I'm not sure how useful it will be in a few years time.
August 13, 2022
When I say finished all the thematic articles have been read and I have used a good number of the entries in the A-Z section. The latter is excellent, giving really good short summaries of key topics of interest to the local historian. The thematic archives all identify a wide range of sources. Other than that they are mixed bag, some are fascinating, many give excellent practical advice for the local historian and one or two are deadly dull. As practical guide to the local historian, it’s difficult to fault this book. I certainly gained a lot from it and I am sure that it will act as an excellent reference for future study.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews