From diaries, and researcher Kim Cook reflects on the factual books as historians, would so useful for learning about the historical background getting a truer for, our ancestors’ lives

Kim Cook

When family researching history, specific sourcing of original documents is essential, but these documents tell us little of the day-to-day routine our ancestors. They don’t reveal atmosphere of the family home workplace, the daily sights, sounds, and smells encountered every day. They give little indication of whether the local community was genuinely united and at one, or whether the boundaries of class, creed, or politics caused irreparable divisions.

Factual diaries, reports and commentaries, whether local or national, written by those who through the recorded events, and books by with access their are invaluable sources for providing this background. It’s easier to find books covering life in the higher echelons society, but I’ve aimed to include those which reflect, at least in part, the lives of people of humbler origin. This review, which covers a small selection authors, is arranged in alphabetical order, with life dates, details of the areas and times they wrote about and, in some cases, quotes.

EXPLORE WHICH BOOKS EVERY RESEARCHER WORTH THEIR SALT SHOULD READ, AND WHY

These are just a few of the factual books I’ve found useful for the background not usually found in official records, but there are many other authors based around Britain, featuring different places and times, which will be of great value too.

William Cobbett 1763-1835 – farmer, soldier, journalist Written work: Rural Rides

‘a mighty South-West wind... strangely tore our sea walls... The Water threw down several houses, and in one an antient Woman was drown’d’

Period written: 1821-1826

Area covered: Southern England From 1821 to 1826, William Cobbett, a farmer, soldier, and journalist, toured the southern English countryside, mainly on horseback, but sometimes on foot. His tour took him through rural Berkshire, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Middlesex, Oxfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, and Wiltshire, and in 1830 he published his report under the title ‘Rural Rides’. In 2001, Penguin Classics republished ‘Rural Rides’, edited, with an introduction and copious notes and references, by historian Ian Dyck, and an excellent index. Caution: some comments reflect racial and religious prejudices of the time, which are unacceptable today.

Hampshire; Since I left Devizes, I have passed close…to thirty-two parish churches…in fifteen… the parsonage houses are stated, in the parliamentary return, either as being unfit for a parson to live in, or…wholly tumbled down and gone.