The Society of Genealogists’ Library

14 Charterhouse Buildings, Goswell Road, London EC1M 7BA (tel. 020 7251 8799); www.sog.org.uk

Not an archive centre, but a vast private collection of copies of genealogical research sources, including parish registers from throughout the country. A daily fee is payable, unless one becomes a member and pays an annual subscription (worth doing if you live in or near London but have to consult copies of material of which the originals are held elsewhere). There is a regular series of lectures, aimed at both beginners and more experienced researchers. These often focus on particular types of ancestor, such as seamen, criminals or paupers. Members pay reduced rates for these events.

The Borthwick Institute

University of York, Heslington YO10 5DD (tel. 01904 321166); www.york.ac.uk/borthwick

Although this is part of the University of York, it is unique in being the only university archive which is also the diocesan record office. Apart from the PCY wills, as well as those for the other ecclesiastical courts in the diocese, there are ecclesiastical court records, visitation records and bishops’ transcripts, and an immense quantity of parish archives, not just for York, but from all the ridings of Yorkshire, although many parish archives for the county can be found in the county’s other record offices.

County Record Offices

These began in the 1920s; Bedfordshire Record Office being one of the first. Legislation in the 1950s and 1960s allowed county councils to spend money on acquiring, preserving and making their archives accessible. The core of these collections is the archives of the county council and its predecessor bodies, but they also collect a wide variety of other archives pertaining to their county. More and more counties formed their own archive services, so by the 1970s all counties possessed one, staffed with professionally qualified archivists.

It is impossible to categorize each county record office. They reflect the post-1974 county boundaries; so the West Riding has been divided into West and South Yorkshire. Some counties have a single record office located in the county town, such as that at Chelmsford, which covers Essex. Some will have a main office and a subsidiary office, as in the case of Hampshire, with Winchester being the headquarters and Southampton having a branch. West Yorkshire has five offices: Wakefield is the centre, with branches in Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield and Leeds. The metropolitan districts of Greater Manchester and Birmingham have myriad record offices, each serving a district council which makes up the metropolitan area.

They house the county’s principal administrative archives, such as those of the quarter sessions and the Lords Lieutenant. Estate records often survive, with the Althorp archives being housed at Northamptonshire county record office for example, or Wentworth-Woodhouse at Sheffield Archives. Family papers can be located here, too. If the county record office is also the diocesan record office, as most are outside Yorkshire, diocesan records will be here. In any case, parish archives are almost certainly here. Manorial records for manors in the county are often located here, too. There will also be a good collection of relevant county record society volumes and a library of reference works.

The largest is the London Metropolitan Archives, which is an amalgamation of the Middlesex and London County Council record offices and that of the Corporation of London Record Office. It has archives of London and Middlesex wide bodies, some Jewish archives and personnel records of the City of London Police. As with TNA, they have a large number of research guides pertaining to their archives (the same can be said on a lesser scale of most county record offices).

Borough Record Offices

These are far smaller establishments than those of the counties, in terms of both material held and staffing. Where the borough is part of a county, there will usually be overlap in holdings copies of such material. Archives of the corporation will be found here; York City Archives hold the records of York Corporation, for instance. These can include minute books, treasurers’ accounts, militia lists, lists of councillors and aldermen and city officials.

University Libraries

The libraries of the medieval colleges of Oxford and Cambridge are the oldest surviving libraries in the country. They hold many valuable archival collections, often of the colleges themselves, so expect to find information of former masters and scholars, possibly college servants, too. These archives also include the manorial records of the manors which the colleges held. For instance, the manor court rolls for Ruislip, Middlesex, are held in the library of King’s College, Cambridge. They hold all kinds of unexpected treasures. The Bodleian Library (Broad Street, Oxford OX1 3BG, tel. 01865 277158, www.bodley.ox.ac.uk), founded in 1598, holds copies of eighteenth-century Newcastle newspapers, for example, as well as the diaries of a female Nantwich Dissenter for the early eighteenth century. Wills proved at the Chancellor of Oxford’s court are also held here. Durham University Dean and Chapter Library has the Sharp Manuscripts, the collection of an ecclesiastical antiquary. However, the more recent universities tend to lack such archives and concentrate on modern records. Access to university archives is not a general right, and special application must be made, often via a letter of introduction; and expect to pay a fee.

Local History Libraries

These are often to be found in a county’s or a borough’s central library. They tend to hold copies of the county’s newspaper from the eighteenth century onwards, maps and pictures of the locality, as well as copies of primary material held elsewhere, such as parish registers on microfilm. They tend not to hold original archival material, but exceptions to this rule can sometimes be found. Leeds Local and Family History Library holds the manuscript Memorandum Book of John Lucas, 1712–50, for instance.

Libraries

There have been libraries in England since the Middle Ages. Merton College’s library dates from the thirteenth century and is thought to be the oldest one still in use. However public libraries date from the Victorian period and by 1914 there were few places which lacked one. They received much of their stock in the early decades from donations. Some of these were items of local and family history significance. They are often housed in the reference section unless they have been moved elsewhere. Libraries will almost always have books about how to research your family history, as well as books about local history which can be borrowed.

Cathedral Archives

The Church has always kept records. Many of these are now held in diocesan record offices, but cathedrals often maintain their own small repositories, too. York Minster, St Paul’s Cathedral, Canterbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey are all examples of these. Advance booking is essential as only a very small number of researchers, sometimes only two or three, can be accommodated at any one time.