The sources for the study of local history, just like those for family history, are overlapping. Local history and family history also intersect and a knowledge of one can inform the other. For example, local newspapers, particularly for the twentieth century, may contain photographs which are duplicated in a collection of photographs of that locality. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, newspapers carried detailed reports of council meetings, which would also be found in the minute books of those same councils. Local histories will, or certainly should, derive their information from these archives, newspapers, photograph collections and other sources. A degree of repetition is inevitable. The same could be said about family history sources; the 1881 census will tell us that someone appearing on it will be ten years older than that same person in 1871.
Local history is not about individuals and families, unless they were very influential (usually meaning very rich and powerful). It is, or should be, primarily about a community and how that community changes over time. Yet that same community is made up of families and individuals. They cannot be separated and each has an impact on the other. It is impossible to fully realise the history of one without the other. Family historians, therefore, should explore the context of the local society in which their ancestors lived.
However, the researcher should not try to build too much on some of their findings. It is tempting to place your ancestors in the middle of especially exciting or well-known events in history which happened near to them. For example, having a London ancestor who was resident in 1649 does not automatically mean that they were present at Charles I’s execution on 30 January of that year. Or having a Preston ancestor in 1715 does not mean that they were dodging musket balls during the battle there in November (they may well have fled the arrival of the armies before the fighting began). They would have been aware of these important events, but their actions, unless documented, cannot be stated with any certainty.
It is also worthwhile looking at the well-known genealogical sources again – at the census returns and parish registers, for example, from which the entries for your ancestors have already long been extracted. In the case of the former, it is worth asking who were your ancestors’ neighbours? Did they have the same profession or were employed in the same industry or in different ones? Did they have large families or small ones? Were they born in the same town or village? Or for parish registers: who were the witnesses at the marriage? Were there other baptisms or burials at the same time as your ancestors’?
Local history sources, therefore, can add an extra dimension to the knowledge of your ancestors’ lives and deaths by providing a background to them. They did not live in a vacuum any more than we do. Social, political, economic, religious and military events do influence people’s lives, and not just major national and international ones. A council’s decision to install street lighting in a town might be just as important to people’s lives as zeppelin raids in the First World War. And, of course, you may find an additional reference to your family or to those who had a direct influence on their lives (e.g. teachers at the school your ancestor attended or a militia officer they may have served under).
You are not required to become a local historian and research and write the history of all the places where your ancestors lived. The choice is yours as to how far and how deep you want to dig to illuminate the lives of your ancestors. Hopefully this book has pointed out the possibilities and the pitfalls of such local history research and will lead you to know more of your ancestors’ lives and context; after all, to paraphrase Kipling, ‘What do they know of family history those who only family history know?’