We have reached I in the alphabet. My favourite family/local history website for today was going to be Images of England but I have just discovered that it has been absorbed into The National Heritage List for England. This includes descriptions and photographs of 300,000 English listed ‘buildings’ (some aren’t actually buildings but things like lamp posts and letter boxes). This is great for local history and one-place studies. Be aware that the dates they give are based on architectural styles and not on documentary evidence, so may be approximate.

So as that doesn’t begin with I anymore, I will offer you a bonus entry. Ok, so it doesn’t begin with I either but I’m afraid you can’t be fussy. So L instead then. L is for London Lives. Subtitled ‘Crime, Poverty and Social Policy in the Metropolis 1690-1800’. The website tell us that it provides ‘A fully searchable edition of 240,000 manuscripts from eight archives and fifteen datasets, giving access to 3.35 million names.’ These include registers of three London parishes, workhouse records, probate material, guild records, coroners’ records, criminal records and hospital archives. It is definitely worth popping ancestral surnames into the search box, especially if you know your family spent time in London. There is a link to the Locating London website, which relates entries in the database to maps, based on John Rocque’s 1746 map.

Many of the entries in this year’s advent calendar are based on my book Family Historian’s Enquire Within. I would be very grateful if anyone in the UK wanting to buy a copy would get in touch with me directly (there will be no charge for UK postage). I am trying to free up book storage space ready for novel two arriving!