Acknowledgements

5.  Local library

This section describes the resources in the Local Studies Section of the Chesterfield Library in Derbyshire, UK.  Your local library may be able to advise you on where you should go in your own area.

a)    Workshops and one-to-one sessions

b)    Census records

c)    Maps
d)    Parish Registers and monumental inscriptions

e)    Books and other resources

f)     Referrals

If you do not have access to the Internet at home, you can use the computers in the Chesterfield Library to undertake your research. To do this, you have to be a member of the library.  The library is open from 9 am to 7 pm on weekdays (so as not to exclude working members) and from 9 am to 4 pm on Saturdays. 
 

The library's collection on family history as well as on local history is publicised at the Derbyshire County Council website: www.derbyshire.gov.uk, and also at www.familia.org.uk.  Also, in the Chesterfield Library Local Studies Section, you will find handouts specific to family history enquiries.  I found the staff at the Library's Local Studies Section to be extremely patient and helpful and you can contact them at chesterfield.library@derbyshire.gov.uk

a)    Workshops and one-to-one sessions

The librarians in the local studies section run regular workshops on a) Family History for the Absolute Beginner ( £5 fee in 2006), and b) Family History on the Internet (free).  Places are limited and must be booked in advance.  The librarians also offer one-to-one help for half an hour to look at a person’s individual problem in family history and to offer advice on what to try next. This is in addition to the general help and advice given at the enquiry desk and has to be arranged in advance.

b)    Census records

As noted earlier, the census only gives you a snapshot of households at 10 year intervals and other sources such as certificates of births, marriages and deaths will have to be used to fill in events between them.  The census has been taken since 1841 and the 1901 census is the latest census that can be viewed; the more recent censuses are still confidential. 

The census place indexes

Library staff showed me how to find Pollie's family on census records on microfilm.  The census is organised by place, i.e. geography, and for each of the census years there is an index in the form of a paper booklet which lists all the places recorded.  Against each place you will find the following information which will point you to where you will find the census data for this place in the microfilm.

1. A reel number – this is the number given to the box of microfilm you need for the place you are checking.
2. The piece number given to the place for that census year. The piece number enables you to find where the information for the place (eg Grassmoor) begins and ends on the reel of film.
3. Folio – this is the old fashioned stamped number which appears on every other page of the census on the microfilm.
4. Each dwelling may also have a schedule number; this is a number assigned  by the enumerator to a dwelling; it is a unique consecutive number which records the order in which the dwelling was visited and is not the house number.  For example, consecutive schedule numbers indicated that one of Pollie's immediate neighbours was Needham.  Later, I found the house number of the Needham family in an electoral register; Pollie's family had moved house by then.  I deduced Pollie's house number by her descriptions and she confirmed this during a site visit.

The name indexes

Where there is a surname index, the above information will be listed to enable you to find the specific page of interest.   There is a surname index for the 1881 census which is provided on microfiche and also on the internet by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS).  We have already visited their website and used their surname index. You will find the various elements of the census index listed in the LDS results tabled in Appendix 2.

Indexes can be in book format, on discs or printed out (e.g. for 1861) while others are on CD ROMs.  Please ask at the enquiry desk.  When you find households of interest, it is best to copy all the above indexing information and not just the data on the family.  This will enable you to go directly to that household at a later date, for example to get a print out or to look at other households in the neighbourhood.

The census data

The census return will give you a list of all the people resident at that dwelling on the night that the census was taken. All, except the 1841 census, list the head of the household and the relationship between all the other members of the family and also other residents, such as employees and boarders.  For each person listed, there is information about their gender, marital status, occupation, place of birth and any disability. Note that some members of the family may not have been at home on the night of the census or may have been regularly resident elsewhere since some children may have been with grandparents or gone into employment or service at an early age.

In Appendix 2, we saw illustrations of LDS tabulations of census data.  In it, RG11 corresponds to the reel number - the other indexing information is as explained above. These were transcribed from the original microfilm images of the handwritten census data.  The sample microfilm image for 1861 is reproduced and explained in Appendix 6.
 

Hannah Millington was born in Upleader, Gloucester.  We used this to trace her her (and her family) across censuses..  In 1901, she was blind and living with her son Charles (Pollie's father) in Grassmoor.  This confirmed that the Hannah, listed in Appendix 2, was Pollie's grandmother.  With this certainty, I located most of Pollie's paternal MIllington family back to 1861 just by searching the free births, marriages and deaths website www.freebmd.com, the free online 1881 census and the census microfilms.  Using these free resources, I have since traced the Millington family back to 1841, implying birth dates in the 1790s.  Pollie's grandmother came from Gloucester but her trail went cold since the freebmd records for Gloucester seemed to be incomplete.  But, we will come back to her later.

It took me a long time to find records pertaining to Pollie's ancestors since the writing is not very clear and it is easy to miss households of interest on an initial scan.  I made copies of the microfilm pages at the library (at nominal cost) and filed all the census data in chronological order.  I collated all the census information I had to-date with the bmd records and tried to fill in details to identify gaps and focus further search. 

Addresses

Addresses are quite useful in directing search.  Unfortunately, the address for the dwelling in the census record may not be complete and may even be misleading.  The 1881 Census was slightly more precise than the previous censuses – it gave Pollie's grandparents' address as South Terrace whereas previous censuses only recorded Great Barlow and Barber Lane, both of which were said to be in Brampton.  Brampton was also stated as the place of birth of several members of the family.   So, my search was initially focused on an area of Chesterfield called Brampton. There were anecdotal accounts that there was a South Terrace there but no Barber Lane – only a Barker Lane, which is well known.  So I looked next at maps of Brampton.

c)    Maps

The Local Studies Section holds a collection of old and modern maps.  The old maps for Brampton were not sufficiently detailed and did not give all the road names.  So, the exact residence of the family was eventually found and confirmed by other means as we shall see later.  Fortunately, the set of historical maps for Grassmoor were quite helpful.  I was able to make copies of the maps at nominal cost.  Old maps are useful for tracing the geographic migration of the family, but they may not contain all the vernacular names the locals used.  However, they are invaluable for jogging memories as we shall see later.

d)    Parish Registers and monumental inscriptions

Parish registers often contain valuable family information; for example the names, occupations and addresses of the parents of the bride and groom might be found in a parish register entry.

Although most surviving Derbyshire parish registers are deposited in the Derbyshire Record Office at Matlock, the Chesterfield Library has some copies of the parish records, transcribed by volunteers, for a number of churches.  The library also has a list of the churches for which they have transcriptions.  Depending on when the transcriptions were made, the copies are hand written, typed or are on CD ROM.  There are some registers on microfilm for Non Conformist chapels.  Some of Pollie's ancestors were married in the church of St Peter and St Paul in Old Brampton.  By cross-checking dates in the transcription of its parish register in the library I was able to confirm that the name of Pollie's father's first wife was Hannah Maria Needham and the date of their marriage.  There was also a reference to an 1837 marriage of John Millington to a Hannah Turner.  Although the name pair is plausible, the date seems unlikely and needs checking.

Volunteers have also visited churchyards and have copied down the inscriptions on the gravestones. The library has a list of the monumental inscriptions which are available.   Some people have posted their transcriptions of parish registers and monumental inscriptions on the internet but you should always check the original sources wherever possible. 

e)    Books and other resources

There is a very good reference collection in the library on family and local history. Many of the books can be borrowed if you are a member of the library.  In addition to books which explain in general how to trace your family history, there are more specific books, for example, on the census or on how to trace Irish ancestors or ancestors who worked on the railways.  
 

The library staff will also be able to establish if there is any historical information available, for example about the history of a school . The collection is catalogued by place and subject so it is easy to establish the relevance and usefulness of what the library holds.   I was shown a booklet on the schools in Grassmoor and the school, which Pollie must have attended, on my copy of the map of Grassmoor.

Other users (and not just the staff) of the Local Studies Section may also point you to particular resources they have used, such as old copies of The Derbyshire Times and electoral registers in microfiche and book format and other items, such as trade directories, and websites.  Their enthusiasm can be infectious. 

The library staff have produced a surname index of significant items in The Derbyshire Times.  So, it did not take me long to find an obituary with a photograph in the Derbyshire Times microfilm.  This obituary also included the address of the family; I had until then only had a vague vernacular name (Building Fields) for the development in which the family lived.  I was also able to deduce the number of the house where Pollie had been born (the road name was already known) since the electoral register gave the precise address of Thomas Needham, who Pollie knew was her immediate neighbour across a passageway.

f)     Referrals
The library staff may also be able to direct you to other agencies, organisations or websites which may be of help to you.  For example, following their suggestion, I found relevant and interesting information by following links listed in the North Wingfield History Society’s website.