Web User - UK (2019-07-10)

Was your corner shop previously a

workhouse? Find out from Old Maps

Bomb Sight’s heartbreaking map reveals
the scale of destruction during the Blitz

Look for your house in Edinburgh’s 1909

Post Office bookon the Internet Archive

Discover the history of your homeonline

Discussthehistoryof yourhomeatwww.facebook.com/webusermagazine 10 - 23 July^201951

1901 and1911 censusdataandcharges
£7.95 per month, while Ancestry.
co.uk adds censusdatafrom 1891
andearlier, pluselectoral registers,
andcharges £10.99per month.

Discover your home’s

wartime history

Findmypast’s 1939Register(bit.ly/
39 reg4 79 ) reveals who was livingin
yourhouseonthe eve ofWorld War II.
You can alsobeginyoursearchatwww
.findmypast.co.uk/maps. The sitegives
you the owner’s name andyearofbirth
for free,but you’ll needa FindMyPast
subscription to‘unlock’censusdetails,
aswell aslocal maps andthe area’s
wartime demographic statistics.
Verylittledatawas collected about
homes andpeopleduringthe war itself,
but bombing raids wererecordedin
detail. If yourfamily orhome werein
the Greater London areaduringthe Blitz
of 194 0-41, weurgeyou tovisit the
superb interactive mapatBombSight
(bombsight.org). Meanwhile,the
NationalArchiveskeeps writtenWW 2
records atits publicoffices – findout
more atbit.ly/bombs 479.
Perhaps the bestway tolearn about
the war is tohearpeople’s experiences.
The British Library’s ListeningProject
(bit.ly/listening 479 ) is anarchive of
conversationsrecordedbythe BBC,
including first-handwartime testimony,
all availablefor free.Alsotry the Sound
andMovingImageCatalogue(bit.ly/
sound4 79 )–click‘Advancedsearch’
thenchoose‘Oral history’fromthe
‘collection’drop-down menu.

See how your street

evolved

EnteryourpostcodeintoOld-Maps
(www.old-maps.co.uk), thenuse the
thumbnails toswitchbetween Ordnance
Surveymaps going backaround 150
years tosee howyourstreethas
evolved over the decades. It’s freeto
use,andyou can zoominfarenough
tosee thatyourlocal supermarket used
tobea workhouse, althoughthe site
charges £9.99 per monthfor finer detail
andmap downloads.

There’s a free(if lesscomprehensive)

collectionatOld MapsOnline(www

.oldmapsonline.org). And if you’rein

the heart ofcentral London,check the

Medieval MurderMap (bit.ly/murder479)

tosee the grisly eventsthathappened

downyourstreet.

The Gazetteer (www.gazetteer.co.uk)

offersa range ofold maps, too,but

where it excels is inexplainingthe

origins ofUKplace names. This fabulous

sitealsotracksthe history ofcounty

boundaries and‘police areas’. Mostof

the information is availabletoviewfor

free,but you can pay £15 todownload

anentiredatabase ofplace names.

Wikishire (wikishire.co.uk) reveals the

origins ofyourcounty, with freearticles

andlocal links. There’s alsoa ‘Data

lookup’pagewith postcodelists,

populationstats andmap coordinates,

all ofwhich you can exportfor

spreadsheetsanddatabases.

See your home’s vintage

paperwork

The 1862Act Registers (bit.ly/

actreg4 79 ) is a free,searchablerecord

oflandandpropertypaperwork(some

onwax parchment!) collected in 1862

andnowfreetodownloadinJPEG

format. Annoyingly, you havetofill in

every searchfield toget a result, which

means you’ll needtoknowyourhome’s

title number(fromthe title register),

parish (town)and 1862 resident’s name.

There are nosuchlimitations inthe

InternetArchive (archive.org). Search

for mentions ofyourtownorbrowse

collections suchasthe NationalLibrary

ofScotland(bit.ly/scotarchive4 79 ),

where you can readthe Edinburgh

& Leith 1909 Post OfficeDirectory,

andBritish Non-Parliamentary

Publications(bit.ly/britnon 479 ), which

includes suchgemsasa townplanners’

draft for expanding Ipswichanda 1968

conservationstudy ofYork. Scottish

local historiansshouldvisit the Scottish

Archive Network (www.scan.org.uk), a

small but fascinating collectionof

scanned property documentsthatdate

backto 1500.

The British Library and National

Archives have done sterling work

in digitising their collections of

newspapers, books, letters, journals

and more. But when you search their

databases – the National Archives’

Discovery site (bit.ly/discovery479),

and British Library’s Explore page

(bit.ly/explore479) – you quickly

realise that most of the best stuff is

still locked away in buildings, and in

some cases you have to apply to view

them. The web can at least show you

how to do this.

• To view material at the British
  Library, apply online for a Reader
  Pass atbit.ly/reader479


• To browse National Archives
  material locally, enter your postcode
  atbit.ly/archives479and search
  bit.ly/archive479


• To see electoral registers and

RUMMAGETHROUGHRECORDSIN PERSON

property documents, find your

local records office in the list at

bit.ly/offices479

• To search the digitised and
  physical collections of more than
  300 UK universities, visit
  archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk