Features

A number of websites provide essential background information so you can understand the lives of family members going back several generations. Here are some of the most useful scene setters.

GENUKI

GENUKI (www.genuki.org.uk) is a large non-commercial repository for UK-related genealogical information assembled by volunteer contributors. Its content is more about local (than family) history. It's organised by county, with a brief description of history, geography, topography and manufactures, all taken from an antiquarian directory.

Familia

Familia (www.familia.org.uk) has a directory of the physical family history resources held in public libraries. Details available can include addresses, telephone numbers and opening times of businesses. Also available are maps, magazines and periodicals, and guides to other collections of similar data.

How Much Is That?

How Much is That? (http://eh.net/hmit) is an immensely useful site for family historians. It shows, among other financial comparisons, the relative value of an amount of money 'now' compared with 'then'. This allows you to compare wages and prices from the past - calculating, for instance, that a wage of £20 in 1830 would equate to about £4,845.13 in 2005.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogies) is a US-based free encyclopaedia. Its contributors provide most of its content, which can be edited by anyone with access to the website. As such, its information should be approached with caution. The genealogy section includes UK-relevant contents such as references to types of records, family and place names, occupations, software and publications.

Historical Directories

Historical Directories (www.historicaldirectories.org) is a free digital library of local and trade directories from 1750 to 1919, run by the University of Leicester. Covering England and Wales, it's searchable by locale, decade or keyword. Each directory listed has a fact file giving its full title, publication date and content.

The Charles Booth Online Archive

The Charles Booth Online Archive at http://booth.lse.ac.uk is a free, searchable online archive of the Booth collections. Booth was an ethical Victorian businessman involved in the leather industry and shipping. He also developed an interest in contemporary social problems, organising and funding a comprehensive social survey of London life. This archive provides insight into the problem of poverty in the rapidly growing Victorian capital, with surveys into poverty, industry, religious influences, education, wage levels, conditions of employment and workhouses. Trades examined include building, wood and metal working, textile and clothing, food and drink, labourers, public service and domestic service. Sample questionnaires are shown.

Booth also helped to produce maps of London, coloured street by street, to indicate the levels of poverty and wealth at the turn of the century. These maps have been digitised and can be viewed online. The archives are of most use to those with forebears from the London districts covered, but are indicative of conditions in major conurbations in towns and cities elsewhere in the country. The Booth Archives are searchable by name, street - identifying the social classification of your ancestors' streets - and occupation.

	1 The Historical Directories pages provide at least one directory for each county, covering the 1850s, 1890s and 1910s.

	2 Charles Booth's colour-coded street maps identified areas of poverty in 1898-99 London.