Tracing History Through Title Deeds

Property title deeds are perhaps the most numerous sources of historical evidence but also one of the most neglected. While the information any one deed contains can often be reduced to a few lines, it can be of critical importance for family and local historians. Nat Alcock's handbook aims to help the growing army of enthusiastic researchers to use the evidence of these documents, without burying them in legal technicalities. It also reveals how fascinating and rewarding they can be once their history, language and purpose are understood. A sequence of concise, accessible chapters explains why they are so useful, where they can be found and how the evidence they provide can be extracted and applied. Family historians will find they reveal family, social and financial relationships and local historians can discover from them so much about land ownership, field and place names, the history of buildings and the expansion of towns and cities. They also bring our ancestors into view in the fullness of life, not just at birth, marriage and death, and provide more rounded pictures of the members of a family tree.

"For those new to the topic and for genealogy libraries this is a must for dealing with English or Welsh deeds."-- "Paul Milner Genealogy"

Dr Nat Alcock is an emeritus reader at the University of Warwick. He has worked for many years recording vernacular buildings, compiling house histories and reconstructing households and lifestyles. Among his publications are Documenting the History of Houses and People at Home. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a past President of the Vernacular Architecture Group.