A wartime recipe for a modern lifestyle

This year National Vegetarian Week runs between 10-16 May and highlights the benefits and pleasures of a meat-free diet. As more of us look to make lifestyle changes, whether that be for our health or to lower our impact on the environment, choosing a vegetarian or plant-based diet is an attractive option.  At the record …

Family History from Newspaper Reports of Court Proceedings: the Offensiveness of Matthew Goodden

Regular readers of our blog will be familiar with Roger, one of our cataloguing volunteers, here is his latest fascinating contribution. This post arises from my continuing curiosity about a man named Matthew Goodden.  I first learned of him in 2017 while working on documents from the Thornsett Turnpike Trust (ref: D535).  An invoice had …

Newspapers

A guide to the uses of local newspapers and where to find them (updated Jul 2020). From the 18th century to the present day, newspapers are an invaluable source of information for family and social historians: births, marriages, deaths, advertisements, crime, coroners' reports, sports and entertainments, elections, farm and property sales, bankruptcies, disasters, scandals, and …

Online Resources

There are hundreds of online resources for Derbyshire history, this guide highlights some of the most useful.  As web addresses tend to change, only the site name is given. Family History Records Ancestry: billions of records from across the world including UK census returns 1841-1911, birth, marriage and death (BMD) indexes 1837-2007, Derbyshire Anglican church …

Family History – Next Steps

A guide to help you dig deeper into your family history and add flesh to the bones. Where your ancestor lived: See the guides to building history for the types of sources available for finding out where your ancestors lived. Where your ancestor went to school: Admission registers for a large number (though not all …

Accessing our resources from home

As we cannot provide access on site at the moment due to the coronavirus, here are some links and tips for research you can do from your computer at home. Do your family history Baptism, marriage and burial registers for Church of England parishes, some as early as 1538, are on Ancestry (charge applies).  See …

Advent Calendar – Day 4

Only 21 more sleeps to go... and what is behind door number 4? Front page of The Daily Telegraph on 8 May 1945 announcing 'GERMANY CAPITULATES' 'Today is VE Day: "Complete and Crushing Victory"' - visit us to see a full copy of this and other newspapers from the day in our Local Studies collection. Seen anything you especially like yet? Let us …

On this Day: ‘The Week’s Sports’

From the Alfreton and Belper Journal, 2nd December 1892: The Week's Sports The football shown on Saturday by the different clubs was surprising and goes to show that football (like cricket) is a game upon which you cannot place much confidence as to the results, as the different matches lately played tend to show... ...Last Saturday …

Explore Your Archive – A Derbyshire Spirit Story

From the Derby Mercury, 26 September 1860: A Derbyshire Spirit Story The following singular story is given in Owen's "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World," as being told to the writer by William Howitt and given in Mr Howitt's own words:- The circumstance you desire to obtain from me is one which I have …

Explore Your Archive – Get the Ball Rolling

As we await kick-off of the first Explore Your Archive week, here is a vigorous selection of images for sporting ladies and gentlemen.