Please feel free to contact me for a no-obligation chat about how I can assist you with researching your family history.
Your house's secrets unveiled! Are there neighbours' stories or estate agents' claims about previous inhabitants or uses: shop, pub, forge, manor house?? Or do you live in a converted barn, school, chapel or church which suggests much untapped history?
Local and house histories can also complement family histories – how and where our ancestors lived, what views they looked out on, who their neighbours were.
I am experienced in finding, examining and interpreting documentary and published evidence of activities and occupations in buildings and communities. I have presented a wide range of source material for histories and desk based assessments of manor and long-houses, terraced cottages, farms, churches and church property, factories, sheds, shops, workshops and sites which have had multiple uses over the years.
I can offer you:
- A history of your house and its past inhabitants based on surviving original and published sources such as maps, directories, censuses, tithe and taxation records, deeds, church and parish records, photographs and records unique to the building which might survive in family or local collections with a report including copies of documents.
- Site or building research for desk-based assessments, with reports written where preferred for the professional archaeologist or surveyor.
Some houses have been altered many times over the years. I work closely with an architectural historian who can visit your house to advise on dating the structural evidence left in roofs and walls.