As part of a series examining family history resources for beginners, librarian Helen Skilbeck takes an in-depth look at using our core genealogy subscription website, Ancestry.com… So, what is Ancestry…. Ancestry is one of the main genealogical websites in the UK. It has records that can help you to create your family tree and includes the UK census…
Author: Leeds Libraries
Visitations and Pedigrees
As part of a series examining family history resources for beginners, librarian Antony Ramm explores Visitation records – a largely neglected but extremely worthwhile set of genealogy records from the 16th and 17th-centuries… Family historians will be familiar with the difficulty of tracing ancestries prior to the almost-simultaneous start of Civil Registration and Census records in the…
Keep on Keeping On: Running a Library Department in a Crisis
This week, Antony Ramm, Librarian-Manager for the Local and Family History (LFH) department at Leeds Central Library, explains the steps staff have taken to continue operating a specialist public library department in these unprecedented times… As previously announced on the Secret Library, the Central Library in Leeds shut its doors to staff and the public…
The Maurice Rosenbaum Letters: A Leeds Connection
This week, we welcome University of Leeds students Amy Clayton and Lucy Slater as guest authors. Amy and Lucy have been investigating a new addition to the Central Library collections – the letters of Maurice Rosenbaum – over the last few months. Here, they explain who Maurice was and his connection to Leeds and Yorkshire….
Working-Class Women in Early Twentieth Century Leeds
On Wednesday the 11th March we have a talk on ‘Working-Class Women’s Autobiographies and the History of Everyday Life.’ This talk will be given by Dr Claire Martin, a Lecturer at The University of Leeds. This article will highlight interesting items from the Leeds Libraries Collection that detail the everyday life of working-class women and…
The Story of Hey’s Brewery Women’s Football Team in 1921
This week on the Secret Library we hear from Josh Flint on the tumultuous year that Hey’s Brewery Women’s Football team had in 1921. 1921 was a fascinating year for Women’s Football and Hey’s Brewery Women’s Football team encapsulated this, as they spent most of the year playing in front of enormous crowds and ended…
The West Riding Radical Press and Leeds Other Paper
This week on the Secret Library we hear from John Boocock on the history of radical publishing in Leeds and the West Riding, from the 19th-century to the Leeds Other Paper in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. This will be the subject of John’s upcoming talk at the Central Library (February 19) – further details…
Three Leeds Architects: W.H. Thorp, William Hill and Percy Robinson
Next Tuesday, the Central Library (in partnership with the West Yorkshire Victorian Society) welcomes prominent historian Janet Douglas, who will be delivering a talk on some lesser-known local architects of the Victorian and Edwardian period: W.H. Thorp, William Hill and Percy Robinson. Here we present some brief biographical details of those architects, along with some…
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