Local history books are useful to genealogists in that they paint a picture of what was happening at a particular point in time in a location. This can help to explain the context within which an ancestor was living. You will find that a proper understanding of the historical context particularly valuable when working out the most appropriate search strategy for further information on your ancestors. That is the real value of these books in your genealogical research. Together with local maps they can tell you a great deal about the environment in which your ancestor was living.

The books contained in this section are all local histories. To help you identify whether the subject matter is going to be of interest, we have created some indexes, which can be found by double-clicking the relevant links in the description of each book. The indexes provided are as follows:-

Some of these indexes are on normal web pages which can be searched from your browser using Edit > Find. Others are .pdf format files which can be searched using the search tools in Acrobat Reader. However, the easiest way to do a complete search of all the indexes is to use the search facility on the main navigation bar at the top of this page, or by double-clicking here.

Books currently available on Birmingham, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, and Staffordshire - and books on Shropshire will shortly be added. A few books are available which cover the whole of the UK. Double click on these links to access books relevant to each location.