What is in a local history?

As the name suggests, the history of a local area.

Local histories

Local histories and travelogues have been produced from Tudor times onwards. The earliest local history book on this site is a history of Warwickshire which was first compiled by Dugdale in 1656, and is a combination of a description of the county at that time and its history.

What is the value of local histories?

They provide a context for your historical researches. Occasionally, they can provide specific information on an ancestor but this is unlikely unless the ancestor was a public figure.

Church records

What we do not have here are parish registers. What we do have are a number of local histories that focus entirely on the locality and the local church - and some of these do have some extracts from the Parish Registers, and other documents from the "parish chest".

Typical of the is Pemberton's History of Solihull and its Church - it describes the growth of Solihull, notable families, their houses and estates, key events in the history of St Alphege Church, and a detailed description of the church illustrated by photographs. There is a summary of the surviving registers and records, but no details from the registers.

Another item of interest is "The Old non-parochial Registers of Dudley". Published in 1899, this does contain the registers of the dissenting churches in Dudley from the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  It also contains a brief history of these churches and chapels.