Until the beginning of last century the term
genealogy meant the tracing of family lineage; it
wasn't until well after the Second World War,
when it became a popular pastime, that genealogy
became family history. Most of those researching
their past were more interested in discovering
the precise details of family and social history,
rather than the dry recitation of a pedigree, so
family history took over as the populist term.
But the basic difference between the two concepts
is that genealogy remains the listing of a decent
of individuals, while family history is the
social history of a family through time. Making
the leap from genealogy to family history can be
difficult, especially when we are researching the
great undeserving poor - the agricultural
labourers, or those working in the industrial
heartlands of Britain during the nineteenth
century.
To gather information we use a variety of
records from parish registers, censuses, poor law
records, but rarely can we obtain more than a
partial picture of the social history of our
ancestors. We may use scraps of information from
a wide variety of sources but we are indeed
fortunate if we can form a clear understanding of
their place in their community and its history.
If they fought in the Boer War at Spion Kop
then a history of their regiment and accounts of
the battle can give us an understanding of the
vicissitudes of life during the South African War
and we may find drawings of the battle in the
Illustrated London News, or other pictorial
newspapers of the time. But we can only find that
kind of information if they were caught up in
great events. For the ordinary man or woman
working on the land or in nineteenth century
factories the possibilities of extracting
anything but the merest detail of life is remote.
Naturally if we could talk to them we would
understand how they lived and worked, but
unfortunately time travel has not been invented
yet; however there is another way. There are
numerous books that help us understand the social
background of our ancestors - from Dickens'
novels of life in nineteenth century London to
Flora Thompson's 'Lark Rise'1, the
history of a local community in Oxfordshire, and
the oral histories produced by George Ewart Evans2,
and the portrait of an English village,
'Akenfield'3. There is, of course, the
magnificent 'The Victorian Countryside'4.
Our ancestors rarely speak to us in their own
words. If they were writers or members of the
middle class we may be fortunate in finding
accounts of their life and times, but the chances
of finding similar written material by
agricultural labours or mine workers is
exceptional, and even if such books do exist,
where to find them?
Fortunately two books may help5. As
the author writes in the preface to one 'the vox
populi is not the best trained or sweetest of
voices', but their opinions about people and
events are important nonetheless. I came across
both books in a library many years ago and they
have been constant companions since then, filling
in gaps in my understanding of life at different
periods and in various occupations.
They take the form of a biographical list by
author giving the full title and date of
publication together with a short description of
the book itself and its contents. Typical of the
entries concerns Joseph Arch, 'The Story of his
Life', published in 1898. He was a Warwickshire
farm labourer and was one of the founders of the
agricultural workers' union. His autobiography
tells of his early life as a labourer and how
eventually he became an MP. Another is the
classic George Bourne's 'Memoir of a Surrey
Labourer' (1907) that takes the form of
conversations with an old farm labourer with
incidents in his life and scenes of nineteenth
century country life. It's here you will find
James Hardy Vaux's 'Memoirs of the last 32 years'
(1819), the life of a pickpocket and swindler who
was transported to New South Wales.
However, 'British Autobiographies' is much
more useful than 'British Diaries' in that it
includes an extensive subject index, so that
although not without its vagaries, finding a
particular book from the thousands listed is
comparatively easy. The indexes include entries
for vagabonds, tramps, thieves and policemen to
actresses, archbishops, millers, poachers and
miners. Hardly an occupation is missed, and there
are many cross-references. There are wide-ranging
entries for individual counties of the British
Isles. But it is the entries for working life
that form the supreme test for the bibliographies.
Hardly a subject is ignored: from the ordinary to
the esoteric.
As well as those two there is a listing of
British manuscript diaries of the nineteenth
century6, although indexed, it does
not meet the high standard set by 'British
Autobiographies'.
Bibliography
1. Flora Thompson, Lark Rise, Oxford
University Press, 1939
2. George Ewart Evans, Pattern under the
Plough, Faber and Faber, 1959
3. Ronald Blythe, Akenfield: portrait of an
English village, Allen Lane, 1969
4. G.E. Mingay, The Victorian Countryside, 2
Vols. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981
5.William Matthews (compiler). British
Autobiographies: an annotated bibliography of
British autobiographies written before 1951,
University of California Press, 1955; British
Diaries: An annoted Bibiliography of British
Diaries Written between 1442 and 1942, University
of California Press, 1950.
6. John Stuart Batts, British manuscript
diaries of the 19th century: an annotated
listing, Centaur Press, 1976.
