Hi Meg: I have for some time provided links from the GENUKI/Devon Thornbury parish page to the overall Thornbury Hamlets website, to its Gravestones Project, and to its individual hamlet pages, but had not realised and made clear that these pages provided such extensive historical information. I’ve now remedied this. Needless to say, if any other Devon parishes have such websites that GENUKI should, but doesn’t, link to, I’d be grateful to receive details so that I can remedy this. (In the early days of GENUKI/Devon, before the web grew so vast, I had the time to do systematic Google searches for all the nearly 500 Devon parishes in turn - but this was last century! :-) Cheers Brian Randell On 15 Jan 2019, at 16:23, meg@taylor.it<mailto:meg@taylor.it> wrote: Good advice. Also don't forget to take some Photo ID as you may well need it to get a Readers' Ticket to use the records. Take a camera, you will probably have to buy a day licence to use it but it usually only a few pounds. I would also say check if the village has a website as we do www.thornburyhamlets.com<http://www.thornburyhamlets.com> and I have put lots of historic information on the site including a full list of all of the gravestones and who you will find where, transcriptions of the grave stones and a plan showing where the graves are. I did this after visiting a Cornish Church that had done it and it saved my hours of wasted time looking for a non-existent head stone. Be aware that most to your forebears will not have a headstone even though they are buried in the churchyard. I estimate from the Burial records that there are 10 to 20 times as many people buried in our graveyard as there are graves as they are re-used over time. Meg Galley-Taylor -----Original Message----- From: Paul Hockie <paul@hockie.co.uk<mailto:paul@hockie.co.uk>> Sent: 15 January 2019 15:34 To: devon@rootsweb.com<mailto:devon@rootsweb.com> Subject: [DEV] Re: Genealogy Travel to Devon Quite a lot has been said about travelling around Devon. I would like to add something about the importance of having a detailed research plan before leaving home. There is nothing quite like arriving at an archive only to be told everything is on Findmypast etc.. My approach has always been: 1. Create a detailed research list. Who, what and where? There are too many distractions if you do not focus your research 2. Check the National Archive Discovery catalogue and the local archive online catalogues and identify the documents you want to view. Search for both the ancestor and the place. I usually cut and paste into a word document so I can arrive with a "shopping list". The sites will also cover registration and ordering procedures. 3. Use Google to search for local museums and libraries. Email and ask what they hold. This may include documents and artefacts about your ancestor or just an insight into life in the town. 4. If you are looking for an ancestral home. * Find the ancestor on a census and then look at the pages before and after. By listing the farms, cottages etc. you can see the enumerators route * Google the name of the farms, tenements and cottages. Many still exist. * Buy a large scale Ordnance Survey map of the area or try Bing UK. Also consider an 19c map from https://www.alangodfreymaps.co.uk/ . With a bit of luck you will be able to find the ancestral home. * Use google earth to take a stroll round and see what is actually there today. 5. For churches check their websites. More and more rural churches seem to be only open on Sunday (and then not every Sunday). If you are looking for graves check Findmypast/DevonFHS burial registers to see if you are in with a chance. Not everyone has a gravestone but there are a few grave yards that have been indexed. Cheers Paul _______________________________________________ ------------------------------------------ The DEVON-L mailing list is co-sponsored by GENUKI/Devon http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/DEV/ and Devon FHS (http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ ) _______________________________________________ Email preferences: http://bit.ly/rootswebpref Unsubscribe https://lists.rootsweb.com/postorius/lists/devon@rootsweb.com Privacy Statement: https://ancstry.me/2JWBOdY Terms and Conditions: https://ancstry.me/2HDBym9 Rootsweb Blog: http://rootsweb.blog RootsWeb is funded and supported by Ancestry.com and our loyal RootsWeb community _______________________________________________ ------------------------------------------ The DEVON-L mailing list is co-sponsored by GENUKI/Devon http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/DEV/ and Devon FHS (http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ ) _______________________________________________ Email preferences: http://bit.ly/rootswebpref Unsubscribe https://lists.rootsweb.com/postorius/lists/devon@rootsweb.com Privacy Statement: https://ancstry.me/2JWBOdY Terms and Conditions: https://ancstry.me/2HDBym9 Rootsweb Blog: http://rootsweb.blog RootsWeb is funded and supported by Ancestry.com and our loyal RootsWeb community — School of Computing, Newcastle University, 1 Science Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 5TG EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk<mailto:Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk> PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 URL = http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/brianrandell.html