From: "Yvonne Scrivener" <scrivener@iinet.net.au> > Hi Carolyn, > > Always a good place to start when you are researching in England is > GENUKI. > > Here is the link to Places in Yorkshire on GENUKI: > http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/Misc/Where/index.html > > Yvonne Scrivener > Wagga Wagga NSW > Australia> I'd like to heartily endorse Yvonne's message. Really, not living in the UK and being unfamiliar with British geography is no excuse these days when all you have to do is enter a place name into Google and it will usually come up with umpteen websites telling you exactly where the place is. And, most certainly, "Where is it in Yorkshire" at the GENUKI site is probably by far and away the best place to start. I am always telling newcomers that you really cannot do your family history properly if you are totally ignorant about the places your ancestors came from. How can you be expected to trace them if you don't familiarise yourself with the geography of the area in which they lived? Such knowledge is vital in cases where, for instance, you don't find them in an expected parish. You then need to know the contiguous (adjacent) parishes and to look for them there. In relation to the latter, I absolutely recommend as a MUST for any genealogist's library the Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers. This gives you ordinary maps alongside parish maps of every county in Britain, plus complete listings of all the registers, the dates they cover and the whereabouts of every record office they are kept in, plus other information. Cheap it ain't at 50 pounds - so why not get your loved one to give it to you for your birthday or Christmas. Alternatively, most half-decent reference libraries should have a copy of this most valuable work. -- Roy Stockdill Guild of One-Name Studies: www.one-name.org Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE

>From: Roy Stockdill [roy.stockdill@btinternet.com]-bounces@rootsweb.com] > I absolutely recommend as a MUST for any >genealogist's library the Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers. >This gives you ordinary maps alongside parish maps of every county in >Britain, plus complete listings of all the registers, the dates they cover >and the whereabouts of every record office they are kept in, plus other >information. >Cheap it ain't at 50 pounds - so why not get your loved one to give it to >you for your birthday or Christmas. Alternatively, most half-decent >reference libraries should have a copy of this most valuable work. It may sound like a lot of money for one book, but it doesn't date, and the maps themselves are worth the money. Does anyone have any other 'must have' books for West Yorkshire research in general, and Pontefract and Wakefield in particular? Yvonne Scrivener Wagga Wagga NSW Australia