One of the perks of working at the BYU Library is that I have the chance to learn about all sorts of interesting places to search for information, both in print and on the web. One cool discovery I have made recently is www.archive.org.
Archive.org is a free website that is available to anyone who has internet access. Archive.org publishes copies of books, photographs, and other works that have no copyright, or whose copyright has expired. It's a pretty neat site. It has tons of information available for free. That includes the actual images of the books they put online. It's easy, quick, and great!
I searched archive.org for East Leake and I actually found A History of East Leake by Sidney Pell Potter. It was published in 1903, which is useful because the Ristes left Nottingham around 1836. Therefore, Potter was writing the history at a time when he was much closer to the events he described than more recent historians. The downside to Potter's book is that he was a parish priest, and his work does not mention nonconformist churches at all (except for one text by the Church of England against Anabaptists). This is unfortunate because the Ristes were Baptists. In spite of Potter's obvious bias, I still think A History of East Leake has a lot of useful information about the village. It even includes photos and maps of the parish!
I'm looking forward to seeing what other gems are waiting for me on the Internet Archive!
Thanks for the tip about the website.
ReplyDeleteYour tip is a great one! I am going to see if there is anything on the site I can use. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteHey, thanks for you info. I am going to try it too!!! Great researching!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the resource!!!
ReplyDeleteHi.
ReplyDeleteMy name is James Horace van den Berg.
My grandfather was James Horace Riste and was born on 30 March 1909.He was one of three siblings born of James and Andrika (Second name4 might be Dina)Riste.His Brother was Sonny and his sister His father died in the mines and the three siblings was placed in a local orphanage. His brother and sister was adopted and their surnames changed.
I would dearly like to know where the Riste family in South Africa originated from and when and how the immigrated to South Africa.
There is absoliutaly no records of any other Riste's in SA.
My e mail adress is jamesb@cmc.org.za.
Hope there is someone that can assist.
Regards
James