Archive.org

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!

FamilySearch Maps

I just found out about a cool new website for English research.

It's www.maps.familysearch.org

If you go into the website, you can click on any county and find out all sorts of information for that county.  This includes:

1. List all parishes in the county. List all surrounding counties
2. Search the Family History Library Catalog

3. Search the FamilySearch wiki


If you choose a particular parish to look at, you can find:

1. Ecclesiastical parish boundaries
2. Civil parish boundaries
3. Chapelries near by
4. Date that parish registers begin for that parish
5. Names of adjacent parishes
6. Map showing all parishes within a five-mile radius
7. Poor law union the parish belonged to
8. Diocese
9. Hundred (another civil/court division)
10. Probate Court
11. Rural Deanery
12. Type of parish

This site is a gold mine!  I searched for East Leake, Nottinghamshire, where the Ristes lived, and discovered that although East Leake is in the ecclesiastical parish of Nottinghamshire, it is in the civil parish of Loughborough.  This may explain why I didn't find Levinah's birth record, or any probate records for the Ristes in Nottinghamshire.  I still didn't find Levinah's birth in Loughborough on www.FreeBMD.org, but at least I have some new leads to follow!

If you are doing any English research, be sure to check out maps.familysearch.org.  It's amazing!!!