It certainly was a thrill; it was the first proper "really old document" I'd ever seen, but then I'm still at the stage where I was really excited last week to be given photos of my late grandmother taken in 1908.
I doubt if my ancestors ever handled the book, though - strictly peasants, my lot, or at least the Canterbury ones. Although some of them were sextons at St Dunstan's in the late C18th, so perhaps they did.
I must admit that due to basic lack of time to travel and get back within the day, the vast majority of my family history is done on line, but I do think it's much more satisfying, even if you're only working from microfilm or transcripts, to pick out the information for yourself rather than having it come up in a list of search results.
I've no idea whether this volume has been filmed, because the furthest back I've got in Canterbury is Joseph Cook born 1717, and it will be quite a while before I can visit again.
I'm only a newbie at the Archives, having only visited Maidstone twice and Canterbury the same, but there is so much more there than will ever realistically make it on line. Perhaps in a few years when all the obvious sources are online we will see people visiting Archives more knowledgeably, ie after they've already been researching for a few years.
One thing I did find, and perhaps there's a lesson for your students here: I finally found concrete evidence of the rumoured family Huguenot connection. It turns out that the baptism in question actually is on the IGI, but until I spotted Susanna and Kirby Francis as god-parents in the book of the Strangers' Church, with the entry repeated in French (Susanne et Kirby Francois!) it had never occurred to me that's where the link would be. (I was told it was the Cooks that were Huguenots).
I'd never been able to find a christening - and hence parents - for John Francis, born around 1757. But with this clue, there he was, clear as day: Jean Francois, fils de Jean Francois et de Jeanne Thorelle, sa femme. Né 19th Sept 1756. I also got his siblings.
But I would never have found him online, because I simply had no idea that he'd been christened Francois rather than Francis. It took the physical book to give me that information.
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-04 07:53 pm (UTC)I doubt if my ancestors ever handled the book, though - strictly peasants, my lot, or at least the Canterbury ones. Although some of them were sextons at St Dunstan's in the late C18th, so perhaps they did.
I must admit that due to basic lack of time to travel and get back within the day, the vast majority of my family history is done on line, but I do think it's much more satisfying, even if you're only working from microfilm or transcripts, to pick out the information for yourself rather than having it come up in a list of search results.
I've no idea whether this volume has been filmed, because the furthest back I've got in Canterbury is Joseph Cook born 1717, and it will be quite a while before I can visit again.
I'm only a newbie at the Archives, having only visited Maidstone twice and Canterbury the same, but there is so much more there than will ever realistically make it on line. Perhaps in a few years when all the obvious sources are online we will see people visiting Archives more knowledgeably, ie after they've already been researching for a few years.
One thing I did find, and perhaps there's a lesson for your students here: I finally found concrete evidence of the rumoured family Huguenot connection. It turns out that the baptism in question actually is on the IGI, but until I spotted Susanna and Kirby Francis as god-parents in the book of the Strangers' Church, with the entry repeated in French (Susanne et Kirby Francois!) it had never occurred to me that's where the link would be. (I was told it was the Cooks that were Huguenots).
I'd never been able to find a christening - and hence parents - for John Francis, born around 1757. But with this clue, there he was, clear as day: Jean Francois, fils de Jean Francois et de Jeanne Thorelle, sa femme. Né 19th Sept 1756. I also got his siblings.
But I would never have found him online, because I simply had no idea that he'd been christened Francois rather than Francis. It took the physical book to give me that information.