David Hawgood's "One-Place Genealogy" book

[vivdunstan]

Don't know if this book has been mentioned here before. I bought a copy years ago. Forgetting I still had it I bought another one recently - ha! But it's only 2 pounds + postage now, so wasn't too bad a duplicate purchase. It can be bought from http://www.family-tree.co.uk/acatalog/ - searching for Hawgood in the top-left search box is probably the easiest way to find it.

The book was published in 2001, and is more a booklet than a full book, just 64 pages long, and A5 sized. Most of the book, over 40 pages, is a directory of then one-place studies, which will be largely out of date now. But the first 18 pages or so have very valuable advice for people considering doing one-place studies, or even doing ones already. And even the listing section is valuable to see how other people are tackling the task.

I've just been looking through it again, and was particularly impressed by pages 6-11, which discussed the different types of one-place studies people can do. This includes the family reconstitution option, which is so appealing for experienced genealogists, but can be difficult practically for high-population places. Another valuable option, and closer to what I will probably be doing in my case for Melrose, is to transcribe or index valuable records covering local people, thus making the records available to other researchers.

Anyway if people haven't seen this book already I would recommend picking up a copy if you can. It might give a valuable new perspective on things, and new ideas.