Maps and Photography

Lloyd George's Domesday: a useful source c 1910

Valuation Office Records, popularly known as Lloyd George's Domesday are held at the National Archives.

This was a precursor of Capital Gains Tax. Tax would be paid on the increase in value of properties sold, so their values had to be calculated. Most were apparently done in the summer of 1914.

Every property in England & Wales was marked on a map, given a hereditament number and then the property described in a field book. The field books (in IR 58) each contain (up to) 100 properties and there are four standard preprinted pages for each property. You get owner, occupier, rental, a description of the property and value.

Not everything survives, of course, but where it does, you can find out if your ancestor was in a detached house or a terrace, what it was made of, who his or her neighbours were etc etc.

I've been to several talks, which all made research sound very complicated. The parish of Bury in Sussex stretches over 6 maps, so working from map to field book would be a long winded process, but there are only three field books (less than 300 properties) so you could go the other way round if looking for rural properties. The fieldbooks have references back to the maps, which are very large scale, often with coloured boundaries, so works of art.

It would be more difficult in a town, where you would have to be able to pinpoint a property on a map before you started, but town maps are very large scale.

We may not have census available for the period yet, but for those who can get to the National Archives at Kew, this would certainly help our understanding of pre WW1 ancestors.

Maps: Tithe and Ordnance Survey

Map Links

• About Britain The Locality of Towns and Every City in Britain

• Aerial Photos of England

• Maps from the Oxford Digital Library

• Genmaps - A Collection of Historic Maps

• Historical Map Archive Searchable by Place Name, Address or Co-ordinates (OS Grid Reference)

• Index to English Place Names

• First Generation of 1:2,500 and 1:10,560 Scale Ordnance Survey Maps for England, Scotland and Wales.

• National Library Of Scotland - Map Section

• Plans of Churches

• Norfolk Maps

• Baedeker's Old Guide Books

• Lancashire County Council - Environment Directorate: Old Town Maps

• Your Old Books & Maps.... CD-Books for Historical, Military or Family Research.

• Old Towns of England Map Shop

• Old Ordinance Survey Maps - The Godfrey Edition

Old London Maps

• Map of London in 1818 pre John Snow

• Historic Maps of London

• Archive Maps London 1850 & 1860

• 1786 J Cary 15 Miles Round London

• 1819 Leigh's Environs of London

• 1827 Greenwood's Map of London

• 1859 John Snow's Map of London

• 1889 Charles Booth's Map of London Poverty

• London Maps

• The Charles Booth Map and Pages From His Book.

Photograph Links

Photographs General

• Albums of British Churches and Mills

• Francis Frith Collection

• Date a Victorian Photo Roger Vaughan

• Geograph British Isles - Searchable Photograph Collection

• The Community Archives Network

• Images of England

• Pictures of England- Exploring The Most Picturesque & Historic Parts of England

• English Heritage Searchable Historical Photograph Collection

Place Specific

• Panoramic Views of London and The Thames

• London Photographs

• Town and County Views Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire

• Oxfordshire Photos

• Picture the Past-Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire Photo Archive and More

• Quality photographs of Derby, Derbyshire and the Midlands

• Photo Ark- Collection of Old UK Photographs, Postcards and Images

• Staffordshire Past Track

• Leodis - A Photographic Archive of Leeds

• Heanor and Derbyshire Local History Society

Churches

• Church of England

• Richard's Church Albums

• Mainly Bristol...

• Photographs of More Than 400 of The Historic Churches of Cheshire

• Images of Dorset Churches

• Essex Churches A-Z

• Norfolk Churches Site

• Suffolk Churches Site

• Churches and Religious Places in Mid Wales

Photographers

Directories of Victorian and Edwardian Photographers

• Genealogy Photos Search for Volunteer Photographers.

Back to Creating Your Family Tree

Back to Main Page