English Records at the McPherson Library, University of Victoria

Originally printed in 'The Journal of the Victoria Genealogical Society, v.20, #3, Aug 1997.

(While specifically written for Victoria genealogists many of the fiche collections listed here, as well as records from other Historical Records Societies, may be in other university or public libraries.)

Among the University of Victoria's large collection of material are some rather interesting English County records on microfiche. They are in the Microforms Room in the basement of the McPherson library and fill about three drawers.

As you enter the Microforms room you go approximately half way down the room to the printer on the wall to the right. Directly across from the printer is the cabinet with this collection. The Microform Room's hours of operation differ from those of the rest of the library so phone before going (604-721-6673).

The collections listed below may contain a few or several hundred microfiche. Looking through the North Riding fiche I noted wills, land records, baptisms, marriages, burials and poor law records. The latest records seemed to be about 1800.

Indexes of all the Historical Societies publications are in the reference section on the main floor of the UVIC McPherson Library entitled "A Guide To The Historical and Archaelogical Publications of Societies in England and Wales, 1901-1933" by E.L.C. Mullins, (catalogue number Z5055 G6M8) and "Texts and Calendars" by the Worcestershire Historical Society, (cat. no. Z2016 M8). Texts and Calendars is also available on microfiche (DA670 W89W6).

There is one special collection titled "Records of an English Town - Earls Colne, Essex, 1380 to 1750". (DA690 E13R4). This is a product of a unique historical research project from Cambridge University. Researchers Collected every fact that they could find about this town and feed it into a computer. The result was a database of about 12 million words. The microfiche fill nearly ten centimeters of draw space.

Three pamphlets explaining how to use the collection (also DA690 E13R4) are on the shelves in the microforms room.

1. Records of Estate: survey of rights, accounts, freehold property, court baron, view of frankpledge, etc;
2. Records of State: government & administration, Parliament & Council, Chancery, finance, first fruits and tenths, wards & liveriers, common law courts, King's bench, assizes, common pleas, etc; and
3. Documents of Records: concerning Testament (Probate); baptisms; marriages; burials, licensing, poor law, etc.

While this project gave academics new insight on life in England for the period, it also allows genealogists to view a wide variety of records to determine which records would be useful in their own research.