Documents are the nuts and bolts of our research. Birth, marriage and death records, census returns, directories, wills, court records and so much more allow us to build detailed, accurate family trees. But if we really want to get to know the people behind the names and dates we need to find out more about our ancestral places and one of the best ways to do that is to use contemporary maps and photographs of the area.
My aim, whenever I’m researching a family, is to identif y the actual houses that they lived in and in this month’s Family Tree Academy, I’m going to explore three sets of records – all related to taxation – which can help us to do this.
Case Study 1: Locating a place that is no longer
Our first case study starts with the birth of Thomas William Morris. His father, Frederick was a licensed victualler and Thomas was born on 9 January 1907 at his parents’ pub, the Queens Arms in Queens Road, Watford.
The family were still running the pub at the time of the 1911 Census, which records details of Frederick, his wife Caroline and their four-yearold son, Thomas William, along with an older boy, Charles. Also in the household were Lucy Lester, a barmaid and
