Derbyshire

Derbyshire Libraries can be accessed at the Derby County website.

• BOWDEN, James Philip - A Derbyshire Childhood, 1897-1913. Derbyshire Library.

  • ISBN unknown

   

• Derbyshire Federation of Women's Institute - The Derbyshire Village Book. published by Countryside Books, 1991.

  • ISBN 1 85306 133 6

   

• Glover, Stephen - The History, Gazetteer and Directory of the County of Derby. Henry Mozley and Son, 1899.

  • ISBN unknown

  This was conceived as a major publishing work - Part I, Vol I covered general history of the County; Part I Vol II began a systematic coverage of the county, parish by parish, dealing with general information, history and FAMILIES of each locality in turn, and included numerous drop-line pedigree charts.
  This volume covered alphabetically from ABNEY to DERBY only, and there the project foundered. Copies or extracts may be found online
   

• Turbutt, Gladwyn - A History of Derbyshire. Merton Priory Press, 1999.

  • ISBN 1-898937-34-6

  At 120 pounds sterling this book is a considerable investment, but the serious student of Derbyshire History will find it an essential source of reference.
   

• Salter, Mike - The Old Parish Churches of Derbyshire. Folly Publications.

  • ISBN 1-871731-33-X

  Rosemarie LOCKIE recommend this book personally - like others in his Old Parish Churches series, it is extremely well-researched, and for her, a regular source of reference.
   

• A company called Deceased on line - www.deceasedonline.com has got all the burial details for cemeteries. Note that these records are also available at Archives. Contributed by Brian BINNS, 29 July 2017.
   
• Photos and transcriptions of notable church monuments, provided by the Church Monuments Society. Added 28 Aug 2007.
   
• Sheffield General Cemetery database - 80,000+ entries, for which details may include place of birth, and in one instance I noticed of someone born in Derbyshire, a reference to maiden surname... Choose 'Resources' from the left menu, scroll down to 'burial details' and click on 'the first 6000 burials', from which you can either list them chronologically or use the brilliant, and very fast search engine..
   
• Roll of Honour - Derbyshire - War Memorial Selection.
   

• Derbyshire Census - links and information.

• Search for Derbyshire Anglican Churches on The Diocese of Derby website..
   
• Hoskyns, Edwyn - Under the Heavy Clouds. Merton Priory Press, 2005, ISBN 1-898937-63-X
   Subtitled ‘The Church of England in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, 1911-1915’, this book is an account of Edwyn Hoskins, Bishop of Southwell's parochial visitation of the diocese between 1911 and 1915.
   
• Combes, Isobel - Anglican Churches of Derbyshire. Landmark Collector's Library, 2005, ISBN 13: 9781843061526.
   
• Information about Derbyshire's Parishes, 1811 is available from Ann ANDREWS.
   
• You may also find it worthwhile searching in the GENUKI Church Database. Enter the name of the place in which the church is located:

• Searchable database of Phillimore's Parish Registers - Marriages, provided by Nigel BATTY-SMITH.
   
• Searchable database of Derbyshire Marriage Index 1538-1837, provided by Sue BROWN. 1538-1812 about 95% of county covered, 1813-1837 - virtually complete coverage.
   

• The searchable LDS website - IGI and Familysearch

  Note on using IGI Batch Numbers:
  It is not always easy to locate your ancestors in the IGI using the search mechanisms provided at the above LDS site. Manually typing the batch numbers into the IGI search screen can be tedious. Hugh Wallis has made an exhaustive search of the likely ranges of batch numbers and created a database of those numbers and the source records that they apply to. A very powerful feature included is a hotlink from each batch number to the actual search engine provided at the Family Search site, including the ability to enter the surname you are looking for. This makes it very easy to search all the batches for a particular geographic location using just the last name you are searching for - something that is not possible directly from the LDS site without doing a lot of typing. This is Hugh Wallis's site.

• Search Derbyshire Record Office's archive collections online via their web-site at Record Office. Or download PDF documents to view offline - as well as providing essential background information for research, the guides also provides covering dates for Church of England, Non-Conformist, and Cemetery Registers held at the DRO.
   
• A list of Stray Marriages in Winster (marriages where one or both parties were not of the parish) is available on Dawn Scotting's All Things Winster blogspot - parties are from all over Derbyshire.
   
• The Society of Genealogists web site has a list of their holdings of Parish Register Copies for Derbyshire.
   
• If you are looking for Methodist ancestors, start with a visit to The Methodist Heritage site.
   

Civil Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths in England and Wales began on July 1st 1837. Copies of certificates may be obtained from either the General Register Office (GRO), or from a Superintendent's Registrar's Office of the District at which the event was first registered. If the District no longer exists, this would be the Office to which its registers have been moved.

• Obtaining a certificate from a Superintendent Registrar's Office.

  • The original records of events, completed by the Registrar of the time, have always been retained by the District Registrar. In Derbyshire, these records are currently held in seven different locations within the county, and in the past an application would be made to the Superintendent Registrar at one of these locations to search the local indexes he or she holds to the registers, and produce a certificated copy from the original record of the event. However in recent years, volunteers have been transcribing these records, and it may be possible to find details for yourself by searching an index to the records online.

    For more details of this service see Findmypast Blog. For details of the ongoing transcription project see Derbyshire Family History's Derbyshire Registrars BMD Index project. The cost of a certificate obtained this way is £9.00.

    Details of Local Register Offices to contact are on the above site, and a complete list of all districts may be found in Brett Langston's list of Derbyshire Registration Districts (1837-1974). The details required for such a request are name and surname, the event type (ie birth, marriage or death), and the year the event took place, and a search will be made of 5 years either side of that year, if an entry for that year isn't found.

• Obtaining a certificate from the GRO

  • Certificates from the GRO are issued from copies of the original records; however there is considerable advantage in being able to search indexes to the whole country in one place, so many people prefer to do this, rather than risk a protracted search locally. The first step is to obtain a GRO reference to the event. You can then order certificates online via the Certificate Ordering Service of the General Register Office website. From 6th April 2010, the cost of a certificate obtained this way is £9.25.

    You can obtain a GRO reference in several ways:-

    1. Searching microfilm or fiche at a Library or LDS Family History Centre.
    2. FreeBMD is an ongoing project to make the General Register Office (GRO) Indexes freely available online. More volunteers are needed and details of how you can help are available on-site.
    3. findmypast.co.uk (formerly 1837online) - images of the complete BMD indexes from the GRO online. Fee payable
    4. The images are also available on Ancestry.co.uk for which a subscription provides access to a wide range of other records.
        
• Obtaining a certificate for a recent event
  • The cost of a certificates issued at the time of registration of a current birth, death or marriage is £3.50 for each copy.
     
  • After registration (for instance, the following day) the cost is £7.00, providing the register is still current (within 28 days of the last entry in the register)
     
  • After a registration book is complete, 28 days later, the register is deposited with the Superintendent Registrar of the district. From that point onwards, applications should be made to the appropriate district office, and certificates will cost the same as any 'old' certificate obtained locally - £9.00.
     

• The Prison Service Museum near Rugby houses HM Prison Service's historical collection of exhibits, illustrating the history of imprisonment from medieval times to the present day. Housed in a converted stable block, the museum contains reconstructions of Victorian prison architecture, and exhibits include the last set of Gibbet Irons used in England. Smaller items include bone carvings and paintings made by prisoners in their cells, and a nineteenth century sampler embroidered by a female prisoner from her own hair

  Admission to the museum is by appointment only, please contact:-

  The Curator,
  HM Prison Service Museum,
  Newbold Revel,
  Rugby CV23 0TH

  [Information compiled from "The Penal Lexicon Home Page", formerly at www.penlex.org.uk/pages/index.html.]

• Michael Cox has transcribed 8,777 cases from Derbyshire Petty and Quarter sessions 1770-1828.

• The Geograph British Isles project - "aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometre of the UK and the Republic of Ireland..." Added 16 Jun 2007.
   
• Picture the Past - project being managed by Derbyshire County Council to digitise thousands of historic images from Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, some as early as.1850.
   
• Discover Derbyshire and the Peak District - site featuring a walk-through of 20 Peak District towns and villages, with an emphasis on local history. Whilst I haven't explored it fully myself yet, of the villages I looked at, all the salient aspects of local folklore appear to be covered, and with more to be added over the coming months. I can fully recommend this attractive, and well presented site.
   
• Derbyshire UK has descriptions and photographs of many towns and villages in Derbyshire, and provides a wide range of information about other aspects of the county.
   
• Hedgerow Publishing are selling high quality goods featuring scenes in Sheffield, Derbyshire and South Yorkshire. Their Nostalgic Prints are of particular interest.
   
• A Website for the Peak District. Provides primary Facts on the Peak District in simple, easy to understand form.
   
• The Peak District National Park - History and features. Contains some fascinating information on individual towns and villages.
   
• Ok, so I'm a sucker for Peak District sites - how about a Peak District Sightseer's Guide - pages with information on Arbor Low (Stone Circle), Chatsworth, Cromford, Haddon Hall, and more.
   

• An index of descriptions from Pigot's Commercial Directory of Derbyshire 1828-9 transcribed by Heather FAULKES.
   
• Rosemary LOCKIE provides a transcription of the Pigot & Co's Commercial Directory for Derbyshire (1835).
   
• Transcriptions of sections of Kelly's Directory of Derbyshire, 1891 (most places covered) by Ann ANDREWS.
   
• Leicester University's Digital Library of Historical Directories for England and Wales.
   

• For help finding your ancestors onboard ship - The Ships List - of particular interest are the large number of transcribed passenger lists, and records of some Marriages at Sea. Added 10 Dec 2007.
   
• A group of Derbyshire Primitive Methodists went to America in the Summer of 1844. It included Samuel C. MARSDEN (bn Birchover, but later moved to Shirland, then to Whittington, John SLATER (bn. Higham, but later of East Moor, Old Brampton, near Wadshelf), James WILMAN (bn. Measham, Nr. Derby - relative of John SLATER's wife Hannah). Joseph NOBILE, from Fritchley, in Crich Parish, Joseph SLINN (bn Ashover), and of course the respective wives and children. Other individuals were likely also included in the party.

If you wnt to know the ancesotrs who came into England, you should start at the "England’s Immigrants 1330-1550" website.

Derbyshire has some unique sayings, some apparently local, some adopted.

• Nigel Batty-Smith's site providing UK Genealogy Archives of Derbyshire, has a description of the county from The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England and Wales, 1894-5.
   
• Colin HINSON provides a transcription of the section for Derbyshire from the National Gazetteer (1868).
   
• The transcription of the section for Miscellaneous Descriptions from the National Gazetteer (1868) provided by Colin HINSON. Included here are the descriptions of major topological features (rivers, hills &c.) and a descriptions of the county hundred divisions.
   
• You may also find it worthwhile searching in the GENUKI Gazetteer. The GENUKI Gazetteer covers the whole of England, Wales and Scotland and can be searched by place-name (or part of a place-name) or Ordnance Survey Grid Reference (six-figure, eg SK350350). If there are multiple place-names matching the name you enter, you will be presented initially with a drop-down list of the matching place-names, and (when known), their nearest identifiable place.

• RootsChat Messaging Forum - Derbyshire section.
   
• Details of Derbyshire Mailing Lists.
   
• Ann ANDREWS' website The Andrews Pages, whilst focussing primarily on Matlock and Matlock Bath has a great deal of more general interest, including many transcriptions of Directories and Census, and a growing Derbyshire Picture Gallery.
   
• John PALMER's Wirksworth Parish Records site. A host of transcriptions (parish registers, MIs, Census, etc.) covering an area of 40 square miles around Wirksworth.
   
• Brett PAYNE's South Derbyshire Genealogical Resources web site. Features transcriptions of South Derbyshire research material for Church Gresley, Newhall, Stapenhill, etc.
   
• Marjorie WARD's North West Derbyshire Sources. Features Chapel en le Frith, Glossop, etc.
   
• Liz SPARKES' Villages and Towns provides information on some places in North West Derbyshire, in particular, Glossop.
   

• Transcribed text of the Derbyshire section of Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England (1831).
   
• Peak District Landscapes - a study of the Peak District from prehistory to the present, with some interesting 'TimeLines'. It also has some genealogy content, as amongst its 'Frequently Asked Questions' is an answer to their #12, 'Do people from Biddulph Moor have Arab ancestors?'.
   
• English Heritage Viewfinder - site with historic photographs, searchable by county. Has some unusual ones of the Industrial Age which won't be found amongst the more usual postcard collections!.
   
• The Francis Frith Collection - a collection of over 700,000 photographs of the UK, Europe and the Middle East taken by the Victorian photographer Francis FRITH.
   
• A Vision of Britain Through Time - information about your home area from the 2001 census, and from each British census back to 1801. Presented both as maps of the whole country and as graphs showing change over time.
   
• The Derwent Valley Mills are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
   

• A digital library of mediaeval and modern sources of the history of the British Isles - British History Online. Notable sources include Journals of the House of Commons and House of Lords, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, and the Victoria County History.
   
• A list of Contents of Topographical and Historical Account of Derbyshire, 1817, by Daniel and Samuel Lysons, transcribed by Barbarann AYARS.
   
• The Domesday Book Online "to enable visitors to find out the history of the Domesday Book and to give an insight into life at the time of its compilation". Note this site does not provide the original text, but does include a list of settlements existing in 1086.
   
• An Encyclopaedia of British History: 1700-1950 - useful for seeing local events against a national perspective. Scroll down the introductory page on this site to see topics - Child Labour, British Railways, &c.
   
• In 1828, a Dr. SMITH who was a chemist found that the air in Manchester (in Lancashire) contained thirty tons of soot and thirty tons of tar which was renewed daily. These solids in the air were equivalent to over sixty tons per square mile.
   

• The Wolley Manuscripts for all Derbyshire. Abstracts from this superb collection of pre 1828 Documents have been transcribed by Ann Andrews from articles written by Rev. Charles J. Cox, LL.D., F.S.A. and published in the Journals of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society. Many places, people and relationships are mentioned - an absolute "MUST" to visit! Full details, and explanation, are available on Ann's site.

• Pat JOHNSON has a large collection of original Family Deeds. Abstracts, with name and parish indexes are provided onsite, with transcriptions of the full documents available for a modest fee. In addtion, the original deed may also be available for purchase if required.
   
• Information about Derbyshire Feet of Fines (land conveyances) - on Chris Phillips Medieval English Genealogy web site.
   
• Mike DURTNALL is providing a country-wide collection of Historical Manuscripts Pages recording details of deeds that have been offered for sale on eBay and in auction catalogues. In most cases whereabouts of the documents will be unknown, but sufficient details of the property involved and of buyers, sellers, mortgages, &c. is provided to make them a useful research tool.
   

• Names from Criminal Registers (PRO Class HO 27) 1805-1816 are available for purchase on floppy disk or microfiche through Family History Indexes (the link to Criminal Register Indexes is part way down the page).

• British History Online - Ordnance Survey 1:10,560 Maps - The County Series of Ordnance Survey maps for Great Britain. Begun in 1840, this is the first comprehensive historic mapping of England, Scotland and Wales..
   
• Paul JONES is providing a Lower Dove Valley Tithe Map Viewer - maps cover parishes of both Derbyshire and Staffordshire.
   
• The London Ancestor site has maps from the 1885 Boundary Commissioners report for all parts of the British Isles, including Derbyshire (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1885)
   
• The Old Maps web site has a wonderful series of 1:10,560 scale historical maps for the whole of the UK available online.
   
• The County maps of Northern England, 1760s-1840s provides a useful map.
   
• Detailed Maps of the area you may be interested in Derbyshire are viewable at the UK Street Map Page. The site provides a most useful service, with superb address searching and street map facilities for anywhere in mainland Great Britain.
   

• Holdings of Lambeth Palace Library - a Directory of medical licences issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury lists some early practitioners in Derbyshire. 
   
• Medical Heritage of Great Britain, a site produced by the Bath & Wessex Medical History Group, providing detailed information on a county level of the history of medical treatments, and locations of some associated buildings. 
   
• "Cholera Morbus" arrived in England in 1831 and swept through the whole of the country during 1832. 
   
• A CD-ROM of Lunacy in 19th Century Derbyshire, compiled by Sylvia WRIGHT, can be found at several sources. 
   
• Derbyshire was one of the centers of the Voluntary Aid Detachments created during World War One. Women were trained in first aid and basic medical care and used in numerous hospitals and aid stations across the country. The Newark Great War Bulletin of 19 October 1914 gives some details on page 2. 
   
• The British Red Cross is delighted to launch a new digital resource making the First World War service records of members of the Voluntary Aid Detachment accessible online for the first time. Recording the service of ambulance drivers, nurses, stretcher bearers, knitters and cooks, the collection is an exceptional source of historical information about non-military activity at this time. Please visit RedCross.org to search the first tranche of 30,000 cards.

• A very comprehensive site featuring Castles and Fortifications - CastleUK.net.
   
• The Age of Nelson - a website providing general information about the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars 1793-1815, and specifically searchable databases of those present at Trafalgar (and more) and of all Commissioned Naval Officers 1787-1822.
   
• Jean DURBIN has extracted the Derbyshire entries from a list of Military Deserters 1828-1840 posted in the Police Gazette (hosted on John PALMER's Wirksworth site).
   
• The Whitworth Rifle was a muzzle-loaded musket with a percussion lock and a rifled barrel introduced in 1857 by designer Sir Joseph WHITWORTH of Darley Dale, DBY. It's superior accuracy won it the nickname of "Sharpshooter."
   
• The High Peak Rifles, later 6th Battalion, Sherwood Foresters, was a volunteer unit of Britain's Territorial Army. First raised in the High Peak area of Derbyshire in 1860

Derbyshire Militia: Enlistments into the Regular Army at Dover, 1813 - a record of the names from this list was also published in the Derby Mercury, 1814.

Names from Musters of the Derbyshire Militia 1781-82 are available for purchase on floppy disk or microfiche through Family History Indexes (the link to Militia Musters is part way down the page).

There is an online website for looking up Prisoners of War from World War One at the Int'l Comm. of the Red Cross Archives.

The formal name of the county is "Derbyshire", but "Derby" is the accepted alternative. Be careful not to confuse the county with the city of "Derby". Locals often pronounce both as "Darby".

• CAMERON, Kenneth, The place-names of Derbyshire. One of the English Place-Name Society Series; Volume XXIX. Published by Cambridge: University Press (1951-2). In 3 Volumes:

  1. Part 1: Introduction, river-names, High Peak Hundred, Maps.
  2. Part 2: Scarsdale, Wirksworth, Morleyston & Litchurch Hundreds.
  3. Part 3: Appletree, Repton & Gresley Hundreds; Analyses and Indexes.

  
   

• John PALMER has created an online DERBYSHIRE PLACENAMES Index, listing 7,000 places within the county, including the parish and Hundred each lies in, and with a simple (text) map to locate the parish.

• Lists of some Derbyshire Lead Miners may be found in a Petition of miners of Derbyshire to the House of Commons for relief from the tax on lead, PRO Ref: E101/280/18. This was a petition to the Long Parliament in 1641 or 1642 to reduce the tax on lead from 48 shillings to 28 shillings per fother. It lists by name miners in the lead mining townships of the Hundred of High Peak, the Wapentake of Wirksworth and the townships of Crich and of Ecton in Staffordshire. The list of about 1900 names is almost complete, being slightly damaged for Castleton, Hope, Youlgreave and Stanton. By the name of each miner is the number of his dependents and servants. The Derbyshire Record Office have a handwritten transcription - DRO Ref: D3504/1/1-2.
   
• The same bundle, DRO Ref: D3504/1/1-2, also contains a handwritten transcription of the 1642 Protestation Return, a document in the House of Lords Record Office in the Main Papers for Feb 26 1642. The townships included are Tideswell, Monyash, Bakewell, Sheldon, Birchill, Rowsley, Overhaddon, Ashford, Longsden [sic], Baslow, Taddington, Beeley, Hope and Castleton. I am indebted to Lynn Burnet for this, and the previous item of information.
   
• Guildhall Library Manuscripts Section: Indexes to parish returns towards the rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral, ca.1678, with their Library Reference numbers. The returns themselves, which need to be consulted by personal visit, promise to be useful, as a record of those individuals who contributed, and in a number of instances those who did not. A number of the returns indicate status of the contributors, e.g. widow, or servant.
   
• Graham JAUNAY's Online English Names Directory covers this county.
   
• The STARBUCK surname appears often in Derbyshire. Celia RENSHAW has a website that might assist you in your search.
   

If you get a chance to visit the Peak District of Derbyshire, look for a copy of The Peak Advertiser, available at Post Offices, and local village shops, free of charge. Although this is a free advertising newspaper, each issue usually contains one or more local history articles, a family walks feature, and on the back page "What's in a Name" in which the author offers his own unique insight into the meaning behind readers' surnames. Website link added 20 Jan 2007.

Flindall, Roger - What The Papers Said .... Published by The Peak District Mines Historical Society.
ISBN 0 904334 24 4.

Derbyshire in Nottingham Newspapers 1714-1776 - "Researchers using What the Papers Said ... will have at their fingertips full and accurate transcriptions of significant references without need to consult the original newspapers"...

• The Newspaper Library at Colindale - my current information (October 2007) is that the BL is going to close Colindale, transferring its archives to Boston Spa. Newspapers will be viewable on film only at the British Library, until such time as their holdings are digitised.
   
• The Burton Daily Mail and associated publications cover large parts of the county, particularly South Derbyshire.

• The Worshipful Company of Curriers - information about the history of this trade.
   
• Pubs and Breweries of the Midlands past and present - select 'Pub Histories' for listings by county..
   
• Derbyshire Apprentices in London - list compiled by Jean Durbin.
   
• Photographers and Photographic Studios of Derbyshire - a site created by Brett PAYNE, provides an index of Derbyshire Photographers, mainly from trade directories, together with biographies of selected photographers, also plenty of hints and tips for dating old family photographs. There is already a substantial collection of examples from the various studios; however further contributions of images are always welcome to this ever-growing collection.
   
• Registers of the Company of Stationers, London : Apprentices from Derbyshire, transcribed by Leslie MAHLER
   
• The Society of Brushmakers' Descendants assists those with Brushmaking Ancestors, or with an interest in discovering more about the brushmaker's trade.
   
• A List of Coal Mines in Great Britain, 1880 - includes all the Mines in Derbyshire, giving the name of the Colliery, where situated and who owned it.
   
• For further information about Coal Mining generally visit the Coalmining History Resource Centre.
   
• For a Glossary of Mining (historic) terms, the Coal ining Glossary.
   
• Edna MARLOW advised that a "Lengthsman" was a term coined in the 1700s, originally referred to someone who kept a "length" of road neat and tidy, but lengthsmen were used on canals and railways from the beginnings of both..
   

Ann ANDREWS has provided a transcription of the Derbyshire section of The Gentleman's Magazine Library, English Topography Part III, Derbyshire - Dorsetshire (1893). Content includes notes on archaeology, and history, brief biographies and "Eminent Natives", with topographical articles on many of Derbyshire's towns and villages - a wonderful, and unique resource!

• The local "Workhouse" was often the only hospital close to a parish, so the fact that someone was born or died there doesn't mean that the family was in the workhouse. Use the census to verify that fact.
   
• Bastardy was not uncommon. Read more about this at our Bastardy Cases page.
   
• Derbyshire Record Office staff created an index to removal orders 1707-1865. It is available on LDS FHL microfilm: 1702708.
   
• Board of Guardians 1837-51. Lists of names of those who were examined as being in need of poor relief, transcribed by Michael SPENCER. Covers Poor Law Unions of Bakewell, Belper, Shardlow, Hayfield, Ashbourne and Chesterfield. The records for Derby Union have been lost.
   
• A site "dedicated to the Workhouse - its buildings, its inmates, its staff and administrators, and even its poets..." - The Workhouse - created by Peter HIGGENBOTHAM.
   
• The National Archives has several books: "National Archives". Enter "Workhouse" in the search box.
   

This section has been moved to a separate Probate Records page.

• The General Commission on Archives and History (GCAH) of the United Methodist Church has a list of John Wesley's Preachers, 1740-1791.
   
• The Derbyshire Papist Returns of 1705-6, Edited by Richard Clark. 1983. provides a detailed list of the names of Papists, or those of the Catholic faith, together with their estimated wealth of their property, their occupations, and any ecclesiastical patronage they received.
  
  Although recusancy in Derbyshire was concentrated in a small number of parishes, virtually all parishes made a return for the two years in question, although for most the return is Nil. The parishes featuring a large concentration usually had the common factor of a member of the Catholic gentry living there, or possessing large estates. For instance, Ashbourne had the Pegges & Whitehalls; Hassop, the Eyres; Barlborough & Eckington, the Poles; Norbury, the Fitzherberts; West Hallam & Wingerworth, the Hunlokes.
  
  Tideswell, Wormhill and Hathersage are the exceptions, where the origins of Catholicism can be traced back to influence of Catholic gentry during Elizabeth I's reign. In Tideswell, these were Bishop Robert PURSGLOVE (c1503-1580), and William FIELDSEND (the rector between 1551 and 1576); in the case of Hathersage, the EYRE and FITZHERBERT families.
  
  Published by The Derbyshire Record Society, in 1983.
   

• Mother Bedford - "a website devoted primarily to the history of Old-Bedford County, Pennsylvania during the American Revolutionary War period" - a fascinating site including items of general historical interest eg:
  1. Apposite to the time of adding: The Celebration of Christmas.
  2. Examples of music our ancestors may have enjoyed: The Music of the 1770s: a Directory.

Gazetteer of Markets and Fairs in England and Wales to 1516 - The Gazetteer, compiled by Dr Samantha Letters is a catalog of Markets and Fairs in Medieval England and Wales. First comprehensive National Survey, with detailed information about grants of Charters to all Market Towns. Mentions some names of grantees - eg for Bakewell, "John (Gernoun, kn) successfully claimed that he and his ancestors had held the fair from time out of mind".

• Derbyshire FHS
   
• Chesterfield & District FHS
   
• Derbyshire Ancestral Research Group (DARG)
   
• The Derbyshire Archaeological Society
   
  An excellent site, which includes a search engine for back issues of the Society's Journal (DAJ), and image-map searches on Grid Reference.
   
• The Derbyshire Record Society
   
• Peak District Mines Historical Society
   

Derbyshire Hearth Tax Assessments, 1662-70.
Edited by David G. EDWARDS. 1982.

• ISBN 0 9505940 9 1.

• The E 179 Database (on the National Archives website) contains detailed information about over 26,000 documents relating to the taxation of lay people in England and Wales between c.1200 and c.1700. These documents are likely to contain many names.
   
• The Hearth Tax, popularly referred to as "Chimney Money" was introduced in 1662 but presumably like our 1980s Poll Tax, it was not a popular form of taxation, as by 1689 it was withdrawn. However, for the purposes of genealogical research the returns provide a unique "head count" and assessment of the social status of one's ancestors - the more hearths they paid taxes for, the larger the house they lived in. The Hearth Tax Assessments have been transcribed for Derbyshire, and are published by the Derbyshire Record Society.
   
• The volume lists the names of heads of households, and the number of hearths they were taxed for.

Marjorie WARD has transcribed A Copy of a Poll taken for the County of Derby The 16th, 17th, 18th and 20th days of May 1734 to include Voters in Bowden Middlecale & district and Voters in Other areas of (North) Derbyshire. Her transcription also lists where the Freehold land which made the Voter eligible was situated (this was not necessarily the place where he lived) and for which of the three candidates he voted (Lord Charles Cavendish, Sir Nathaniel Curzon Bart. or Henry Harpur Esq.)