LOCAL HISTORY

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

On this page you will find the answers to the following questions

I’m interested in the history of my town/village. Where can I find out more about it?

The Archive Service offices hold a huge quantity of records relating to the towns and villages in West Yorkshire. The most commonly used records for local history are described in more detail in the sources for local history section.

You will save time if you start off by visiting your local library and have a look at any published or printed histories of the area, trade directories or practical publications on local history generally. A short list of general books you might find helpful can be found at:

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/localhistory/guide/bibliography.htm

Your local library should also be able to tell you whether there is an active local history society in your area. Many local West Yorkshire societies are also listed on the West Yorkshire Archaeology Service

www.arch.wyjs.org.uk/AdvSrv/Locsoc.htm

If this initial research spurs you on to find out more, we would be pleased to help you. Further information on some of records often used for local history research can be found on our sources for local history pages. You can also search our catalogue or contact us to find out more about what we have available. If you have not used our Service before, have a look at our Never been here before? pages designed to help first time visitors.

If you are interested in the archaeological heritage of your area, contact our colleagues at the West Yorkshire Sites and Monuments Record. Further information about the SMR is available at:

www.arch.wyjs.org.uk/AdvSrv/SMR.htm

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How can I trace the history of my house?

The Archive Service holds a vast array of documentary material which can be used to trace the history of particular buildings. This can be a daunting prospect, especially if you have never visited an Archive Service office before. It is therefore well worth doing some basic reading about the most useful types of record you begin researching a particular building. Two helpful websites are:

www.house-detectives.co.uk/index.htm and

www.buildinghistory.org/

An added bonus for researching a house in Yorkshire is the relative ease of tracing the history of ownership of particular properties through the Riding Deeds Registries. If you live within the area of the former county of the West Riding of Yorkshire, you will almost certainly want to make an appointment to use the West Riding Registry of Deeds.

For all other types of archival evidence, you will need to make an appointment to visit your local Archive Service office in Bradford, Calderdale (Halifax), Kirklees (Huddersfield), Leeds or Wakefield. If you have not used our Service before, have a look at our Never been here before? pages designed to help first time visitors. Please contact us if you require help, or search our catalogue to find out more about what is available.

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Where is the place called…?

Use the alphabetical list of Yorkshire places at:

www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/Misc/Where/

For a modern map, search:

uk8.multimap.com/map/places.cgi

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I want to buy my council house. How do I prove I have been a council tenant for many years (Right-to-Buy enquiries)?

Contact the Right to Buy team at your local council first of all. Usually their records are sufficient to enable you to claim the maximum discount to which you are entitled. But sometimes they may ask you to prove your residence at a certain address or addresses. One common way of doing this is to provide copies of your entry on the electoral roll, proving that you lived at a particular address at a particular date.

You may therefore need to use the old electoral rolls held by the Archive Service, depending on where you used to live in the old West Riding or in West Yorkshire. Our Wakefield office holds copies of the parliamentary electoral roll for West Riding County Constituencies in force up to 1973, for West Riding Borough Constituencies 1964-1973, for West Yorkshire Constituencies up to 1985, and for the Wakefield Metropolitan District Constituencies (ie Hemsworth, Normanton, Pontefract & Castleford and Wakefield) to last year.

If you need to use these registers, even if you are not sure whether we hold the registers relevant to your right-to-buy application, please contact us to make an appointment or for further advice.

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Where can I find information about public rights of way?

Contact the Highways Department of your local council to start off with. They hold the current series of Definitive Rights of Way Maps for their area.

Older versions of the Definitive Maps are held at our Wakefield office.

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How can I find out who is the current owner of a piece of land/house?

Contact HM Land Registry in the first instance. Registration of title at the Land Registry has been compulsory for most areas of West Yorkshire since 1974. The Land Register is now available online at:

www.landregisteronline.gov.uk/

If the land is still unregistered at the Land Registry, you may be referred back to West Yorkshire Archive Service to use the former West Riding Registry of Deeds. The Registry, housed at our Wakefield office, is organised along different lines to the modern HM Land Registry system and closed as a working Registry in 1970. So although a search of the old Registry may be helpful, it cannot tell you for certain who is the current owner of a particular property.

Further information about using the West Riding Registry of Deeds…

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