Historical Collection from the British Library

The past few weeks I have been slowly but surely acquiring yet another obsession: an overwhelming desire to comprehend the history, genealogy and archaeology of Northern Ireland. And with some degree of synchronicity, several people referred me to different volumes in a series being developed : the Historical Collection from the British Library being reprints of volumes which have been and ought to still be important references works.

The Library is gradually digitising their historical collection. For important works these have been re-published in this digitised form; that is the digital images of the pages are reproduced in book form. As a result you get all the imperfections of the original versions faithfully reproduced including pencil notes and even treatment records from the archivists. According to the blurb, over 65,000 volumes of 19th Century works have already been digitised.

The two that interested me were

• one on Carrickfergus - where we now live: once the capital of the North, the town has an engrossing story to tell and this book dating from 1823 has some wonderful gems just waiting to be discovered
• the other, documents an Ulster parish, Donaghcloney & Waringstown where both our families seem to hail from, at least back to the 18th Century. This one dates from 1898 and contains much folklore and aural history now sadly lost 

These are fascinating books in their own right but if either have relevance to your own life-story, they must surely be essential additions for your bookself. Rather interestingly these books claim to have been printed by amazon.co.uk

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