Genealogy Chat

Since starting to research my family tree, I have started reading factual books about Victorian England, I am finding it fascinating to learn about how life was for my relatives back then and wondered if anyone had read any good ones they could recommend to me. Thanks

Yes, Lisa Picard's book on Victorian London is a really good read, and very useful if you have relatives living there at the time. It's written in a chatty, informal and easy to read style. Take a look at Amazon's website. I expect that you'll find lots of books on there on the subject. For some of the books you can read sample pages, and most but not all have readers comments which will help with your choice. Rachelxx

I bet your local library will have a good selection - the Victorians are popular with schools & general public. There's also a good series 'The Victorians' on the History Channel on Tuesdays at the moment at 9.pm. nell

If you google, you can find some good Victorian sites too. And don't forget you can get a good idea of Victorian values etc from novels - those written at the time, such as Dickens, Trollope etc as well as historical ones like Margaret Forster's 'Lady's Maid' etc. nell

Aimee I can thoroughly recommend Dore's(accent on the e!) London. It consists of 180 drawings of life and people of Victorian London and is an absolute must. Along with Mayhew's book, Charles Dickens' novels and the work of Charles Booth this collection of engravings helped change the attitude towards the able bodied poor in England and paved the way for the Liberal Social Reforms 1908 - 1914. isbn 0-486-43272-6 Jan

Thank you everyone. You have been really helpful. I think I may start with the Poor London one, as I had by the looks of it, some quite impoverished relatives that I would like to know more about. Thanks again.

Following on from Helen's post - if your library is like mine than you should be able to access their stock of books online. This will give you a better idea of the books available, then visiting the library in person. Whenever I've visited I rarely found the book I wanted. Some books are in reserve stock, so won't be on display anyway. Provided you are a member you can reserve the book online for a small fee (my library charges 75p per book), so if the book is already out then the person will not be able to renew again. I originally borrowed Lisa Picard's book of Victorian London from the library and liked it so much I bought the paperback from Amazon when it was released.

Thanks Rachel. Yes, I do have the same problem with my library I certainly will be giving that a go. And also thank you Nell, I will be watching that tonight with interest.