This book is intended to provide an introduction to the detailed study of the general history of a region, town, village, or other local area, or of particular aspects of local history. What is ‘local’ will often differ according to the topic being investigated or the period of time with which the research is concerned, but most sensible researchers will not be greatly worried whether their work is properly considered ‘local’ or ‘regional’. Such a distinction in the context of modern scholarship is both artificial and unimportant.

It would be quite impossible to write a definitive or comprehensive guide to source materials local historians might find of value in their researches. Apart from the inevitable lack of omniscience in any author or group of authors, there is the fact that history is a living subject. Both the questions historians pose and seek to answer, and the topics in which they are interested, are always changing and being expanded. The chapters in this book are arranged to provide a general guide to the sources for certain aspects of local history in which there is currently an interest. Such subject divisions are naturally artificial and many researchers will be interested in topics which cut across those divisions. Others will wish to investigate as wide a spectrum of topics as possible so as to provide a rounded picture of a local community in a particular period. Yet others may want to compare certain aspects of life in one place with the same aspects in others.