Herts Past & Present - Review Policy

Herts Past and Present is the name of the current journal, published in the Spring and Autumn for members of the Hertfordshire Association of Local History (who also sell back issues). The current series was started in 2003, and there were earlier series. The articles are written by serious historians and will typically look at a single topic - sich as an old diary - or the effects of a particular law on the people of Hertfordshire. It is very much a metter of luck whether a particular article includes a mention of your ancestors, the place where they lived, or their occupations, and if you main interest in getting as many skeletons as possible pinned on your ancestral tree the journal is not for you.

However, if you are interested in trying to imaging how your ancestor lived, and the factors that affected his life, there is much of relevance. An article may not mention him, or even where he lived, but it could throw light on the relevant social conditions at the time, and the kinds of documentary sources that were used to write the article. As a result you may, in some cases, be able to say - now I know why my ancestor fell on hard times and, for example, decided to emigrate.

For each issue I will list the key articles, their abstracts, and the main titles - and then write a blog describing why the articles may be of interest to the family historian. Pages giving details of issue 1 (Spring 2003), issue 13 (Spring 2009) and issue 14 (Autumn 2009) have been online for some time - and have now been upgraded to contain the basic information. I will be posting the information on issue 19 next week, including the assessment on the Newsletter, and earlier issues will appear at intervals in reverse order.