STEP BY STEP Locating London

Locating London ( locatinglondon.org) is useful if you have traced your ancestors back to 18th century London and beyond. Although many of the datasets focus on crime and poverty, it does include names of elite Londoners, too. It is a way of placing data provided by projects such as London Lives, Old Bailey Online and Hearth Tax Online onto maps of London. The following case study shows how the site can be used. In this example, a researcher is looking for the Collins family, who they know from census records were living in Hart Street, London.

STEP 1

On the home page of locatinglondon.org type ‘Hart Street’ into the ‘Quick place search’ box at the top of the screen and press ‘Go’.

STEP 3

Click on the ‘Data’ tab (top left) and choose a dataset. The Collins family were fairly well-off so they were likely to have been rate payers. Select Westminster ratebooks and enter a name. Press the red ‘Go’ button.

STEP 5

Click on ‘Show mappable hits on map’ to return to the map page. There is a Collins family living near a Hart Street. You can add other datasets by selecting ‘Add data’ (bottom left) to find more possible Collins families.

STEP 2

The next screen pins all the places named ‘Hart Street’ on a map from 1746. On modern maps there is only one Hart Street, near Fenchurch Street. Here there are more options that can be checked against census records.

STEP 4

The next screen shows 67 results for Collins, although almost half cannot be mapped. When you switch to the ‘Maps’ screen for the next step it is important to remember that those hits will not be included.

STEP 6

Using the drop-down list on the map you can switch to an OS map from 1869-80 to see if the road names match the census. Scroll in or out using your mouse wheel or the ‘+’ and ‘–’ buttons. Click on a pin to find out more.