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Welcome to the latest edition of the British Association for Local History’s e-newsletter.
As we enter the winter months and festive period, there are still plenty of ways to enjoy local history, both virtually and in person. We have a number of fantastic webinars coming up, and are currently in the process of planning a number of online history events and projects for 2022. We look forward to sharing more about these soon!
BALH encourages participation from all our members and we welcome all your ideas. If you have a local history story you would like to share – be it a blog post, talk, article or project – please do get in contact with us. For those wishing to become a BALH member, information about what BALH has to offer is available on our membership pages.
The BALH team wish you all a safe and peaceful time over this festive period.
Do you know a local historian who has made an outstanding and significant contribution to the subject?
Why not show your appreciation for their research by nominating them for the BALH’s Outstanding Individual Contribution Awards.
Nominations are open until 31st December, and you can submit your applications using the link below.
Read more:
www.balh.org.uk/local-history-awards
Introducing our new Outreach Coordinator
We are delighted to welcome Stephen Miller as our new Outreach Coordinator, who starts with us officially in January.
Stephen would love to hear from any members with ideas for outreach projects, ways we can reach new audiences or what existing members would like to see.
Read more:
Introducing Stephen
Photography Competition
Could you be the inaugural BALH Local History Photographer of the year?
From January 2022, we will be launching an initiative to find some great local history from around Britain. In addition to celebrating your local history photograph, we will be asking for a few words about why the subject means something to you.
Over the coming months, the BALH team will be sharing some of our favourite images. See Alan Crosby, Editor of The Local Historian, describe his favourite image of Ironbridge in Shropshire.
The competition is open to all, and the winners will be part of Local History Day in June 2022.
Read more:
www.balh.org.uk/photo
From our blog
We’ve had some excellent blog posts submitted to us over the last couple of months on a range of topics. These included a fascinating piece for Black History Month about black Britons you should know about from our Social Media Fellow, Megan Kelleher, and an interesting history of the stocking knitting industry of later 16th century Norwich from local historian Lesley O’Connell Edwards.
In our latest blog post, Joe Saunders provides a potted history of the 1921 Census, and the digitisation project which is available to the general public from January.
If you would like to write a piece for us, please click here to check our guidelines. Once your piece is ready, you can submit it to socialmedia@balh.org.uk.
Read more:
www.balh.org.uk/blog
The Inaugural BALH Winter Lecture
Professor Andrew Hopper kicked off our new annual event, the David Dymond Memorial Winter Lecture. Hosted by the BALH Local History Hour team, 140 attendees tuned in virtually for Andrew's lecture on the human cost of the British Civil Wars. This showcased evidence from the Civil War Petitions Project’s website in order to assess how this system of military welfare operated, how claimants fashioned themselves as deserving recipients of relief, and how the victims of the war looked back on their experiences.
Andrew Hopper is Professor of Local and Social History at Department for Continuing Education, University of Oxford.
Read more:
Blog post summary of the lecture, with resources
A piece of history - Local History News Issue 1
While tidying up her archive, Local History News Editor Jane Howells came across this historic item, the first edition of the BALH magazine. The first issue of Local History News sadly isn’t dated, but must have been sent to members at the end of 1982 or early 1983. And it doesn’t explain why it is called ‘Nab’. Does anyone remember?
Read more:
See full article
Digital Webinars
We are planning our 2022 series of exciting digital webinars and kick off with some digital skills sessions from the BALH Digital Team. These events are free for BALH members, or £5 for non-members (£3 for members of member societies).
Creating Engaging YouTube Videos For Local and Family History
Wednesday 19th January 2022 7:00pm
YouTube is the world's largest video platform, making publishing in this medium available to all. For the local and family historian, YouTube offers an excellent opportunity to both promote research projects and tell the fascinating stories of people and places discovered along the way. Engagement Fellow and YouTuber Catherine Warr will be sharing useful tips and tricks on how to make engaging videos and utilise the YouTube platform to showcase your research.
BALH Digital Webinar: Effective Social Media For Local History
Social media platforms offer a great way to both network with others and promote local and family history projects. Social Media Fellow Megan Kelleher talks you through some ways in which you can ensure you engage with a broader audience.
Local History Hour
Our next virtual local history hour will be taking place on 27th January at 7pm, and we will be discussing nonconformity from the 17th to the 19th centuries. Historians Pam Smith and Julie Miller will be speaking about the nonconformist experience in England based on their respective research on Yorkshire and Essex.
This event is free for BALH members, or £5 for non-members (£3 for members of member societies).
Ten-Minute Talks
Our Ten-Minute Talks are available to access on the BALH website, and they cover a broad range of local history themes. Our latest is Indexing Local History with Dr Francis Young.
Do you have a local history topic you could create a Ten-Minute Talk for? We’d love to hear from you! Details on how you can get involved can be found here.
Read more:
BALH Ten-Minute Talks
New Local History Course
BALH Trustee Joe Saunders will be running the latest course for our education partner Pharos Tutors, ‘Local History – Uncovering the Places and Communities connected to your Ancestors’. The course will talk you through the broader historical context of our forebears and use local history to better understand their experience, from c.1066 to the present day.
Read more:
Learn more about the course, and book your place
Our latest publications
The winter editions of The Local Historian and Local History News will be coming through your doors next month, but here's some of the highlights from the current editions.
The Local Historian
Highlights from this edition include key articles on medieval wills, women’s history, railways and leisure. Next year, in 2022, the 70th anniversary of The Local Historian will be celebrated and is a real testament to its impact as a place for local history to be discussed. In addition we have a number of book reviews available to access online; these can be found here.
Read more:
View the abstracts, download (members only) or purchase a copy
Local History News
In addition to the regular articles covered in the publication, there are profiles of three more of the 2021 Personal Achievement Award recipients and fascinating articles from across the length and breadth of the British Isles; from Orkney to Somerset, and from Yorkshire to Wales.
Furthermore, we have recognition for three significant local historians who have recently died, with tributes to David Dymond and Margaret O’Sullivan and notice of the conference held earlier this month, celebrating the life and work of Dennis Mills.
Read more:
View the abstracts and download a PDF copy
Family History Federation’s Really Useful Show
We had a wonderful time meeting some of you at our virtual booth as part of the Really Useful Show on 12th and 13th November. We hope you enjoyed learning more about the work we do, and attending talks by Trustees Joe Saunders and Helen Palmer.
Some members of the team had a chat on the theme of 'Local & family history - tying the two together'.
Read more:
See the Really Useful Show broadcast
Are you or your organisation on social media?
We’d love to hear from you! We would love to interact with more of our members through our social media channels, and help you to share upcoming events that you are hosting. Furthermore, if there are groups or individuals you think we should be following, please tell us.
Our social media is as follows:
Facebook
Instagram
LinkedIn
Twitter
YouTube
More material is being added to our website all the time, so check back regularly!
The BALH Digital Team
digitalteam@balh.org.uk
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