Just what is the largest 'British' records collection on Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk)?
In terms of records specifically drawn from across the UK, it may surprise you to know that the largest collection holds 278,407,890 records, including some records from the Republic of Ireland prior to Partition in 1921 - but it may not be a collection that you have often considered.
So here it is, and the relevant blurb from the site!
British Phone Books, 1880-1984
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/1025/
Source: British phone books 1880-1984 from the collection held by BT Archives. Images reproduced by courtesy of BT Archives, London, England.
About British Phone Books, 1880-1984
This collection contains British phone books published between 1880, the year after the public telephone service was introduced to the UK, and 1984, from the historic phone book collection held by BT Archives. The database currently contains 1780 phone books and provides near full county coverage for England as well as containing substantial records for Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.
About Phone Books:
The largest section of the phone book, and generally the most significant for family historians, is the alphabetical listings or directory. The alphabetical listings typically contain the following details:
Surname of person (usually the head of household) or name of business
Address
Exchange (up to 1968)
Telephone Number
Phone books also contain an introduction of useful local and operational information. Located at the front of the book these pages may contain lists of abbreviations used, contact information for important government agencies, instructions on how to make long distance calls, explanations of the exchanges and their coverage, or other necessary information in order to use the phone book and telephone equipment. The introduction is not searchable and can only be seen by using the browse function.
Advertisements for local businesses occasionally appear at the tops and bottoms of the alphabetical listings pages, as well as on full separate pages designated as such. Advertisements cannot be searched independently but can be seen by selecting the image of the phone book following searching for a name in close alphabetical proximity or by using the browse function.
Why use Phone Books?
Phone books are very useful for pinpointing individuals in a particular place and time. While censuses were only conducted once every ten years, phone books were published around every one to two years, creating in essence, an almost year by year record of individuals' geographic locations and movements. This makes it possible to locate many individuals in between census years and especially to find family members during years in which censuses are not currently available to the public. For reference, the latest viewable UK census is 1901, and will remain so until early 2012 when the 1911 census can be released.
Phone books are also very telling of an individual's economic and social status since telephone ownership is a prerequisite to an individual's inclusion within this collection. Early subscribers to the telephone service were typically large businesses or the well-to-do. Telephone ownership gradually increased, reflected by a corresponding growth in the size and number of phone books, and from the second quarter of the twentieth century became more commonly adopted by domestic subscribers.
While the alphabetical listings in the phone book will likely be of most interest to researchers, if your ancestor owned a business the advertisement section might also be of interest. There you may learn the location of and type of goods and services sold or offered by the business. This may lead you to additional research in occupational records.
BT actively supports the preservation of Britain's communications heritage. BT has published its commitment in its Heritage Policy (see www.bt.com/archives) and its Connected Earth initiative enables the exploration of communications past, present and future both online (at www.connected-earth.com) and via a network of partner museums around the UK.
COMMENT: The phone books are perhaps as important a collection as trade directories for research in terms of filling in the gaps between censuses and going beyond them, but they can be seriously hard work to use. The Ancestry search page advises "Please note that in order to search these records you are required to provide a name and country/county." - you can probably add "and say a prayer" to that requirement!
Personally speaking, I rarely bother searching by name using the database, unless it is a very rare surname, as there are often far too many responses. The best bet is to try to navigate the records using the Browse This Collection section to the right of the page, where you can narrow by year range, year, and then individually browse through the titles of individual directories. Coverage varies across the UK, but Scotland and Ireland (Scotland 1896 and Dublin 1880 are the earliest) are well represented, along with England and Wales - especially London.
Well worth a look!
Chris
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Ancestry's blurb is obviously a bit dated now being written 2007, before the release of the 1911 census, and the two BT links do not connect from their site (the first re-directs from your blog above).
ReplyDeleteHowever, perhaps better details of the BT archives can be accessed via https://www.bt.com/about/bt/our-history/bt-archives/major-collections (has more links at bottom) and a pdf explaining history of the Phone Books and content. "Until 1938, each volume of the phone book included an alphabetical index indicating in which telephone district a particular location lay." "From 1926 the first three letters of the names of telephone exchanges appeared in the phone book in heavy print as part of a telephone number, HARrow 0119, MAYfair 0541, HOLborn 1832. Callers would dial the three letters (which appeared on the telephone dial) and then the four digit number. In 1966 the introduction of All-Figure Numbering (AFN) replaced the letters and number combination."
https://www.bt.com/bt-plc/assets/documents/about-bt/our-history/bt-archives/major-collections/bt-archives-british-phone-books.pdf
The Exchange search box does at least work eg Belfast & exact. I always find the dataset clumsy with the pre-requisite to input a country/county when the results ignore that input altogether and output for the entire UK, even if input Northern Ireland & Co. Antrim (with the exchange left blank).
The pdf says BT Archives holds the phone book on microfilm or microfiche up to 2000, accessible in their search room, but are not in their Digital Archives.
All books before BT's privatisation are public records, privatisation occurred 1984 with the highly publicised BT share sale = the end of the period covered by Ancestry's database.
The Connected Earth website referred to closed Dec 2019 but a google reveals it was linked to museums holding collections of old phones, exchange equipment, phone booths and vehicles such as https://www.amberleymuseum.co.uk/explore/explore-communication/connected-earth/
I was slightly surprised to find my great uncle had a telephone in 1928 "Rutledge & Co, Grocers, Provision Merchants, Rothbury 28" perhaps because he ran a village grocer's shop offering home delivery in a ex-WW1 van; and my grandfather had one pre-marriage in Cambridge from 1933, then Bedford, then Belfast as a Commercial Traveller for Carr's Biscuits. Their father was a Telegraph/Cable Operator, he died Carlisle 1943, but never had a phone.