In the Registrar-General’s office there, registers have been kept regularly since 1837. The fees are not high. If, for instance, the pedigree-hunter wants to ascertain the date of a certain birth, the search through five years for one name costs five shillings.
To look up wills costs one shilling each, unless the searcher has a free literary docket; particulars as to these literary permits will be found in a later chapter.
The Middlesex Registry.—This Registry, situated in St. James’s Street, contains all documents (since 1708) which affect land in Middlesex.
Libraries.—The British Museum.—The London genealogist is also especially fortunate with regard to libraries. Foremost of all comes, of course, that at the British Museum. There not only is access to the Great Reading Room free by ticket (on the recommendation of a London householder), but the Newspaper Room and MSS. Department are also free, and both are very valuable to the genealogist. The latter is especially so, as it contains a store of manuscripts and Pedigrees, Herald’s Visitations, and numberless miscellaneous documents.
Lambeth Library.—This is situated in Lambeth Palace, and deserves to be more frequently visited by the genealogical student than it is at present, for it contains many ancient pedigrees and important manuscripts. Its contents are all old, and are divided into records and printed books. There are seven distinct series of manuscripts, bound in volumes—also very good indexes.
The pedigree-hunter will have the required volumes brought to him in the Great Hall erected by Juxon, now used as a Reading or Search Room.
Heralds Office Library.—There is a library of genealogical and armorial works and books bearing on such subjects at the Herald’s Office, Queen Victoria Street.
The Guildhall Library.—Another London Library, where printed books on genealogy can be had in abundance, is that of the Guildhall, which ranks in this way only second to the British Museum Library.
CHAPTER VII
THE PEDIGREE-HUNTER IN IRELAND
As has previously been intimated, the pedigree-hunter, if looking up an Irish family, can discover almost everything he wants (if discoverable at all) in Dublin.