{"id":625,"date":"2011-05-27T17:46:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-27T22:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/book-review-time-travellers-handbook\/"},"modified":"2014-06-21T15:15:24","modified_gmt":"2014-06-21T20:15:24","slug":"book-review-time-travellers-handbook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/book-review-time-travellers-handbook\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review \u2013 Time Traveller\u2019s Handbook: A Guide to the Past"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"Title:<\/strong>\u00a0 Time Traveller\u2019s Handbook: A Guide to the Past<\/p>\n

Author:<\/strong>\u00a0 Althea Douglas<\/p>\n

Format:<\/strong>\u00a0 Paperback and Kindle<\/p>\n

Published:<\/strong>\u00a0 2011<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0 (from Amazon)\u00a0 Do you know how long it took to sail across the Atlantic Ocean? Was it faster from east to west or west to east? Imagine sailing to India, a five-month trip around the Cape of Good Hope! No wonder late Victorians valued the steamship and the Suez Canal. What difference did the inventions of the telephone or steam engine make to our ancestors lives? Do you know what a rod or a chain is and what they measured? Time Travellers Handbook<\/em> considers documents and how to look at papers and artifacts that have survived over the years, as well as those family legends and mythinformation handed down by word of mouth. This sort of information can be found on the Internet somewhere but the researcher can waste a lot of time hunting for it. In an entertaining yet useful manner, Time Travellers Handbook<\/em> brings together for family historians a lot of facts our ancestors once knew, took for granted, and used regularly.<\/p>\n

My Rating:<\/strong>\u00a0 \"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I had the pleasure of receiving a review copy of this great reference.\u00a0 Although the book is written for the genealogist or historian researching in Canada, there is plenty of useful information for researchers without Canadian roots.<\/p>\n

The book is well-written, sourced where appropriate, and makes for an easy read.\u00a0 There are 16 chapters with historical facts galore, an appendix of historical dates and events, and a comprehensive index.\u00a0 A bibliography is also provided that lists the many sources referred to in the text.<\/p>\n

Many of the chapters include lists of terms and definitions or other helpful tables (e.g., measurement conversions).\u00a0 Douglas also uses various anecdotes to illustrate certain facts, providing the reader with a better context of life back in the day in a more tangible way.<\/p>\n

Chapter 8 \u201cTrades and Their Tools\u201d is a fascinating chapter.\u00a0 Did you know that a plumber in the early days was something much different than what we know one to be today?\u00a0 Want to know what a currier is?\u00a0 Did you know that a butcher may have also been called a flesher?\u00a0 I was very happy to see a definition for a cooper.\u00a0 I remember a few years ago searching the internet for a definition and it took several sources to finally find the answer, which wasn\u2019t really much help.\u00a0 This book not only had a definition, but one that gave me a better picture of the trade.<\/p>\n

Chapter 9 \u201cWork Away From Home\u201d is also an informative chapter, especially the discussion of rail workers.\u00a0 Chapter 13 \u201cHealth in the Past\u201d is also a very helpful chapter and includes a list of common ailments with definitions.<\/p>\n

While the book is a great reference<\/em> to the past, it\u2019s also good to read<\/em> it from cover to cover.\u00a0 There were many pieces of information contained in the text that I had never even thought of before as being relevant to genealogy.\u00a0 But these tidbits got me thinking, and because of that, I have revised some of my research plans to include other avenues of research.<\/p>\n

\n

Purchase Time Traveller\u2019s Handbook<\/em> on Amazon:\u00a0 Paperback<\/a> or Kindle<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Title:\u00a0 Time Traveller\u2019s Handbook: A Guide to the Past Author:\u00a0 Althea Douglas Format:\u00a0 Paperback and Kindle Published:\u00a0 2011 Synopsis:\u00a0 (from Amazon)\u00a0 Do you know how long it took to sail across the Atlantic Ocean? Was it faster from east to west or west to east? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[249,25,418],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-genblog","category-genealogy-reference","cat-249-id","cat-25-id","cat-418-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3HcLI-a5","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5082,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625\/revisions\/5082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogy.julietarr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}