With the increasing interest in family history, this portable and authoritative dictionary provides both amateur and professional local history and family historians with quick answers to questions of terminology that may arise in the course of research. For instance: * what does boon work mean? * what is pontage? * who were the Premonstratensians? * what is outfangtheof, escheat, and berewick? * who were the Inghamites? * what are Quo Warranto enquiries? * who lived in a prodigy house? * how could you be half-baptized? * what would you find in the Register of Sasines? Over 1,500 clear and concise entries cover: * legal and other specialist terms, from amercement to yardland * types of documentation * sources of information * social and religious groups * institutions and organizations * historical and political events * official functions and occupations * authors and scholars Designed to be taken to libraries and record offices, or kept on the desk at home for quick reference, The Oxford Dictionary of Local and Family History also contains a guide to family history records, lists of regnal years, saints' days, weights and measures, further reading, and a complete location guide to all national and local record offices in the UK. This book is intended for the general reader interested in the growing subject areas of family and local history; students of social, family, local history; amateur researchers in the field.