A Little Plymouth History

I just finished reading The Times of Their Lives, by James Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz. The subtitle of this book is Life, Love, and Death in Plymouth Colony. The details that the authors provide are both fascinating and insightful.

Taking information from court cases, probate lists and archaeological digs, they piece together what daily life may have been like in Plymouth Colony.

James Deetz was an archaeologist and his love for his subject shows when he writes about what various digs have uncovered in the Plymouth area. I find archaeology fascinating and very mysterious, this book helped me to understand the subject a bit more.

For eleven years James Deetz was the Assistant Director of the museum at Plimouth Plantation, and he includes a chapter on that living history museum.

I've long been interested in seeing Plimouth Plantation (for historical as well as personal reasons - while I didn't have any ancestors on the Mayflower, I did have one on the Fortune - the second ship to come to Plymouth Colony) and now it's getting pushed to the top of the list of vacation possibilities for this year.

Domesday

Not Doomsday, but Domesday - it had to do with Domicile (I learned that recently.)

In doing a little family history research today, I made a very cool discovery. The Domesday book is available on line.

The Domesday book is something I had heard of at various times, but never figured I'd get a chance to see what it was really like.

In case you've never heard of it, the Domesday book is one of the oldest surviving public records in England. No one knows exactly what the purpose of it was for - most likely taxes - but

"at Christmas 1085 William the Conqueror commissioned a great survey to discover the resources and taxable values of all the boroughs and manors in England. He wanted to discover who owned what, how much it was worth, and how much was owed to him as King." (National Archives)

The British National Archives has not only made this document available online, but it is searchable - and they translated it, so those of us not conversant in Latin can still understand it.

I think I'm going to have fun exploring this.