Adding Atmosphere to Ancestral Living Places

Houses of Parliament though fog, Claude Monet, 1904

Knowing where they lived and finding the actual buildings is enlightening but it doesn't really give a good idea of what it was like to live in the area at the time of our ancestors. Our world, for the most part, is more sanitized than the environment in which our ancestors found themselves. During my research on TB, I ran in to accounts of the flies which were a constant presence. Imagine picking out a joint of meat as the flies circled.

Part of the insect problem was related to the main form of transportation - horses. The manure problem added to the overall waste disposal problems. Our delicate 21st century nostrils would have been constantly offended. Then there was the mud and soot.

I am currently reading London Fog: The Biography by Christine Corton. Fog was a part of life in the capital made worse by all the industrial chimneys and coal home fires until London fogs had their own particular characteristics. They were a reality of life for ancestors who lived in the city, mainly in the East End of the city as the wind drifted that way. I wonder if that was why many of the death certificates for my East End ancestors had causes of bronchitis and psithis (a form of tuberculosis).

The book about the fog also makes reference to fiction that includes descriptions of the fog in particular works like those of Dickens. Reading novels set in the districts in which our forbears lived can give us a better idea of what they lived through. Local histories can give a better idea of life in the area and there are many other books that can give us an understanding of what affected our families and dictated how they lived. Among the titles on my shelves are Tracing Your Rural Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians by Jonathan Brown, something to read for better understanding of all those ag labs. In a different vein is A New Way of Living: Georgian Town Planning in the Highlands and Islands by Gordon Haynes, which outlines the change that came to those areas. These are just a few of the many books about various aspects of history that can add to our understanding of how our families lived.

Further enlightenment can come from art. The fog book is chock full of images of dense London fog, much more informative than prose alone. Pictures can add visual understanding of what places were like and they aren't only in books or online. A trip to an art gallery can be good to include in a research trip as can visits to museums where there are relevant images and objects. I remember more about our visit to the Scotland National Portrait Gallery than I do of the hours I spent trawling through records in Scotlands People. Mixing things up can lead to better understanding. 

Images:

By Claude Monet - Musée d'OrsayFormer version: The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain,  

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=155843