This guide is designed as an introduction to local history for anyone who wants to know how local communities lived in the past and how to find out more about them. General themes and and questions for each historical period, combined with specific case histories, highlight the varieties of local experience and show how available materials can be pieced together. The book stresses the interconnectedness of local history with wider issues and urges local historians to abandon reliance on unconnected facts and dig deeper to uncover the general trends at work.