The group was formed in the early 1990s to research the urban history of St Albans between 1650 and 1700. Society member, the late J.T. Smith, an acknowledged authority on vernacular architecture, led the group as we tackled various aspects of the town’s social, religious and political history.
One of the benefits arising from this project is our research database which is a directory of names of people living in St Albans in the 17th century. It was developed to help address a key objective, namely to estimate the size of the town’s population at that time.
The methodology for this involved reconstructing the town’s population by drawing up an extensive set of family trees. Each individual has a text file in which information relating to that person is collated as and when it comes to hand.
This bank of information has enabled us to write on a number of topics relating to the social structure of the town at that time. Some of these have been published, others used to give talks to local groups. (See below for details).
We are currently focused on transcribing 17th century probate documents relating to St Albans. The results will by published by the Hertfordshire Records Society with the first volume expected in 2018. This is an extensive project for us. If you are interested in joining our group or have related research questions, do contact Pat Howe.
