Almost all of us have a tradesman or craftsman - a butcher, baker or candlestick maker - somewhere in our ancestry, and Adele Emm's handbook is the perfect guide to finding out about them - about their lives, their work and the world they lived in. She introduces the many trades and crafts, looks at their practices and long traditions, and identifies and explains the many sources you can go to in order to discover more about them and their families.

Chapters cover the guilds, the merchants, shopkeepers, builders, smiths and metalworkers, cordwainers and shoemakers, tailors and...