Subjects:

General Interest

Contents:

The legal profession in England and Wales: a general history

Lawyers: their societies, institutions and records

Some other published records of lawyers

Miscellaneous sources

Lawyers in Wales, Ireland and Scotland

Many of our ancestors entered the legal profession, working as attorneys, solicitors, barristers or notaries and perhaps even being appointed as judges. My ancestor was a Lawyer is the latest addition to the Society of Genealogists’ popular My Ancestor series and is designed to guide family historians to the extensive sources that record the life and work of lawyers over the centuries.

This book includes a history of the legal profession in Britain and reviews the published and manuscript records available at the National Archives and local record offices. It also describes the records of the many lawyers who undertook other roles, for example as members of parliament, vestry clerks, coroners and stewards of manors.