Frequently asked questions
Please note that subscriptions are activated manually. Therefore it may take up
to ONE working day between payment being received and your subscription being activated.
You will receive a confirmation email when this has been done.
We regret that we cannot provide personalised answers to general historical questions
nor can we give guidance on specific research projects or essays.
The National Archives provides a
directory of independent personal researchers who may be engaged to research
on your behalf in the TNA collections.
British History Online exists to provide accessible digital versions of previously
printed books. As such, we make a general rule not to correct errors that
were printed in the original book. To do this would be to create a quite different
type of resource, and such silent emendation makes it impossible for users to rely
on our site as an exact reproduction of the original.
However, if we know that the author of a book is still active, we may occasionally
forward corrections on for the purposes of the production of later new editions.
Please check the date when the book concerned was published – if it was 1850, then
the author will obviously not be alive.
If, however, you believe the mistake to be an error of transcription on our part,
then please let us know via our
feedback form,
giving the URL of the page concerned.
British History Online does not, as a rule, act as a linking site to external resources.
New academic online resources for history may be listed by
Intute.
Academic history events, such as seminars and conferences, are advertised by the
IHR's own pages.
Yes, you may provide hyperlinks to the website and its pages. Such hyperlinks must
display the relevant page in the same form as this Website, without amendment or
framing. To create a link copy this HTML code into your web page:
<a href="http://www.british-history.ac.uk/">British History Online</a>
British History Online is the digital library containing some of the core printed
primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British
Isles. Created by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament
Trust, it aims to support academic and personal users around the world in their
learning, teaching and research.
This depends on how much you would like to cite.
As long as the article does not use direct quotations of more than 3 or 4 lines
each, the citation form at the top of the page you consulted will be sufficient
to acknowledge our material. It will be in the form:
'The Diary of Thomas Burton: 25 April 1657', Diary of Thomas Burton esq, volume
2: April 1657 - February 1658 (1828), pp. 45-6. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=36826.
Date accessed: 03 August 2006.
If you require more than this, please let us know the web address of the page and
the exact portions of text you require (via the
feedback form)
and we will take the matter further. We cannot guarantee that we will be able to
grant permission to reproduce text.
Unfortunately we are not able to provide hard copies of our Ordnance Survey maps.
If a book is available for purchase in printed form, either a 'Buy this book' link
or an option to 'Print on demand' will be displayed at the top of the list of contents.
This so far applies to only a minority of those books we hold.
Paper and electronic copies of the Ordnance Survey series maps may be purchased
from Landmark Information Group
Limited.
The links on index pages generate a search for that string in the relevant volume.
Since the original printed indexes were compiled by a human being, index items may
refer obliquely to that item and so your search will not then be successful. For
example, a search generated for Fane, Thomas, will not work if the page refers only
to "the Earl of Westmorland". Therefore for best results you need to try various
strings to ensure you get all possible hits, such as "Thomas Fane" "Earl of Westmorland",
or simply Fane Westmorland.
Similarly, index terms may represent a standardized spelling. To get best results,
read a sample of the volume in question to get a sense of its orthography, and then
enter variant spellings in your search.
To make location of hits easier, we have enabled hit highlighting. The individual
word matches for your search are highlighted in bold and with a green background.
No. The username is the unique identifier we use to keep track of accounts; no two
accounts are permitted to use the same email address.
As we have over 40,000 registered users, it is often the case that another user
will already have used your first choice. Try registering again using a slightly
varied name, perhaps adding a numeral to the end (eg. johnsmith76).
As the site launched in 2003, you may have previously registered but misplaced the
details. To find out, go to the
forgot your password
page, enter your email address in the relevant box and click Next. You'll automatically
be sent an email with your username in it, as well as a link to reset your password.
Go to the
forgot your password
page, enter your email address in the relevant box and click Next. You'll automatically
be sent an email with your username in it, as well as a link to reset your password.
Follow the link to the
forgot your password
page, enter your username or email address into the relevant box and click Next.
You'll automatically be sent an email (with your username in it), as well as a link
through which you can reset your password.
Connected Histories
brings together a range of digital resources related to early modern and nineteenth
century Britain with a single federated search that allows sophisticated searching
of names, places and dates, as well as the ability to save, connect and share resources
within a personal workspace. You can begin your search directly using the form below.