1910 Valuation Survey
This project involves the copying, transcription and interpretation of the records created by the valuation survey of 1910-1915 which are within The National Archive at Kew.
As the map covering Oatlands no longer exists it may not be possible to clearly identify every property, as is usual for most towns and villages, but we will do our best and, by a process of elimination, we should be able to obtain the names of the occupiers and owners and the valuation details for most of them - many of these records contain descriptions of the property concerned.
This project is taking longer than expected as, due to the map no longer existing, it took a considerable time to actually locate the records for Oatlands and, when we have completed the copying of the 'block of records' relating to the village, it will be necessary to go through every book at the end of the section to look for out of sequence records that were added after the main group were collated. Things are further delayed by the main researcher on this project not being resident in the UK and unable to undertake the task for a limited time when he is back here.
If you are a National Archives regular or would be willing to undertake some research there on this fascinating project then please contact our research coordinator using the feedback form.
The Sales of Oatlands
This long-term project is aimed at trying to trace the sales of the Oatlands Estate from 1822 (when the Duke of York first started 'selling-up' following the death of the Duchess in 1820). Prior to the Duke obtaining the freehold from the Crown by Act of Parliament in 1804, the Estate had always been the property of The Crown.
The estate remained fairly intact until it was broken up into building lots and sold off by means of public auctions in 1846 and it is as a result of these auctions that the village was born and grew.
Our aim is to try and trace properties and land backwards from the present deeds and forward from the sale catalogues and try and form as complete a picture as possible of how the village grew up.
If you have the deeds to your property and would be willing to let us copy them for research purposes then please contact us using the 'Contact Us' form on this site. We can also offer advice on the long-term preservation and conservation of any old deeds written on parchment.
So far we have traced one property in St Mary's Road from its present ownership back to the Estate Sale of May 1846 and we hope to be able to do this with many more properties. Some will not be possible but that won't stop us trying...
Current Research Projects
We currently have several ongoing research projects - some of these will have relatively clear 'finish points', others will be ongoing well into the future and, doubtless, more topics will be added.
If you would like to become involved with any of these projects - because of specialist knowledge, interest in the topic or for some other reason - please contact us using the “Research Coordinator” contact form.
Our Research
Research is the backbone of our life as a group - it is only through research that we have discovered so much of the previously untapped or misunderstood history of Oatlands, but it can be very time consuming when there are only a small number of people undertaking it and they may be a long distance from the necessary archives.
If you would like to become involved, we'd love to hear from you. If you are inexperienced we can guide you and offer advice, along with enough archive references to get you started - even for the experienced researcher, the references can provide a much needed short cut.
If you have already started investigating the history of your house or your family in Oatlands we would very much like to add your researches to our own and we may have information that could help you - together we can help to increase the overall understanding of Oatlands.
1911 Census
We are in the process of transcribing the 1911 Census for Oatlands and will make the transcriptions available here when they are completed.
The 1911 (taken on the night of 2nd April) is the first census that has retained the actual Schedules completed for each household rather than just the enumerator's trancript of the previous ones and this provides a lot more information including "Number of years of this marriage", "Children born to this marriage", "Children living" and "Children died" - making it possible for family historians to obtain a much better picture of their ancestors.
The census divides neatly into two parts - the Household Schedules and the Enumerator's Notebook.
The first of the transcriptions that we intend to publish here will be the Enumerator's Notebook which lists every property, whether occupied or not, and who the schedule was addressed to in the case of those properties that were occupied. Subsequently we will provide the transcriptions of the household Schedules but as these total 368 schedules, each with the information for every person within the property on the night of the census and many of them are badly disfigured by damp or the attentions of vermin, this is not a rapid process.
It is hoped to make the information searchable on this website but we are currently struggling to discover how to do this - we're local historians, not website experts! If anyone knows how to achieve this within Joomla we'd love to hear from you via the contact form.