Book Review - Time Traveller’s Handbook

Althea Douglas, “Time Traveller’s Handbook: A Guide to the Past”, Dundurn Press, 2011, ISBN 978-1-55488-784-2 (soft cover) $19.99


Althea Douglas’s new book is an excellent addition to the reference library of both genealogists, and historians. Althea maintains that family historians are essentially time travellers; but then again so are historians. Many of the references, and terminology, used a hundred years ago that we often turn up in documents are not relevant for us today. A handy book that can remind us (those of us past forty that is) what a quart, mile, or acre were is a useful reference.

The book deals with deciphering documents, family traditions, money and its value, trades, how people lived, and seafaring and military traditions. An appendix of important dates, notes that are chock full of references, deciphering Latin references, and a strong bibliography are for me very useful. As a boy I had British measures such as quarts, peck, mile, and inches pounded into me to the point I can not seem to shake them even now. Younger people should find these tables useful.

Unfortunately, I am now old enough to remember many of the life style references. When I was 6 and 7 my family lived on a small street in the village of Byron (now part of London), and I still remember the horse drawn Silverwood’s milk wagon. I do not remember the milkman ever sitting in the driver’s seat. The old horse probably knew the milk route better than the milkman. Right up until the end of the 1950’s my maternal grandmother kept her coal furnace. My paternal grandmother finally got electricity to the farm house when her sons returned from the war. With electricity, and a septic tank, my father bought her her first refrigerator. Much of the lifestyle we wonder about today was not that far in the past. Either that or I am getting old.

I highly recommend “Time Traveller’s Handbook” for any genealogist or historian’s reference library.

Book Reviews

What have I been doing over the Christmas Holidays? Mainly catching up on my reading. Unlike others who go through a bazillion blogs I prefer to read - YES BOOKS ! Partly a life long habit, partly because it's tough to get everything you want in military history online, and partly because genea-computer geeks leave me gasping for breath, and grasping for a dictionary.


This is a look at what I have read. not in depth reviews. That way I can stay out of trouble at least until Monday.

Two of the books are a reread years after I first looked at them. Pierre Burton, “Vimy”, and Daniel G. Dancocks, “Sir Arthur Currie: A Biography”. Both books were written by journalists. Yep, you can tell. Well written, and repeating many of the old cliché’s that recent military historians are questioning.

David Williams, “Media, Memory, and the First World War”. Mr. Williams is an English professor. Yep, you can tell. He never uses a $5 word when a $10 one could be found. I swear that he has made some of them up. You definitely need a dictionary beside you when you read this one.

Andrew B. Godefroy (ed.), “Great War Commands: Historical Perspectives on Canadian Army Leadership 1914-1918”. This one is a recent overview of some of the officers of the Canadian Corps (not army as that designation belongs to the Second World War). A good start in looking at the Canadian Corps. More in depth studies are needed. For me the most interesting article is by Timothy Winegard, “ Lieutenant Colonels Glen Campbell and Andrew T. Thompson and the Evolution of Native Canadian Participation during the First World War”. This is a look at two battalions that served overseas - the 114th. (Brock’s Rangers), and the 107th. (Timber Wolf Battalion)(1). Both battalions had at least 50% of their enlistments from the native communities. On the whole, good stuff, and a good indication of where today’s military historians are headed with their research.

As far as I know none of the above books are online so that means a trip to either the bookstore or the Library. Sorry for your luck folks !

1. The 114th. battalion was broken up in England and used to reinforce other units on the Western Front. The 107th. battalion was initially to be broken up as well but in February 1917 was redesignated a Pioneer battalion. Pioneers are infantry soldiers who who performed minor engineering tasks - ie. digging trenches, the grunt work in building roads, railway lines, etc.