Metal Detecting Genealogy and Family History

Metal Detecting Genealogy and Family History by David Villanueva. Soft back, 60 pages, Illustrated B&W, 21x 14.5cm.

Metal Detecting Genealogy and Family History How to Find Heirlooms and Ancestors through the metalwork they left behind. This book will help you piece together fragments of family history from medals and badges to contacting family historians.

Contents:

• Introduction Code of practice for responsible metal detecting in England and Wales
• Medals and badges
• Seal matrices
• Heraldic mounts and pendants
• Buttons
• Makers marks and plates
• Coins and tokens
• Locating lost metal objects
• Recovering sold items
• Finding books
• Contacting family historians
• British family history research
• Further reading

On the back cover:

David Villanueva was born in Birmingham in 1951, grew up in the Midlands and now lives in Kent. In the early 70s his mother bought him a copy of Ted Fletcher's book: A fortune under your feet, which inspired him to buy a metal detector - a Goldfinger BFO - the performance was very poor by current standards but it did find coins and David became hooked. Having long had a keen interest in history David started researching his locality, which led to productive sites to search and to write about in the two British metal detecting magazines - The Searcher and Treasure Hunting - which have published more than twenty of David's articles between them. A few years after taking up metal detecting, David started researching his family history. Although his family knew they were of Spanish origin, no-one could explain why they had left Spain to settle in the British Isles in the early nineteenth century. After much research, David has discovered that they were political exiles from the first Spanish revolution. The research has expanded and continues to this day with David's publication of a quarterly family history newsletter, Villa Nues. Having experience of both hobbies, David couldn't help noticing that many metal objects were being found which related to someone's family history. With some 30,000 participants actively involved in metal detecting in the UK the quantity of metallic family history being found must be phenomenal. David's first article on this topic was published in Family Tree Magazine, Easter 2005 and as a result of their interest shown, the information has been greatly expanded into this book, which:

• Discusses the types of artefacts commonly being found with family history connections
• Describes sources for finding out more about these objects and the personalities behind them
• Gives metal detectorists an introduction to tracing the ancestry of their finds (or their own family history)
• Brings finders and families together so that information and artefacts may be beneficially exchanged