Up until this year I had only ever been to the main floor in the library. The one with all the books! It never occurred to me to look upstairs and to find out what other joys may be found there. Then earlier in the year I attended a Beginners Family Tree workshop. Finding myself on the fourth floor was quite a shock. First because it actually existed and secondly because I instantly fell in love with the corridors full of old tomes. Records of council meetings dating back hundreds of years and lots of old dark wood.
The workshop itself is a fantastic experience for anyone that wants to find out how to get started with the vast amounts of information that can be found when tracing your family line. Not only is it informative, but they give you lots of goodies and take you on a tour of the Local History Centre.
The history centre can be found on the third floor and is the heart of Leeds genealogy. You can find just about everything there from copies of old censuses to newspapers going back to the late 1700’s. On my last visit I found articles of a distant cousin dying in a mining accident in 1825! Again rows upon rows of old books. For a book lover it’s like wandering around a dream.
This month for the Community Reporters course we went to the library with the view to taking some photo’s and I got the chance to explore the second floor. Here I found a music library, the Leeds Tapestry and an art space. I’ve lived 40 years and this is the first time I’d ever been on this floor. Now I have I think I’ll come back again one day and explore some more.
This article was written by Kirsty White using our Community Reporters website
