A Christmas present to all

In the days leading up to Christmas eve, we will be completing the task of tagging (cataloguing) the 49,626 graphics we hold in the Directory pages section of the Resources area. As most of these graphics are double page spreads, that's some 99,200 pages we will have processed.

Now this work is coming to an end, you can enter the name of any local street into the MHMS search box and get back in the results field a series of links that will navigate you to the specific page in each directory where the requested street is listed. In this way, you can systematically explore the people to have previously lived in your home and on your street. We recommend starting with the earliest record and then looking at each year's result through to the most recent.

Many of you will discover that your home was once occupied by a single family and more recently was converted to multi-occupancy, this is fairly common in the city's larger houses. Some, however, will see that in the past many families once lived in a home that today is considered appropriate for a small family, this is typical of the properties in the North Laine area, for example.

We hope you have fun exploring and would very much like to hear about your discoveries, do think about sending us a message.