The library of La Société Jersiaise
The Lord Coutanche Library of La Société Jersiaise is a valuable resource for family historians. It contains an extensive selection of books on Jersey history, and specifically the history of Jersey families, and all the Bulletins of La Société, many of which contain important articles on local families.
But, hidden away in a variety of drawers and boxes are the family trees, researched by La Société's family history specialists in recent years, and also by genealogists of the early 20th century. Some of the handwritten trees which are the basis of much of today's knowledge of the early years of prominent Jersey families are to be found in these drawers. They are seemingly not catalogued and indexed, and certainly not available on line, but they are there to be unearthed by visitors to the library.
The library's open shelves contain many books and booklets, the results of painstaking research into Jersey families. Many of these were never formally published but exist in single or limited edition copies, only available elsewhere in the archives of the families concerned.
