Reader cards -- I now have lots and lots of reader cards. I had one for the Library of Congress before we left for England; you need it to get in to the nation's library. And in London I got a reader card for the Public Record Office, the British Library, and the Society of Genealogists. Carrying them around was something of a strain for my already overloaded wallet. The reading card of the Society of Genealogists was rather temporary; it expired after only an hour unless I wanted to pay more. But the others are good for five years. When I go back to England for more research I am going to be all set with reader cards -- if I am able to find them. Reader cards was one of our main activities in London. Just your standard tourist trek through the city -- going to archives and research libraries.

First, the tube -- we got week long passes for everyone; another card to carry around that had to be presented both to get into the working part of the station and to get out. We learned a lot about zipping through gates requiring cards for entrance and exit. Then we turned in the car since driving through London seemed close to hopeless for people who knew their way around, and worse for those of us who did not. With the availability of  the ubiquitous London taxi in reserve, we were now ready to go anywhere.

And the first place we went was the Public Record Office at Kew. Kew is way out to the west, and is famous for the Kew Gardens, which were there long before the Public Record Office moved out a decade ago. It was our longest underground ride. It was also something of a walk from the station to the Public Record Office, but we eventually got there. It is a pleasant modern building with ponds in front featuring ducks and geese and goslings. The goslings were particularly attractive to Anna.

Inside the door, we got to be guinea pigs for their brand new computerized visitor registration. The computers worked just fine. They had not worked out all of the wrinkles in issuing us cards, however. They had to write about as much in issuing the cards as we had written on the computer. I suppose they will eventually figure out that computers are supposed to be labor saving devices.

We went through the tour they require before letting you into the rest of the building, and we had an uninspired lunch in their cafeteria. Then Anne and Anna hiked off to Kew Gardens and John Robert and I headed for the "really old" documents floor. Amanda Bevan, with whom I had communicated by email, was on duty and welcomed us when we presented ourselves as needing information. The Public Record Office is the official record storage archive for the government. Records of medieval governments are not the primary focus. However, they devote an entire floor to researchers who are poring through the ancient records. They have a staff that takes your requests, chases them down, and returns them to you within 30 minutes. And they have a staff for copying records when copying is required -- since they will not let you take your own pictures of the documents.

You can search their catalogue from any internet connection so looking through their catalogue is not a reason to go to Kew. It is seeing what "stands behind" the index reference that is the reason for going there. We sorted through a number of the records you can pull up with their catalogue and got some indication about why you want to look at the records -- even if you do not read latin. Christopher was the king's escheator in 1416-17. I had ordered a copy of his report for the year via email, but I had received only the introductory note and not the entire document. The same was true for the inquisition post mortem taken when Christopher died. I had received a slim little document -- 6 or 7 lines long. When we looked at the document it turned out it was a very large parchment. We have known that he was accumulating a considerable fortune. If nothing else -- he began life as the second son of a family whose land was attainted and by his death his son and his grandson were both knights, which means reasonably wealthy. He was busy doing something, but I could not find anything remotely like a list. Now we are going to have one list -- since, we ordered a copy. There is probably more at Durham if I can only figure out how to discover it.

But the best find was for a reference from a paper, published in 1938, about justices of the peace. It is Christopher Boynton's expense account, which, we are told, lists times and places he worked as a member of the Commission of Peace for the year. We will be able to give a bit of specificity to his work as a justice for the North Riding once it comes. It is also an illustration of why you make faster progress if you read latin and know the documents. We had the citation to the document. So we ordered it through their service. It arrived -- it was four feet or more high, it was about 8 inches wide, and it was about 6 inches thick. It had been a single roll -- a very, very long roll -- that had been cut it up into strips. Now all we had to do was find the reference in that massive document. We cried for help, and the information person took pity on us. He flipped through the strips, getting almost to the end, and found the page on which the expense count was located. Both latin and a knowledge of how they organized their rolls were needed to find the document -- even though we had a very explicit reference.

We finished our work and headed for the tube stop where we met Anne and Anna and headed back to our abode and food.

Another day, and it was off to the British Library. They have something for "everyone." In one of the rooms for displaying their permanent collection they had the Lindesfarne Gospels, several copies of the Magna Carta, a Gutenberg Bible, and headphones for selections of music for which they have original manuscripts -- and lots more. It takes a pretty exceptional 8 year to find this collection exciting. But Anne and Anna were off to check out the Lindesfarne Gospels while John Robert and I got reader cards.

I went up to the manuscript room and tried to locate the document I wanted to see. In a history of the Percy family there is a "passing" reference to a document listing the first earl's men. The author said that Boyntons were on the list. I had no idea what that was all about, but the British Library was the place to find out. They have the document. Unfortunately, the citation I had did not get me to the right index. So, I had to get the book to take it to the manuscript librarian who I hoped would then be able to tell me how to get the manuscript. After some tutoring on the computerized request procedure in another room my request for the book was in. Now you have to wait 30 minutes, they said. And it was lunch time.

We headed for the British Library restaurant; the cafeteria, which they also have, seemed too limited a menu. It is called a restuarant, but you wander from one table to another collecting whatever you want to eat. Then you carry it on a tray to the cash register and then to a table. It was not exactly great food, but it is to be recommended over the cafeteria at the Public Record Office.

Lunch over, I headed back to pick up the book I had requested. You cannot take it out of this room, they said. But I have to get it to the manuscript room experts. We will deliver it for you. They are a very cautious library.

In a few minutes the book was in the manuscript room. Here is the citation, I showed the reference inquiry person. Oh, that is this index over here. I checked out the index and there was the document. Now, to order the specific document I wanted to see, and another 30 minute wait.

Off to have an espresso in the yard. The British Library is a very good place to visit. It is a modern building with a very large courtyard in front. Lots of space in downtown London; right in the middle of a busy section of the city where space otherwise seemed in very short supply and noise too readily available. The courtyard is both space and quiet and is used for coffee and lunch by lots of people; that is how we used it. When you walk into the library they have what was my favorite "thing" in London. It was an "open word" -- a "statue" in the form of a partially open book that also serves as a sitting object for several people. About three people can sit on the open word, and it is comfortable, notwithstanding being made of metal. As you go into the library you are in a ground floor are that is open to a ceiling several stories up. You are facing a staircase that goes up two stories and ends at the largest bookcase you will ever see. It is a giant square of book shelves in the center of the building rising from the first floor to the roof. It was George III's library, and it was still available for checking out -- but you cannot take it from this room, of course.

Back to the manuscript room, and they brought over a large box that was covered on the inside with very soft cloth. Inside was a roll of parchment. It was a real roll. It was about 8 inches wide, and you read it by unrolling it. It is a document from 1388, the indexer speculated since it is not dated. It is difficult to be sufficiently impressed; how remarkable that documents from 1388 are in a library in 2001 and that all I needed was a reader card to touch it. We unrolled and unrolled and unrolled -- it was more than 5 feet long, two columns wide, listing names. Henry, the first earl of Northumberland, had a lot of "men." The ink was faded so it was difficult to read. But I had found out what I wanted to know. One, it was a list -- a very long list. Two, it had a date, even if the date is only speculation. Robert de Boynton cannot be on the list since he died in 1378. Thomas de Boynton is on the list. Three, the document contained no explanation for either why the list was made or for why the names appeared on the list. If I am going to find out what it meant to be one of Percy's men I will have to do it another way.

Last day in London -- Anne and Anna headed for Hampton Court to run the garden maze. John Robert walked the city looking for neighborhood and the work of Terence Conran, a contemporary designer. And I was off to the Society of Genealogists. They have a library and an on-line catalogue I perused from Iowa. Their catalogue says they have the Wintringham parish register that I thought I would find in North Allerton but did not.

Getting to the Society of Genealogists was something of an adventure. I had not brought their address thinking I could easily find it on the internet. But getting to the internet was not easy from our abode. There was an internet cafe about a block away, but it had only two computers and was filthy. It was a very uninspiring environment; one you wanted to avoid if at all possible. After a couple of days looking we found an internet cafe on the top [third] floor of London's favorite department store -- that is what they said, anyhow. You can pay them 1 pound 25 for a cup of coffee and get 30 minutes free internet time or you can pay them 1 pound 50 for 30 minutes of internet time. It made their coffee seem like a bargain. John Robert and I had checked it out earlier. Now I had to get back on my own, but it only required one change on the tube and a walk across the street -- easy enough. So, off I went to the east. After a bit of searching I found the address, but I had no idea where it was. It is difficult to take the tube to an unknown location. The solution was simple -- catch a taxi. He would know where it was. I got in and gave him the street address, and we headed west. We went west a long way. Finally, we were there.

The Society of Genealogists has a library that non-members can use for 3 pounds for 1 hour -- graduated to 8 pounds for all day. It seemed like a bargain if I found the parish records. When I got to the library there was a friendly volunteer [it said on her identification badge] waiting to help me. She showed me how to search on their computers. Here is the reference. Where is it on the shelf? Just over this way. The parish records for Wintringham were right there on the shelf. I started looking -- ready to take notes. But there were Boyntons on every page; usually more than one. Taking notes was not feasible. Can I make photocopies? I asked. Yes, the machine is over there, but it does not give change so be sure to put in only as much money as you will use. A few minutes later I had almost 90 pages of the parish records photocopied. I went back to the shelf. They had a lot of books on Yorkshire, but nothing I wanted to look at. So I was finished with time left "on the meter." Ninety pages of Boynton records -- baptisms, marriages, burials. We went through them on the flight home putting a check by each Boynton so they would be easy to find. But what am I going to do with them next?

Those were the archives we visited, but there were other Boynton spots.