Surname / Forename
Searching for "Ryle" will find RYLE, RYLEy, and RYLEy, Dawe & Co.
Personal titles (Mrs, Rev, Dr, etc.) are in the "Forename" field, for example "Rev William" or "Elizabeth Mrs" or "Louise (mrs)." For names containing "de" (e.g. "de Bry"), "de" is treated as a suffix that goes after the forename. Searching for de Bry in the surname field will yield no results.
Earliest Year / Latest Year / Active in the Year
When searching by date, BBTI advises leaving both "Biographical dates" and "Trade dates" checked, since some records may have incomplete data.
Enter a single year or a range for broader searches. For example, enter 1700 for earliest year and 1750 for latest year (without checking the "Exact" checkboxes) to find traders active in that range. Dates that are questionable or inexact, such as 1700? or 1850 (or later), are included in ranges.
The "Exact" options will find a precise start or end year.
To find all traders working or alive in a particular year, use the "Active in the Year" search field.
There may seem to be disparities between trading dates and biographical dates. This can happen when an individual commissioned printing of a book shortly before dying and its imprint shows a publication date later than the individual's year of death. Sometimes there is a disparity when a business outlives the founder. BBTI normally lists businesses separately from the founders.
Country / County / Town
Selecting a country will automatically limit the choice of counties and towns that can be selected from the dropdown lists. Similarly, selecting a county will automatically limit the choice of towns from the dropdown list.
Towns are located in their historic (pre-1974) counties. BBTI advises searching under both old and new county.
Check "Exclude London" to exclude traders from the city of London in your results.
Duplicate Entries
Unless the records are known without any doubt to refer to the same person, BBTI has not merged them. When individuals are known to have traded in more than one town, they will have separate entries under each town and a reference to the other town(s) in the Notes field. All Stationers’ Company apprentices appear in duplicate records supplied by Michael Turner from the London Book Trades database.
Default Behavior
If all the fields are left empty, all traders are returned in the results.
Fields left empty will not restrict the query.