Prestatyn, Local history, Local reseach
Prestatyn is a seaside resort, town and community in Denbighshire, North Wales. It is located on the Irish Sea coast, to the east of Rhyl. At the 2001 Census, Prestatyn had a population of 18,496. Although Prestatyn remains a tourist destination and resort town, the decline of the British holiday means the town is diversifying. The NHS is planning to open an elderly care facility in the town to serve north Denbighshire, and the opening of big name shops and supermarkets looks set to increase the town\'s status as a shopping district. Construction of the Scala Cinema started in February 2007, providing a digital cinema with films, exhibition and theatre venues.
Work is under way on the revival of the Ffrith Beach Festival Gardens. After a troubled few years when the seafront site has lain deserted, attractions are planned (e.g., 10-pin bowling, quad bikes, dance studio and yoghurt bar) to breathe fresh life into the resort.
Local history is the study of history in a geographically local context and it often concentrates on the local community. It incorporates cultural and social aspects of history. Historic plaques are one form of documentation of significant occurrences in the past and oral histories are another.
Local history is often documented by local historical societies or groups that form to preserve a local historic building or other historic site. Many works of local history are compiled by amateur historians working independently or archivists employed by various organizations. An important aspect of local history is the publication and cataloguing of documents preserved in local or national records which relate to particular areas.
Artifacts of local history are often collected in local history museums, which may be housed in a historic house or other building. Individual historic sites are inherently local, although they may have national or world history importance as well.
Local research can also be called \"One-place studies\" which in some areas is a branch of family history with a focus on the entire population of a single village or community, not just a single, geographically dispersed family line. The world\'s first major one-place study is believed to have been an attempt started in Austria in 1920 by Konrad Brandner to chart a complete genealogy of the population of the Steiermark region. After the Nazi takeover of Germany, the Nazi farming authority Reichsnährstand began a nationwide campaign in 1937 to document the \"Aryan blood\" of countryfolk by documenting the ancestry of every village in a Dorfsippenbuch and 30 such books were published by 1940. Local research can also encompass the geological information on an an area and how it pertains to the reagions health and welfare.