Who Do You Think You Are? Encyclopedia of Genealogy (47 page)

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Salary registers were kept for clerical salaried staff and tend to include names, dates of birth, career changes, salary increases and bonuses.

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Staff registers were kept for financial purposes and record names, occupations, places of work, starting pay, pay rises, bonuses and allowances.

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Personnel records vary widely in their content from company to company and may cover a whole group of workers with registers of new employees, attendance logs and discipline registers. Usually the records are arranged numerically by staff number though sometimes an alphabetical index will accompany them.

Salary and staff registers can be interesting if they mention a fine incurred for misdemeanours or any allowances paid and time off due to sickness.

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Salary and staff records mention fines incurred, allowances paid and time off for sickness
.'

You need to be prepared to spend a long time searching among the various types of records for different departments because the records for railway companies are still largely arranged in the format they were when used by clerical staff at the time, and no modern form of indexing has been adopted to make them easily accessible for genealogists' purposes today.

If you know the name of the company your ancestor worked for, or once you have gathered a list of all his possible employers, there are many resources available to point you in the direction of where to find their records.

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The National Archives' research guide entitled ‘Railways: Staff Records' has an appendix listing all the companies they hold records for and the exact RAIL series where those records can be found. Not all records for staff are listed in the appendix, so once you have established what RAIL series those records are kept in it is worth looking at the paper catalogue to get a fuller picture of the series' holdings. There is also a list of all the railway companies and their RAIL series at the beginning of the RAIL catalogues in the Research Enquiries Room, and a keyword search of the online catalogue for the company's name restricting the department code to ‘RAIL' should also tell you which series it is held in. It is important to also consult lists provided in the guide
Was Your Grandfather A Railwayman?
, which covers documents for railways in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and overseas, and
Railway Ancestors
for railway companies in England and Wales.
Railway Records: A Guide to Sources
by Cliff Edwards takes a closer look at railway documents kept at The National Archives in Kew.

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The National Archives of Scotland not only holds railway records formerly kept by the British Transport Historical Records Department in Edinburgh but also some useful private collections deposited at the archives and modern records deposited by the British Railways Board, British Railways (Scottish Region), Scotrail and Railtrack Scotland. Most railway records are found under NAS reference BR, and their collections comprise staff records, accident reports, station traffic books, letter books, civil engineer records, photographs and much more. The principal employers of Scottish railwaymen prior to the 1921 Railways Act were North British, the Caledonian, the Glasgow & South Western, the Great North of Scotland, and the Highland. The Railscot website at www.railscot.co.uk contains histories of Scottish railway companies as well as a map showing where each company operated and a chronology of Scottish rail history. The NAS has a research guide for people tracing Scottish railway ancestors on their website, and the NAS publication
The Scottish Railway Story
is a must-read.

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The Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) holds information about railway companies in Northern Ireland, and the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum has a library and archive containing transport material as well as private collections encompassing rail
timetables, pictures, books and articles about the history of Ireland's railways. You can search the National Archives of Ireland's online database for their railway collections, which include Railways Companies Returns for the twentieth century.

Sue Johnston had been told several legends about her family's period of employment on the railways – the most exciting one relating to the fact that her grandfather, Alfred Cowan, had been the driver for the
Flying Scotsman
. However, by checking details of where he was based throughout most of his career, and comparing this with known information about the route of the
Flying Scotsman
at the National Railway Museum, York, it was fairly easy to disprove this; the
Flying Scotsman
operated on the East Coast Main Line, which originally comprised three earlier railway companies, whilst Alfred Cowan was based in Warrington in the north west, nowhere near.

The other myth related to Alfred's father, James Cowan – and the rumour that he had been station manager at Carlisle Citadel station, one of the busiest in the country throughout the mid to late nineteenth century when James was alleged to be working there. Sue decided to search for employment records at The National Archives, and struck gold when she found a series of appointment books. They confirmed that he had indeed started work at Carlisle station, but as a porter in 1856, having spent the previous 7 years in some other form of work – unspecified in the documents. James gradually rose through the ranks, and by 1861 he was second assistant platform attendant. However, despite 25 years of service at the station, he never made it to stationmaster, leaving just 7 months after the death of the previous incumbent.

When searching staff records, in addition to the name of the company and your ancestor's job title it is helpful to know their date of birth, rough period of employment, date of death and place of employment or residence. This information will help you to narrow down your search results and can be found from analysing information given on civil registration certificates and census returns. Look out for changes in the description of your ancestor's employment; for example on his marriage certificate he may have been described as a locomotive fireman but five years later, on his daughter's birth certificate, he is described as an engine driver, so you know he received a promotion in that space of time. You might need to look at records for different
departments if his job description changed. (The covering dates given for records held at The National Archives are sometimes misleading, because the description includes the earliest and latest dates mentioned in the records, which might be a date of birth and death, rather than giving the dates for years of service.)

Railway Police were employed by the railway companies from the 1830s to regulate the lines, which included signalling and station duties as well as preventing criminal activity. If you have an ancestor who was a railway policeman prior to the 1920s, his records should be found within the collections of the railway company that he worked for. After the merger of all railway companies into the ‘Big Four' in 1921, each had its own police force controlled by a Chief of Police who joined up to form a Police Committee during the Second World War. The National Archives holds most records for railway police from 1921 onwards in series AN.

In 1949, following the nationalization of the railways, the system was replaced by the British Transport Commission Police, encompassing all the former railway company police forces as well as those of some canal and dock companies. British Transport Police was formed in 1962 to replace the British Transport Commission Police, and they still hold record cards for staff dating back to the 1860s, though these are not complete. More information about them can be found on the History Archives pages of the British Transport Police website at www.btp. police.uk. Copies of the
Railway Police Journal
for 1949–81 are kept at The National Archives in series ZPER 61. If you have a particular interest in this subject then read a copy of Pauline Appleby's
A Force on the Move: The Story of the British Transport Police 1825–1995
.

If you find out from a death certificate that your ancestor was killed by a train accident (and there were very many railwaymen – not to mention passengers – who were killed in this way) there are plenty of surviving reports kept among company papers, and also in the records of the Board of Trade Railway Department, Ministry of Transport Reports and Railway Inspectorate at The National Archives, in series RAIL 1053, MT 114 and MT 29.

The records of the Railway Benevolent Institution, which granted financial aid to those former railwaymen and their families who had paid
a subscription, are held at The National Archives in RAIL 1166. This is a useful source for those family historians who are unsure which company their ancestor worked for, because the institute drew subscriptions from railwaymen across the country. The Annual Reports in RAIL 1166/1–80 covering 1881 to 1959 contain lists of supporters as well as reports from the railway's orphanage at Derby. The Railway Benevolent Institution's Minutes are found in RAIL 1166/87–149 for 1858 to 1982. The most useful source for family historians can be found in the records of grants in RAIL 1166/81–86 for the years 1888 to 1919, which give details of grants awarded to railwaymen or their widows and orphans after an accident, illness, death or during old age. Each volume is indexed, but if a grant was given to a railwayman's widow or family after his death then the entry does not always name the deceased worker but may give the name of his company and his position instead.

Armagh County Museum and Library has a Railway Collection with a display highlighting one of Ireland's worst railway disasters, which killed 89 people and injured 400 others in 1889 when a train loaded with Sunday school children bound for a seaside trip was involved in a collision. Contact the library to find out what material and photographs they hold and to book an appointment on 028 37 523070.

The records of the British Transport Historical Collection Library are held at The National Archives in series ZPER and contain railway periodicals that may be of interest to those researching the history of the railways.

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Railway House Journals
are a potential source of personal information for employees of British Railways, Furness Railway, Great Central, Great Eastern, Great Western, London, Midland & Scottish, London & North Eastern, London & North Western, North Eastern Railway and Southern Railway. These are sometimes indexed and contain photos of staff and personal announcements in the Staff News section.

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The Railway Gazette
may provide obituaries or details of service on retirement and information about special achievements for senior employees.

Copies of these two journals are held at the National Railway Museum Library and Archives.

The National Railway Museum Library and Archives in Leeman Road, York, does not hold any staff records but is a brilliant source for photographs, books, maps, periodicals, timetables and archives valuable to anyone studying railway history. The photographic collection in particular dates back as early as the 1850s and consists of over 1.4 million photos, 200 of which have been printed in Ed Bartholomew's book
Railways in Focus – Photographs from the National Railway Museum
, and a further 50,000 are available to view on the Science and Society Picture Gallery website at www.scienceandsociety.co.uk. The NRM archive collection contains more technical records of those companies whose staff records are kept at The National Archives and the National Archives of Scotland, and also includes records of railway workers' associations and engineers' drawings.

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The National Railway Museum is a brilliant source for railway history
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If you hit a brick wall in your research or would like to contact other researchers with railway ancestors, then the Railway Ancestors Family History Society is the place to go. The society helps its members to trace their railway ancestry in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and also to find British railwaymen overseas. It can point you in the direction of records, documents, books and special collections that exist in record depositories around the world and they are constantly discovering and investigating previously unknown sources. The society is currently compiling a Railway Workers Index, and the website – www.railwayancestors.org.uk
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has a surname index where other researchers have posted messages about the people they are looking for and you can ask others for help when you get stuck. There is also a list of British and Irish railway companies with RAIL references. Another useful point of contact is the Railway and Canal Historical Society (www.rchs.org.uk).

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Ingenius is an online project sponsored by the National Railway Museum, Science Museum and National Museum of Photography, Film and Television that provides free access to 30,000 images including a whole section dedicated to transport, from water and road transport to a large amount of railway imagery, found at www.ingenious.org.uk/See/Transport.

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If you have ancestors who worked on the transport system in the Suffolk area then the Ipswich Transport Museum will be of interest to you. Their collections cover many historical forms of transportation
that we have not had time to look at here, such as horse-drawn and electric trams, horse buses, trolleybuses and motor buses, as well as the railways and airports and the histories of some major companies that monopolized the transport industry in that region.

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Cyndi's List is an online directory to thousands of genealogical sources and has a whole section dedicated to Canals, Rivers and Waterways, and one entitled Railroads. Visit www.cyndislist.com/ canals.htm where you will find links to plenty of associations, societies and individuals who have researched the history of canals in their local area, including the Basingstoke Canal Authority, Pennine Waterways, Beverley Beck Canal, Lancaster Canal and Driffield Navigation in Yorkshire, and Wilts & Berks Canal.