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Coromandel
04-08-2011, 4:22 PM
Lots of UK railway staff records have just appeared on Ancestry. Their blurb says:

The most common record type in the database is a staff register. Others include station transfers, pension and accident records (which can include death date), apprentice records (which can include father's name), caution books, and memos.

Records will typically list an employee’s name, station, position, birth date or age, and various other details, such as salary, date entered service, and transfer information. For example, caution books list offenses employees were written up for and include name, date, grade, station, years of service, and date of suspension if applicable. Salary and wage registers list name, name of person recommending an employee for a position, date of appointment, salary or wage, dates of pay raises or decreases, age at the time the employee joined the railways, promotions, and remarks, which can mention transfers to different stations.

Records can be searched by name, birth year, event year, station, or company. Or they can be browsed by volume. In the browse, unless otherwise identified, the books are staff registers.

These are all records from TNA. The ones included so far are:

RAIL226: Great Central Railway Company
RAIL264: Great Western Railway Company
RAIL397: London and North Eastern Railway Company
RAIL410: London and North Western Railway Company
RAIL411: London and South Western Railway Company
RAIL414: London, Brighton and South Coast Railway
RAIL415: London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company (formerly the East Kent Railway)
RAIL426: London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company
RAIL463: Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway Company
RAIL491: Midland Railway Company
RAIL1156: Special Collections: Retired Railway Officers' Society

Jeuel
04-08-2011, 4:24 PM
I've already found some people related to my lot by marriage.

v.wells
04-08-2011, 4:45 PM
Thanks Coromandel for this bit of information! I have one that I must find. What a help you are! Now if I can just find who I am looking for that would be great news. Off to take a look.

StintonLomas
04-08-2011, 7:49 PM
Hi
I found the record of my platelayer GGuncle's death and it even had a note of how much the company paid for his funeral.

valspall
05-08-2011, 8:27 AM
Hi, maybe I am missing something but I can't find these records on Ancestry? What title search should I use? My William GALE gives his occupation as Railway Foreman in 1885 when he was living in Islington & I'd be keen to see if there is any info on him.

Coromandel
05-08-2011, 8:45 AM
Hi, maybe I am missing something but I can't find these records on Ancestry? What title search should I use? My William GALE gives his occupation as Railway Foreman in 1885 when he was living in Islington & I'd be keen to see if there is any info on him.

Hi valspall

Sorry I didn't mention the full title of the new database, which is 'UK, Railway Employment Records, 1833-1963'. Bizarrely it seems to be in the 'Schools, Directories & Church Histories' section! You can also find it in the 'What's new' section of Ancestry.co.uk or 'recent databases' in Ancestry Library Edition (there's a link on the home page in each case).

valspall
05-08-2011, 11:52 AM
Thanks Coromandel - found the records! Sadly I can't find my man. Oh well.

Waitabit
05-08-2011, 12:01 PM
Not found mine either. Believe he was a shy man. Too busy in his Signal box to notice records being taken.

valspall
05-08-2011, 12:40 PM
Maybe your man & mine were in there playing cards together!

Colin Rowledge
05-08-2011, 2:02 PM
A useful addition. While I couldn't find my maternal grandfather in the records for G.W.R I was successful in obtaining a brief notice of his death from the Swindon Library.

Maybe as they add more, if the records for G.W.R are not complete yet, he'll show up in due course.

Patience is a virtue,
Virtue is a grace
Grace is a little girl
who never washed her face.

My wife's most common comment when I can't find what I want, when I want it!! :blush2:

Colin

bsward
05-08-2011, 2:28 PM
I found my Great-great-great-great-Grandmother! Her entire 36 year career as a Ladies Waiting Room Attendant at Portsmouth station was fully document, as was her subsequent receipt of moneys from the Benevolent Fund! Also found my Great-great-great-grandfather (her son) - he worked for a year as a railway telegraph clerk, before then doing the same at the post office.

Pretty impressed with these records, ignoring the awful state of the transcriptions. Almost all approximate birth years as they have simply subtracted age from date of starting work, ignoring the fact that the age column asked for age in a specific year... Several mainline railway stations also wrongly transcribed, including Portsmouth on one occasion!

Still, a great set of records to have digitised. And... it suggests on the videos page that they'll be releasing the Apprentice Records soon which WAP transcribed quite a while ago!

These employment records are a good decision by Ancestry, I think. I'd always rather add interesting information on closer relatives than simply names going further back which is typically what I end up with from parish records, and they were pretty inaccessible previously.

Ben

Pete85
07-08-2011, 9:10 PM
I guess these records aren't available with the Essentials subscription(which I have)? Does anyone know if they will at some stage be made available to Essentials subscribers?
I'm not sure if the family I'm looking for would be there but would have been nice to check.