I’ve been playing with a new set of occupational records this week after I received the following Press Release from the team over at TheGenealogist website. Many of the entries are fascinating for those researchers that have railway staff ancestors. Here is what TheGenealogist has to say…
TheGenealogist releases 60,000 railway worker records.
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More than 60,000 railway workers have been added to the Occupational Records on TheGenealogist
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Find details of railway ancestors, where they were employed and what they did
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Trace your railway worker ancestor’s careers through their promotions
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Discover when they retired
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Read obituaries
The Genealogist has added over 60,000 rail workers to its online indexes of Railway Employment Records. Taken from Railway Company Staff magazines these records are useful to family historians with railway employee ancestors, wanting to find important occupation related dates and add some social history to their family tree. These records include such details as staff changes, promotions, pension records, retirements and obituaries. Often additional personal information is revealed in the magazines. In some cases you can read about gifts from co-workers given when rail staff leave.
For example, we can discover that Mr A.N.Train had been a Station Master at Whitdale and Sigglesthorne, stations that today are converted into private houses sitting as they do on lines closed under Beeching’s cuts in the 1960s. The railwayman’s details have been extracted from his obituary in the British Railways Magazine of November 1949 Vol 2 No 11. We can learn such useful details as his retirement date, as well as the date that Mr Train passed away at the age of 79.
One click takes us to an image of the original page on which the record is based.
There is also a great article on their website where you can also do a search for your railway ancestors:
http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2015/off-the-rails-242/