In this guest post, project supporter Peter Munro looks at a passenger accident from 1914 – what would today be known as a ‘trap and drag’ incident, something that the Rail Accident Investigation Branch flagged as a real concern on our recent visit to its Farnborough office. Peter has also helped the project in a […]
Archive | Family History
Reading 1914: passengers, workers, family
Our project has focused on accidents to railway workers, rather than passengers, as numerically far more workers were killed or injured on the railways and they remain understudied. When we started out, in 2016, we were using just one set of records – the Board of Trade reports into worker accidents. We took the decision […]
THE Genealogy Show – spreading the project word
Only 6 weeks’ ago we were at Family Tree Live at Alexandra Palace – and last week we took the project to another family history show: THE Genealogy Show, at the NEC in Birmingham. And we’re delighted to say this one went just as well! We took along the tried and tested mix of an […]
Volunteers’ Week 5: The fatal dangers of shunting
By Cheryl Hunnisett on June 5, 2019 in Accident reports, Blog, Family History, Guest contribution, Linking sources, Volunteers’ Week
In the latest of our Volunteers’ Week posts, project volunteer Cheryl Hunnisett, working with us at the Modern Records Centre, takes a look at one case she encountered in the records of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants trade union. This is another great example of the ways in which our volunteers are actively taking […]
Edward Gevaux: one accident in a wider life
In this guest blog post, Peter Bloomfield was able to use our database to add further detail to his existing research into North London Railway (NLR) staff, via the case of Edward Gevaux. There are several other NLR staff that appear in Peter’s database and ours, further demonstrating the possibilities for linking research undertaken for […]
Family Tree Live – impressions of our project
Earlier this week we posted a blog summarising a few thoughts about the recent Family Tree Live event at Alexandra Palace. There was plenty we missed out – not least what some of the 3000 or so people who came through the doors thought about our project, and what our stand volunteers made of it […]
Family Tree Live – sharing information!
UPDATE: We’ve now added a new post, capturing some of the thoughts of our stand visitors & volunteers – read it here! On Friday and Saturday of last week, we took the project to the Family Tree Live show at Alexandra Palace – and it went really well! We wanted to get word out […]
J Moore (a shunter)
By Chris Jolliffe on April 15, 2019 in Accident reports, Blog, Family History, Guest contribution, Linking sources, Transcription Tuesday
In this post, Chris Jolliffe, one of the project volunteers based at the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick and transcribing trade union records, picks up on one case that emerged from the ‘Transcription Tuesday’ event. In it, she delves deeper into the sources to pull together a much more complete picture of […]
Bartholomew Stephenson – from pub landlord to permanent way worker
By John Davison Cameron on April 1, 2019 in Accident reports, Blog, Family History, Guest contribution, Linking sources
We’re pleased to be able to feature another guest post, from another person the project has been able to help. John contacted us via our feedback form to let us know that he’d made use of the project database and found it useful – something we always like to hear, so do get in touch […]
Benjamin Emery – a family mystery solved!
We’re really pleased to be able to feature this guest post from Yvonne Kerry. In the course of researching her family history she came across our project – with a useful conclusion for her search! What makes this doubly-pleasing is that Yvonne works in the railway industry today – a family line, perhaps. We’re always […]
