Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

There are new railway records available on Ancestry has anyone found anything interesting? Do they cover Liverpool railway workers?

Blue

Just had a look. They do cover Liverpool. I had three members of my family listed as railway employees but I haven't found them yet in the railway records. There's not a lot of information although I could be struggling because their surname is Williams....
Good luck!
Barbara

The records on Ancestry cover the following

About UK, Railway Employment Records, 1833-1963
This database includes indexed images of employment-related records from a number of historic railway companies in England, Scotland, and Wales.

What is included?

All of the railways included in this database were once private companies that later came under authority of the British Transport Commission with the 1947 Transport Act. The collection features selected records from the following companies:

•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
Approximately 50% of the books cover the Great Western Railway, while the books covering the London and North Western Railway are more dense with records. Most records are prior to 1949, though some date later.

These are from records held at the National Archives however their are railway records all over the place. The starting point is to know which railway company someone worked for rather than just a place unless it's a small village where there was only one railway company in evidence.

Also remember these aren't complete records of every railway company.

As an example I have my grandfather's LMS long service award meda. I also know he was working at Wigan Wagon Works in 1911 and worked on the railways all his life. I found him in some accident books at Cheshire Record Office which showed him working at Edge Hill Marshalling Yards during the Second World War but he doesn't show in the Ancestry records.

Two books I would recommend anyone with railway ancestors to read are

Was your grandfather a railwayman? by Tom Richards

Tracing your railway ancestors - a guide for family Historians by Di Drummond

Both contain handy lists of the whereabouts of records.

I went to the library to have a look at these new records none of my people are included. I looked at some of the Liverpool records they didn't seem to feature manual workers.

Blue