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Railway Ancestors

Researching your Railway Ancestors at the National Railway Museum

The records of people who worked for the railway companies are not held at the National Railway Museum. For England and Wales they are mainly at the National Archives. Some records may also be found at local and county record offices. For Scotland they are held at the National Archives of Scotland, though some records are also at the University of Aberdeen Library. Records for Northern Ireland are at The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.

Getting started

The best place to start is to look at a specialist book or join a specialist society. Was Your Grandfather a Railwayman? by Tom Richards (4th edition, FFHS, 2002) provides a useful general guide to the records and where they are kept. Railway Records: A Guide to Sources by Cliff Edwards (PRO, 2001) is particularly helpful regarding records at the National Archives and how they can be used. The Railway Ancestors Family History Society includes people with experience of searching for railway ancestors and might be the best source of practical guidance, especially when you have got stuck.

How can we help at the National Railway Museum?

Pay a visit to Search Engine and you will see! We have many ways that we might be able to help you, whatever stage your research has reached. If you are just starting, we have copies of the books just mentioned and back copies of the journal of the Railway Ancestors FHS.

For many people, the first inkling that they have of a railway ancestor is through the Census or an occupation listed on a birth, marriage or death certificate. If all you know is an address and that he was a ‘railway clerk’ or ‘railway labourer’, you will next need to know which company he worked for. This is easier for rural areas than for large towns served by more than one Railway Company. We have the British Railways Pre-Grouping Atlas and Gazetteer (Ian Allan Ltd) which can often help. Once you know the company, you can find out if their staff records have survived and where they are kept.

Background Research

You can find out more about the company and the place where your ancestor worked. We have the best specialist railway library in the world. There are histories of most companies and an excellent series of regional histories. If your ancestor worked for one of the major companies during the twentieth century, we also have most of the railway company magazines. Not only might you find your ancestor mentioned when he or she was promoted or retired, you will also learn a great deal about what life was like working on the railways at the time.

If your ancestor worked for one of these companies and served in the armed forces in the First or Second World Wars, there is a strong chance you will find them mentioned in the pages of the company magazines. If they were unlucky not to survive their wartime service, we also have copies of many of the Rolls of Honour. In some cases we have indexes based on research done by our own staff.

The library stocks many biographies, not only about the famous engineers and managers, but also the reminiscences of former railway workers. They are a mine of information about their working conditions and the people with whom they worked. Most railway personnel belonged to a trade union and we have histories of the most important railway unions. We also have an unrivalled collection of audio recordings of former railway employees and these provide an intimate insight into work on the railways over the past eighty years.

All around the museum are objects such as your ancestor may have handled during their working day, wagons they loaded or unloaded, carriages they painted, cleaned or served lunch in and tools that they used. While rather less people than fondly imagine actually did drive the Flying Scotsman, there is a wide sample of locomotives they may have driven, fired or cleaned. Every trade you can imagine is represented, both in the museum collection and, behind the scenes, in the archives. There are engineering drawings your draughtsman ancestor may have signed, photographs at engineering works in which he may have worked, reports of accidents in which he may have been involved. There are architectural drawings of houses built by the railway companies for their staff. There are collections of certificates and books presented to staff when they won an award or retired.

Indeed, once you have got past the stage of finding names in lists, research at the National Railway Museum will bring life and colour to your ancestor’s story!

Useful addresses:

The National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 4DU

The National Archives of Scotland, HM General Register House, 2 Princes St, Edinburgh, EH1 3YY

The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, 66 Balmoral Avenue, Beslfast, BT9 6NY

Railway Ancestors Family History Society, c/o Mr JF Engert, ‘Lundy’, King Edward Street, Barmouth, Gwynedd, LL42 1NY email: rafhs@btinternet.com