Did your ancestor work on the railways in the UK?

When I give my family history talk on Ancestry.com, I always like to mention the databases of Railway and Postal employee records as most families will have, at a bare minimum, at least one family member who was employed by one of these organisations.

Palmerston North Railway Station, 1899 Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-18990728-3-1

Auckland Libraries has in its collection the Who do you think you are? magazine and the February 2012 issue has a good background article about what some of those working for the railways did and covers the post World War One period as well. The article ends with a round up of depositories and a brief description of the resources held at each of them.

Rural postal near in the Cambridge District Auckland, 1914 Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19140618-48-5

If you have a railway employee in your family you may also find the following books of use and they are all available in our family history collection at the Research Centre:

Was your grandfather a railwayman?: a directory of records ... by Tom Richards (Federation of Family History Societies, Lancashire, 2002)

Railway ancestors: a guide to the staff records of the railway companies of England and Wales,1822-1947 by David Hawking (History Press, Stroud, Gloucestershire, 2008)

Tracing your railway ancestors: a guide for family historians by Diane K. Drummond (Pen and Sword, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, 2010)

Marie Hickey