Notes for Family Historians	Notes for Family Historians

At first glance it may seem strange to see a topic for Family Historians in a Museum web site, however, with the increasing interest in family history (genealogy) we are also seeing an increase in the number of requests for information and guidance in helping to trace their ancestors from members of the public — particularly via the internet. Consequently we thought it worthwhile to collect together some hints and tips for Family Historians and present them here.

General

If you are trying to trace your ancestors in the North East of England then there are many groups that may be able to help you, ranging from local history groups to the larger family history societies. Some of the local history groups that maintain their own web pages have contacted us and we have provided a link to their web site via our Links page. The two family history societies that cover the north east are as follows:

Cleveland and South Durham Family History Society
Northumberland and Durham Family History Society

There is also a large amount of information for those interested in genealogy in the UK and Ireland provided on the internet via the GENUKI site. There are pages specifically related to Northumberland and Durham.

Living Relatives

We do not maintain any records for individuals who may still be living. We can only suggest that you try sources such as the telephone directory or the electoral registers.

Mine Related Deaths

First of all check our Memorial Roll to see if we have an entry for the person you are trying to find. The list of fatalities is by no means complete, but as we continue our own research the number of names grows — we also welcome contributions from all sources. The sources we use are as follows:

• Annual Mines Inspectors Reports. These Government reports provide an annual overview of mining accidents in the region and provide information on the cause of the accident and the names of any fatalities. They also provide some information on non fatal accidents, gallantry awards etc. The North East of England was included in the reports from 1859.
• Newspapers.
• Parish Records — burial registers.
• Tombstones/Monumental Inscriptions.

Both the GENUKI web site and the local Family History Societies can be of assistance in finding your ancestors using Parish Records and Monumental Descriptions.

One further source is the Coal Mining History Resource Centre run by Ian Winstanley. Ian has been extracting the names of fatalities from the Mines Inspectors Reports and other sources for quite some time and has a database of over 90,000 names covering the whole country. Check his web site for further details.

If you know the rough time period in which your ancestor died and if this is after 1837, you can search the GRO index of deaths and order a copy of the death certificate using the reference number in the index from the GRO. The GRO indexes of Births, Deaths and Marriages are available at most main libraries in the UK and at the Family History Centres provided by the Church of Latter Day Saints throughout the world.

Coroner's Inquests

Having obtained a death certificate you may see that a Coroner's Inquest was held. Unfortunately very few records of these inquests have been deposited with local record offices, generally speaking the records were destroyed. However, there may have been coverage of the inquest in the local newspapers, the coverage varies from a single line or paragraph to many column inches for disasters.

Where did they work?

There are two parts to this question:

In which collieries could they have worked?

If you have and address or village name from your research then it is possible to find the local collieries using our web site. For each colliery we show all the other collieries and pits for which we have information within a 5 mile (8 km) radius of each other. If the only information you have is for the latter part of the twentieth century then this information will not be enough as people travelled further to work as the availability of public and private transport increased. For the nineteenth century and before the information we provide will be sufficient as it is likely that your ancestors walked to work each day — from the house provided by the colliery companies as part of the miners pay. Be aware though that when the Miners' Bond was active it was possible for a miner to work in a different mine (locally) each year!

Are there any employment records for colliery X?

What records survive from the colliery companies (including the NCB) will have been deposited with a local archives service. Tyne and Wear Archives have a web page that shows what records they hold for individual collieries. The index of holdings for Durham Record Office can be searched using their web site. Both of these web sites show what documents have been deposited with them — you will have to visit the archives to view the documents themselves.

and finally...

We hope that you found the brief summary above useful in continuing your research, it is not meant to be a definitive guide to finding your Coal Mining ancestors, just a guide to help you along the way.