The Crewe Family History Unit has been given permission by CEC to resume our monthly Saturday openings. 

Starting on July 30th between 10am-12 noon 

August and September dates to be confirmed soon

For records held see - https://www.fhsc.org.uk/new-research-centres/crewe-research-centre

Notice from the Railway, Work, Life & Death Project 

The Railway Work, Life & Death project (RWLD) is proud to announce the recent update to its FREE open access online database with the addition of a further c.16,000 new cases of railway worker accidents. This recent extension of the project adds numerous opportunities for research by family historians and genealogists, academic researchers and students, heritage groups and societies, local historians and more!

This FREE online event is designed to help you understand what is included within the database and in its new case materials. The RWLD project's co-lead Dr Mike Esbester will host this Q&A - discussing opportunities or interests you might have and how the RWLD database may be insightful to your research and help with any queries you may have.

There are two sessions being run:

• Wednesday 27 July, Lunchtime12.30pm
• Thursday 28 July, evening 7.30pm

Tickets are free and can be ordered up to 10 minutes before each of the events. These are held online only and over video call via ZOOM.

Link to register  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/railway-work-life-death-project-new-data-qa-tickets-388090307557

We would be really grateful if you could also complete the following short form (c.5 min) so we can gauge participants previous interaction with the project and database:

RWLD New Data - What will you discover?

About the RWLD project:

the RWLD project is an collaboration between the University of Portsmouth, the National Railway Museum and the Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick. The project also works with other institutions including The National Archives of the UK.

We’re making it easier to find out about railway worker accidents in Britain and Ireland from the late 1880s to 1939. We’re providing data about who was involved, what they were doing on the railways, what happened to them and why. Although today most people don’t realise it, working on the railways 100 years ago was incredibly dangerous, with hundreds killed and tens of thousands injured each year.

For more information about the project and to access the FREE database please visit: https:/www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk/

For any further questions or to contact us please email:

Find us on Twitter: @RWLDproject

Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Railway-Work-Life-Death-108745674380484

The BBC Reminiscence Archive [RemArc] is an online archive of BBC video clips, audio clips and images which provides access to a selection of content from the BBC Archives, designed to support reminiscence work with people with dementia,their carers and families. 

The pictures and clips are organised in to Theme, such as family,childhood, sport; and Decade, ranging from the 1930s to the 2000s.

This archive of clips will also be of interest to both family and social historians 

Link https://remarc.bbcrewind.co.uk/

The also BBC have a great film archive and members may be interested in the Rewind service which contains over 31,000 newclips, which are searchable by keyword 

Link https://discover.bbcrewind.co.uk/

The 'Railway Work, Life & Death' project - of which I have reminded members of on many an occasion has been busy expanding it's database of British & Irish railway worker accidents, covering the later 19th & early 20th centuries

AND IT'S ALL FREE 

Currently thee are over 23,000 cases, with more to come. Check out the latest blog, Names still spoken, for more details

Link  https://www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk/names-still-spoken-our-new-data-release/

Do you know your third cousin from your third cousin twice removed? 

This handy chart might help 

Experts describe cobalt mine at Alderley Edge as ‘time capsule’ thanks to lack of oxygen

A pristine 200-year-old mineshaft that had been undisturbed since it was abandoned by miners during the Napoleonic wars has been discovered by cavers in Cheshire, revealing an almost unique “time capsule” of their underground life. 

Read the full story in this article from the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/jul/12/cavers-discover-mineshaft-alderley-edge-time-capsule

 Ed Coghlan and Jamie Lund, right, inspect one of the timber props installed by the miners. Photograph: Paul Harris/National Trust Images c/o Guardian online website 

Morris Garratt Memorial Lecture (Zoom) Thursday 8 September  7.00pm Alan Crosby  will speak on - 

Dr Ian Mitchell, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Wolverhampton, Centre for Historical Research, will speak on his grandfather’s photographs of Manchester and the Wirral taken in the 1890s and 1900s. Ian inherited 7 albums of photographs by this keen amateur photographer. 

Please let me know if you would like to book a place on any of the talks - you can just turn up for the walks.. Contact Alice Lock:  and quote where you heard about these events

Today [5th july 2022] the shortlist of the most suitable potential locations for the national headquarters of Great British Railways was announced, which will go forward to a consultative public vote to be held online and by post.

The confirmed list of shortlisted towns and cities is:

• Birmingham
• Crewe
• Derby
• Doncaster
• Newcastle upon Tyne
• York

Here in Cheshire I hope we will all be getting behind Crewe. 

The public vote is now open, this is consultative and will be used to test public support for each shortlisted location, allowing the people that the railway serves the chance to have their say.

Link - https://gbrtt.co.uk/hq-competition-public-vote/

link to Crewe's Expression of Interest document - https://gbrtt.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/02.-Crewe.pdf