A for Archive Centres: A-Z Challenge 2020

My Theme

Family History Meets Local History - 

Sources & Stories form England and Scotland 

ARCHIVE CENTRES are "must contact" places for anything to do with family and local hsitory!  There is also a sense of ADVENTURE  in   exploring the unique records and touching handwritten pages that give details  of  our ancestors in their own lifetime.

We are so used now to hunting for information online, but there is a wealth of  research opportunities   available at Archive Centres.  If  you cannot get to a centre relevant to your research, take a look at their web site, search their online catalogue, and consider  using the range of enquiry services on offer from simple "look ups" to paid in-depth research packages.

 

How have Archive Centres helped my research?

At Lancashire Archives, I traced:

• A  marriage bond of 1786 relating to my GGG Grandfather Henry Danson.
• Two Danson wills, dated 1821 and 1831. 
  
   
   
• An 1810  bastardy claim,where John Danson was ordered to pay support for his "said bastard child" - a forerunner of today's Child Support Agency!
• A local 1851 directory which listed listed my G.G. grandfather Henry Danson at Trap Farm, Carleton,  near Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire; his neighbour and brother-in-law John Bryning,  and,  under Inns and Taverns,  two relations by marriage William Gaulter of the Golden Ball and Cornelius Cardwell  of the Kings Arms, plus son-in-law watchmaker James Brownbill. 

Tyne and Wear Archives helped  me in researching my husband's mariner and police ancestors in South Shields.

• I discoverer the name of the ships on which master mariner  Robert Donaldson had sailed on, the journeys he made and the fate of his ships. 
  
• I obtained  the service record of two White ancestors who had served in the Tyne River Police, but fell foul themselves of the law and were charged with assaulting a seaman. 

Shropshire Archives were able to supply entries  from school records, relating to my father's participation in the  school football team - a source of great pride for him.  

National Archives at Kew, London  enabled me to trace  death duty records for my great, great, great great grandfather John Danson, with the mariners' register also listing  the journeys of my  husband's seafaring ancestors Robert Donaldson and Matthew Iley White.

National Records of Scotland, Edinburgh holds original archive material and here
I traced 18th property records relating to my husband's ancestor, merchant Samuel Donaldson of South Leith, Midlothian.

Scottish Borders Archives at the Heritage Hub, Hawick is now my local centre and although I do not have Borders ancestry, I enjoy browsing through  its collections. which include:  

• Poor Law Records
• Police Records
• Burgh, Town and County Council Records  
• School Records     
• Militia Records
• Farming Records
• Mill Records 

Archive Centres are also repositories for electoral rolls, valuation rolls of property, maps, vintage postcards, maps, directories, newspapers, and the many local history books  that can add so much to learning about the  communities in which our ancestors lived.   

I shall  be looking in much more detail at a wide variety of records held at Archive Centres as I follow this A-Z journey.  

 Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

 Conclusion:
I am pleased to promote local archive centres in this wa,  to show that family history with a local history focus   can take you in  so many varied directions. You never know what you might unearth to throw light on your ancestors' lives and enhance your family history writing!

Note:  In the UK,  Date Protection restrictions apply to most post-1900 records

 where personal names are given. Archive staff will advise. 

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