The Perils of the Miners’ Pit Head Baths

Among our work, we have been creating a database from Derbyshire National Union of Mineworkers' tribunal cases relating to illness and injury.  Among the many injuries, illnesses and diseases, were those caused by visits to and working in the pithead baths. Before the construction of pithead baths at collieries, miners would travel to and from work in dirty, …

Dastardly Deeds, Danger and Drinking Dens in Draycott & Church Wilne!

Just in time for Halloween, our Local Studies Library has an intriguing set of booklets on display, describing some of the 'darker' history of  Draycott. These have been produced by the Draycott & Church Wilne History Group. 'Rogues and Miscreants' starts with an interesting summary of Crime and Punishment including the 'The Bloody Code,' the justice …

Leaf through the pages of a book…

Summer is fading with the falling leaves of Autumn starting to make  an appearance, approaching that time of year when it's comforting to curl up with a book in front of the fire.  So here are some new additions to our Local Studies library: 'Kick' is the story of Kathleen 'Kick' Kennedy, who sailed to Britain in 1938 after her …

Aliens! Internees during the Second World War

Curious people that we are, we do like to receive enquiries that test our research skills. We recently received another interesting research enquiry, on the subject of internship during the Second World War. The enquiry we had was regarding an employee of the John Smedley company based in Lea, near Cromford, originally from Vienna. We were asked whether we …

Digging up information about Burial Locations

Some of the diverse subjects that have been researched in the Local Studies card catalogue this week include air wrecks, monetary equivalents, the surname 'Lomas' and Florence Nightingale.   In particular though, this week, burial locations have been a frequent feature of research requests, so we thought this subject was well past its expiration date (if you'll forgive the …

Picturing the Past in Photos, Postcards and Illustrations

We're often asked for images, illustrations and photographs for a variety of reasons: house or building history, planning and model making are just a few. So we thought it might be useful to list a few sources of useful information about how to access images, both online and in our collections. Firstly, with a title including …

Scaling the Matlock Mountain!

  If you happened to be in Matlock this lunchtime, you may have noticed a bit of an event going on! If you weren't there, and were wondering what all the fuss was about i.e. cyclists, spectators, sirens, police motorbikes and cheering schoolchildren, it was the Women's Tour - a professional women's cycling race, which had a whole …

From Maskreys to Coalmining Ancestors via Poetry

When replacing the items people have borrowed in our Local Studies Library, I'm always amazed at the variety of items people have used for research, leisure or both!  Above are just some examples from this week.  It's really reassuring to know that all these resources are available and especially that there are lots of local history …

Distant family…or not so distant?

A recent visitor to the Record Office reminded me of a really important point when researching your family tree - distance! It's important to remember how people travelled and why, in the past, which can help when searching nearby parishes and areas for those 'lost' ancestors. The example in question was of a relative who had been born …

Finding your feet with Family History

Starting to do family history can seem a daunting task! Although there is now lots of information online with the help of websites such as Ancestry and Find My Past there are also numerous books which are a fantastic, tangible source of information and knowledge. These are excellent in providing a background of the type of sources you might …