Discovering Your Trade Union Ancestors

The scale of the British trade union movement is astounding. Tens of millions of people have been members, and 5,000 trade unions are known to have existed at one time or another.  The website Trade Union Ancestors can help you locate a specific trade union in time and place with the A to Z index of trade unions and trade union family trees. In addition, you can read about some of the events and people that shaped the trade union movement through 200 years of history in their trade union histories, trade union lives and striking stories.

The historic union records that  survive illuminate the working lives, daily concerns and political attitudes of our ancestors.  Trade Union Ancestors aims to help  family historians to identify the correct union, to discover the role their ancestor played in it, and to find out more about trade union history.

Website editor Mark Crail stresses that the site is far from comprehensive and he cannot guarantee it is mistake-free.  Also, while millions of people have been trade union members over the past couple of centuries, millions more working people were not. At the beginning of the 20th century, just one in ten working people were members. And though masses of union records have survived, much more has been discarded or destroyed down the years.

The site draws material from a range of sources. Among the most fruitful are:

• The first four published volumes of the Historical Directory of Trade Unions. These are a wonderful but incomplete guide to the development of the trade union movement published between 1980 and 1994 by Gower. The first three were compiled by Arthur Marsh and Victoria Ryan, and the fourth by Marsh and Ryan with the help of John Smethurst. Wonderful though they are, the series is incomplete and there are some rather obvious omissions as a result – not least the Transport and General Workers Union. Time has also moved on since they were published, with mergers and amalgamations taking place annually. There is now a fifth and a sixth and final volume available.

• The archive listings published online by Warwick University’s modern records centre. The centre has an unrivalled collection of original trade union papers, including the archives of many long since defunct trade unions deposited by their modern successors.

• A variety of published sources including the potted histories that some unions include on their websites, the books that unions have produced down the years about their origins and developments, and the many general union histories published since Sydney and Beatrice Webb originated the genre with their History of Trade Unionism, first published in 1894 and revised in 1920.

• Government papers and public records – some of them published (such as Labour Market Trends, from which data on this website is extracted) and some stored away in the National Archives waiting for someone with the time and interest in the subject to come along and find them.

Arolsen Archives

The Arolsen Archives, formerly known as the International Tracing Service, has announced a name change and the online release of over 13 million records of victims of Nazi persecution.

The free database consists of records from Second World War concentration camps, including prisoner cards and death notices.  In total, they contain the names of over 2.2 million victims from across Europe.

The Arolsen Archives are an international center on Nazi persecution with the world’s most comprehensive archive on the victims and survivors of National Socialism. The collection has information on about 17.5 million people and belongs to the UNESCO’s Memory of the World. It contains documents on the various victim groups targeted by the Nazi regime and is an important source of knowledge, especially for younger generations.

To this day, the Arolsen Archives answer inquiries about some 20,000 victims of Nazi persecution every year. For decades, clarifying fates and searching for missing persons were the central tasks of the institution, which was founded by the Allies in 1948 as the “International Tracing Service”.
Research and education are more important than ever to inform today’s society about the Holocaust, concentration camps, forced labor and the consequences of Nazi crimes. The Arolsen Archives are building up a comprehensive online archive so that people all over the world can access the documents and obtain information.

New on FamilySearch

A major new collection now available free on FamilySearch are the Surrey Parish Registers. 

The parish records include baptisms, marriages and burials, potentially revealing details such as your ancestors’ dates and places of birth, marriage and death, as well as the names of their parents and spouses.  Including data from 1536 to 1992, the set consists of over 2.5 million records and were transcribed from the London Metropolitan Archives.

FamilySearch

Here is a list of what's new and free on FamilySearch so far this year.

Country	Collection	Indexed Records
Australia	Australia, South Australia, School Admission Registers, 1873–1985	50,944
Austria	Austria, Carinthia, Gurk Diocese, Catholic Church Records, 1527–1986	75,102
Belgium	Belgium, East Flanders, Civil Registration, 1541–1914	2,757
Benin	Benin, Civil Registration of Deaths, 1891–2014	10
Bolivia	Bolivia Catholic Church Records, 1566–1996	419,322
Brazil	Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Civil Registration, 1829–2012	4,552,840
Brazil	Brazil, São Paulo, Immigration Cards, 1902–1980	2,120
Cape Verde	Cape Verde, Catholic Church Records, 1787–195	19,477
Chile	Chile, Cemetery Records, 1821–2015	70,261
Costa Rica	Costa Rica, Civil Registration, 1823–1975	75,296
Czech Republic	Czech Republic, Church Books, 1552–1981	1,059
Dominican Republic	Dominican Republic Civil Registration, 1801–2010	6,437
El Salvador	El Salvador Civil Registration, 1704–2001	306,119
England	England, Derbyshire, Church of England Parish Registers, 1537–1918	319
England	England, Northumberland, Parish Registers, 1538–1950	994,791
France	France, Calvados, Military Registration Cards, 1867–1921	1,388
France	France, Convict Register, 1650–1867	48,409
France	France, Haute-Garonne, Toulouse, Church Records, 1539–1793	1,151
France	France, Saône-et-Loire, Parish and Civil Registration, 1530–1892	3,064,022
France	France, Vienne, Census, 1856	372,562
France	France, Vienne, Census, 1876	304,196
France	France, Vienne, Military Draft Cards, 1867–1921	511
Germany	Germany, Baden, Archdiocese of Freiburg im Breisgau, Catholic Church Records, 1678–1930	7,397,644
Germany	Germany, Baden, Stebbach, Church Book Extracts, 1675–1951	3,457
Germany	Germany, Bavaria, Diocese of Augsburg, Catholic Church Records, 1615–1939	2,871,125
Germany	Germany, Rhineland, Diocese of Trier, Catholic Church Records, 1704–1957	34,378
Germany	Germany, Schleswig-Holstein, Kreis Steinburg, Civil Registration, 1874–1983	17,160
Hungary	Hungary Civil Registration, 1895–1980	113,787
United States	Italy, Campobasso, Civil Registration (State Archive), 1809–1918	7,900
Italy	Italy, Mantova, Civil Registration (State Archive), 1496–1906	34,729
Italy	Italy, Terni, Civil Registration, 1861–1921	123,204
Italy	Italy, Vicenza, Bassano del Grappa, Civil Registration (State Archive), 1871–1942	120,752
Netherlands	Netherlands, Noord-Holland, Civil Registration, 1811–1950	55,943
Nicaragua	Nicaragua Civil Registration, 1809–2013	35,367
Other	BillionGraves Index	173,946
Peru	Peru, Diocese of Huacho, Catholic Church Records, 1560–1952	19,808
Peru	Peru, La Libertad, Civil Registration, 1903–1998	18,924
South Africa	South Africa, Pietermaritzburg Estate Files 1846–1950	3,686
South Africa	South Africa, Cape Province, Civil Deaths, 1895–1972	330,782
South Africa	South Africa, Transvaal, Civil Death, 1869–1954	134,526
United Kingdom	Great Britain, War Office Registers, 1772–1935	3,153
United States	Delaware Vital Records, 1650–1974	126
United States	Georgia Probate Records, 1742–1990	321
United States	Illinois, Cook County Marriages, 1871–1920	94,757
United States	Indiana, Ripley County, Osgood, Greendale Cemetery Records, 1861–2007	4,443
United States	Maine, Tombstone Inscriptions, Surname Index, 1620–2014	129,668
United States	Maryland, Baltimore, Loudon Park Cemetery, Cemetery Records, 1853–1986	356,122
United States	Missouri, Civil Marriages, 1820–1874	785
United States	Missouri, Pre-WWII Adjutant General Enlistment Contracts, 1900–1941	83,991
United States	Montana, Cascade County Records, 1880–2009	45,437
United States	Montana, Granite County Records, 1865–2009	656,620
United States	Montana, Teton County Records, 1881–2012	348
United States	Ohio, County Naturalization Records, 1800–1977	20,709
United States	Texas, Swisher County Records, 1879–2012	72
United States	United States, Cemetery Abstracts	288,877
United States	United States, Native American, Eastern Cherokee Indian Reservation Rolls, 1848–1970	769
United States	United States, Obituaries, American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1899–2012	1,392,105
United States	United States, Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917–1940	487,730
United States	Virginia, Lynchburg, Diuguid Funeral Home records, 1820–1971	39