Genealogy Chat

I know my great grandfather died in a rail accident in 1917. He was a railway employee (a plate layer). I know employee health & safety wasn't exactly high on the rail company priorities at that time, but I would like to find out more about the accident.
Anyone know if or how I can track down more details?

hi julie
have you looked in the newspapers might be something in there

good luck

hi julie

you can try here for rail accidents


http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/eventlisting.php?view=list&showSearch=true&startYear=1917&endYear=1917&location=all&company=all&cause=all&resultx=all&development=all&published=no&acctype=all&submit=Go

I got a report on my gt granfather's death in a railway accident by ..................

................ getting his death certificate, which gave me the date of death, date of declaration of death by Coroner, and Coroner's name

................ I then contacted the Local Archives Centre where the accident and inquest occurred, with a request for them to check all the local papers between the date of death and about 2 weeks later, hoping to see the report of the Coroner's inquest.



It took a volunteer at the centre about 30 minutes to find the 2 page report.


I got a copy of the report in the post less than a week later

Julie, if you care to give your great grandfather's name it could be checked in the railway employment records which are on Ancestry (I've come across some accident logs on there before) and also in the newspaper archives.

The newspapers often report coroners inquests and there would have been one for this accident.

I found the report of an inquest into of a railway accident in the local paper just by entering the surname into the search on the British Newspaper Archive site. luckily they had the right paper.

Hi safc

Your link has elongated the thread and made it more difficult to read

You could use TinyURL to make it fit

:-)

I've added the link here

http://tinyurl.com/

that's strange ........................

safc's link had been broken into 3 lines last night when I first saw it, and is still broken into 3 lines right now.

The page is not elongated for me.

Thanks to everyone for their input. I didn't find anything in the newspapers when I did a search a while ago, but I hadn't considered inquest reports which now these have been mentioned are an obvious avenue. I am also on ancestry and didn't find anything in their rail employee records, but thanks for the offer.

hi gins

the page is not elongated for me as the link has always be on 3 lines since last night

if julie has copied the link i will delete it

plus gins how would i use a tiny url?

I have to say that I have not yet found the report on the inquest of my gr grandfather's death on the newspapers .....................


it was the direct contact with the Local Archives Study Centre in the town where it happened that led to the find.



it would be worth your while to try this route.

Safc - thanks for the link please feel free to delete if of is causing problems for some.

Sorry for digressing from Julie's request, but I think it depends on which browser you're using whether the link elongates the screen or concertinas into several lines - I'm using Chrome and it is s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d :-)

There are a number of sites where you can shorten url links, I tend to use Goo.gl
http://goo.gl/

It turns the long link into this http://goo.gl/NFgcqx