Useful family history websites

A lot of my dad’s side of the family worked for the railway. I stumbled upon a useful resource when I was looking for one of mum’s ancestors. I was looking for George Aspinall who was assistant station master at York Station. I thought there might be a photo of him on the internet, so I searched for him and found a link to Darlington’s museum, Head of Steam. On their website under ‘Our Collections’ are North East Railway servants’ pensions; enginemen and firemen, station masters etc. In https://www.head-of-steam.co.uk/our-collections/catalogues/ I did find some of my dad’s ancestors, including Joseph Morgetroyd 1880-1940.

If you have ancestors who were employed by the Post Office during World War I or II then have a look at https://gpowarheroes.org.uk/ for their War Heroes. I found AH Rylatt there (an ancestor of my Cooper side of the family). He had been a postman in Middlesbrough. He died in France on 5.11.1916 and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. He was in the Durham Light Infantry.

War dead are commemorated on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website https://www.cwgc.org/ When you have clicked on a name, further information on the war dead can be found on the page underneath where it says ‘download certificate’.

On Ancestry’s website, in addition to the search function on the front page, there is also a ‘Card Catalogue’ which includes extra information. Would you believe that it includes names of Scottish Witches from 1658!