Celebrating our collections dating from 780AD to the present day
By Nichola Court, Archivist Extract from the anonymous Flapper's diary, noting her journey down to Chichester and various activities in the area (ref AM 75/1) Last week's blog explored the story behind an 'anonymous "flapper's" diary', bought by WSRO at auction in 2008 and later catalogued as AM 75/1. Thanks to the meticulous research carried…
Continue reading ➞ ‘Who’s that girl?’ The anonymous diary of a 1920s flapper (part 2)
By Abigail Hartley, Searchroom Archivist The easy answer to 'When was the first census held?' in the British Isles can be as simple an answer as 1801. Or 1841. Or 1086. Or Roman times if you really want to stretch the purpose and definition of a census. So, let's define a census. For our purposes,…
By Imogen Russell, Searchroom Assistant Alice, one of our Social media fairies, posted images of this document at the beginning of lockdown. Click here for the original post on Facebook. I managed to gain copies before beginning to work from home, allowing me to write about the subject of this week's blog post - The…
In 2017 the Sussex Record Society published a fascinating volume of church court proceedings taken from the Diocesan Archives held at the Record Office. Depositions, which can be found in the Ep/I/11 series, are the accounts of cases held at the Bishop of Chichester’s Consistory Court. These courts covered a plethora of local issues and disputes including quarrels over wills, tithe disputes, matrimonial disagreements, and the ever amusing defamation cases. However they can be difficult to read and interpret for the modern reader, which is where the Sussex Record Society and Peter Wilkinson got involved.
By Abigail Hartley, Searchroom Archivist One of the most crucial aspects that our volunteers tirelessly work towards is the accessioning of our smaller collections. AM (Additional Manuscripts) contain some of our most visually interesting and varied documents. Within the last 12 months, here is a quick overview of just some of the items we have…
In two earlier blog posts we talked about the ongoing project to catalogue Southern England Railway employee cards. We're very happy to announce that the railway employment cards for employees whose surname begins with the letter ‘A’ are now online in the Record Office catalogue http://www.westsussexpast.org.uk/searchonline/default.aspx and can be found by typing SEREC into the…
In September 2017 I was asked if I would like to be involved in a project to catalogue information about Railway employees. As someone with a lifelong interest in and passion for the Railways, initially as a young trainspotter at Surbiton on the Southern Region of BT and then at various times during my professional…
One of the larger gifts to the Record Office in recent years has been from the British Railways Board in Derby. This comprises the personnel cards of all employees in its Southern Region. In the days before computers, cards were the way to store details of all the men and women who worked on the…
Continue reading ➞ All aboard! Introducing the Southern England Railway Employee Cards project
Come along and join us at Horsham Library on Saturday 21 October, 10:00- 4:00pm for a West Sussex Libraries Family History Fun Day! There will be an opportunity to meet experts from Sussex Family History Group, West Sussex Record Office, Times Digital Archive, Guild of One Name Studies and others. Information Librarians and Archivists will be available to…
Continue reading ➞ Family History Fun Day – A genealogical extravaganza for all the family!
Chosen by Imogen Russell, member of staff Those tracing their family history within the Church of England will find that it is fairly straightforward, discovering baptisms, marriages and deaths in the parish registers held at the Record Office. However it is not always clear how you search for families who subscribed to a religion…
Continue reading ➞ Non-conformist records: Bosham Congregational Church Book (NC /C1/2/1)
West Sussex Record Office 