In the midst of the Industrial revolution, between the 18th and 19th centuries, the sensations of the railroads in the U.S. sparked change within the social, economic and political arenas. The railroad became the main mode of transportation for millions of people as the years went by. Railroads were originally revealed in Great Britain. In the dark depths of the coal mines, in the 1820s, was a man by the name of George Stephenson. George Stephenson, was a pioneer of the railway who invented the “Rocket,” the most famous and best designed early railway steam locomotive. While researching my mother’s paternal Grandfather I uncovered that he worked for the Colorado and Southern Railway (C & S Rwy), back around 1900 in Trinidad, Colorado. Researching railroad records from way back then can be daunting. Once you discover that your ancestor was employed by the railroad, determine where he lived during the time of his railroad employment. Remember not to just focus on the ancestor’s name. Other ways of researching your railroad ancestors, or any ancestor for that fact, is to research those that were his neighbors on censuses, witnesses for marriages, nationalization witnesses, the ancestor’s children’s records, published histories, names of associates, religious documents, trade newspapers associated with their occupations and historical maps are all wonderful sources for finding your ancestor’s migration history.
Once you identify where your ancestors have lived, you can check city directories from each location which occasionally identifies where the person worked or what the person’s occupation was. If the city directory can’t be found, you will need to poke around into the history of the particular railroads for each area to track down present owners and establish whether employee records still exist for the time in question and where they are held. Once you locate the present-day owners of the railroad, you can contact the company’s record's repositories. But beware of records not reflecting the railroad companies’ name at the historical time but rather they may reflect the name of the company at the time of deposit. Depending on if your ancestor was senior enough, you may also want to check the railroad directories. Railroad map collections at the Library of Congress and the National Archives can be viewed online. Additionally, when an employee or passenger was injured, sometimes civil case lawsuits were filed against the railroad in the US District Court or US Circuit Court. Within the case file one might find reports pertaining to the incident and the injured party, where surprising information could be found. The challenge then becomes finding a file among all other files filed with the courts. The court indexes sometimes perished or didn’t make it to the National Archives for one reason or another. These indexes were often handwritten into large books and alphabetized by the letter of the name associated with the case, so details can be easily missed or mistaken when browsing hundreds of pages of lists of parties. And sometimes these cases weren’t always filed. Both court records can be found in record group 21. If you aren’t so lucky to find an index, there should be a docket that is organized in chronological order by date filed (beware filing date could be several years after the accident). Contact the National Archives closest to the Federal court to where the accident took place, as well as where the railroad was headquartered. Remember that in some cases they may be able to help you via telephone or email, but in most cases you will either need to go the Archives to conduct a more thorough review yourself or hire a researcher. Here are some websites that can be of great value: Familysearch Wiki Locating Railroad Employee Records Genealogy / RRB.Gov – Railroad Retirement Board National Archives of Atlanta Railroads in North America Erie Railroad Internet Employee Archives Records Relating to the Railroads in the Cartographic Section Burlington Northern, The West’s First Mega Railroad Reference Information Papers Virginia Tech University Libraries ImageBase Search for “Railroad”. This will provide you with images of employees and other images related to the railroad industry. The Norfolk and Western Historical Society Great Northern Railway Historical Society A Federal Railroad Adventure: Andrews’ Raiders Colorado and Southern Railway Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum – Chinese American Contribution to the transcontinental Railroad B & O Railroad Museum – Hays T. Watkins Research Library Irish and German Immigration The Rise of Industrial America, 1877 - 1900 Traqueros: Mexican Railroad Workers in the United States, 1870 – 1930 Encyclopedia of Chicago Railroads Guide to the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen Records, 1883 - 1973
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Penny Alvarez-KellerGraduated from Arkansas Tech University with a degree in Management / Marketing and a degree in Economics / Finance Archives
February 2023
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