Local Studies News Page

• New Family History Leaflets and Web Pages
• Local Studies Librarian of the Year 2008
• William Aitken: Recognition for a 19th century radical
• National Archives Self Assessment 2008

New Family History Leaflets and Web Pages from Tameside Local Studies and Archives

The last five years have seen ever increasing interest in family history combined with big changes in the way that research is done as so much information is available on the internet. In response to these changes the Local Studies and Archives Centre in Ashton has produced two advice leaflets which on our web page. The first is an introduction to family history which describes the sources available locally and some of the local websites. Visit our revised Family History web page.

Church registers are also an important source which is not available on the web, but the registers of many local churches are available on microfilm at the Local Studies and Archives Centre in Ashton. The Church Records web page lists all these registers for the church of England, nonconformist and Roman Catholic churches under the relevant towns so that it is easy to search.

These new pages complement the existing Archives for Family History which draws attention to unique documents held at the Local Studies and Archives Centre, the sources which help put the leaves on a family tree.

Local Studies Librarian of the Year

Maureen Burns, Assistant Local Studies Librarian in Tameside, has won the 2008 Dorothy McCulla Award for Local Studies Librarian of the Year. The Award is presented by the Local Studies Group of CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals).

Maureen is a truly enthusiastic local studies librarian, but was nominated for the McCulla Award for her work in three separate areas – community engagement, social inclusion and cross sectoral working.

She represents Tameside Local Studies and Archives on the Tameside Local History Forum and has worked with the Dukinfield Branch of the Cheshire Family History Society to set up very popular regular family history advice sessions in the Local Studies and Archives Centre.

She worked with the Mancunian Reunion Project to record the history of the Hattersley overspill estate which has resulted in a series of oral history interviews, collection of photos, a book and an exhibition. This will be an important addition to the Local Studies and Archives collection as the history of areas like this tend to be overlooked.

Maureen’s comment is: “I am thrilled to have been awarded this. I feel privileged to work here at Tameside Local Studies and Archives Centre. All Tameside history and heritage is generated from the documents, collections and archives here”.

 William Aitken: Recognition for 19th Century Radical

William Aitken was an Ashton Chartist and school teacher who has now been included in the latest online update of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Aitken’s autobiography in the Ashton News and his book about his travels can be consulted in the Local Studies and Archives Centre at Central Library where copies of the book Writings of a Nineteenth Century Working Man are on sale at £4.50. This book contains Aitken’s autobiography and his poems and is edited with an introduction by Robert Hall, the American academic who has written the entry for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Click here to go to our 'Publications for sale' webpage

The online Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, which contains references to nearly thirty notable historic residents of Ashton and Stalybridge, can be consulted in Tameside libraries or by library card holders on their own computers by logging on to Tameside Libraries Homepage and scrolling down to Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

National Archives Self Assessment 2008

Tameside Local Studies and Archives have been awarded three stars in the 2008 National Archives Self Assessment. 

This is a national review of archive services across the country. We scored 73.5% overall to gain three out of four stars. This was an increase on last year’s scores and deemed “likely to improve further.”

Tameside gain the joint top score in the north west region, sharing first place with Lancashire County Record Office. It assesses five criteria including governance, documentation of collections, access and outreach services, preservation and conservation, and buildings, security and environment.  We scored highly across all five sections.

The work the Local Studies and Archives Centre has done on working with the community, such as the Hattersley Mancunian Reunion project and our work on recording oral histories with black and minority ethnic communities, scored highly in the access and outreach section.

Our state of the art building helped us to score very highly in the buildings, security and environment section, showing that the Local Studies and Archives Centre is the best place for storage of valuable archive collections in the borough.

For more information on the National Archives Self Assessment, please visit the National Archives webpage