Ancestral Railroad Employees

Blog Closing

2008-01-22T13:40:00.001-05:00

I've decided to consolidate this blog into http://news.genealogytoday.com/

Railroad Employee Business Cards Added

2007-01-22T12:55:00.000-05:00

Here are the surnames of additional railway employees added to the vintage business card collection at Genealogy Today: Bailey, Baird, Barnes, Bastable, Beck, Benson, Brome, Castater, Cleland, Cleveland, Coldwell, Colvin, Coman, Craig, Crosbie, Crosby, Duffy, Egan, Glarum, Glorioso, Gold, Gottschald, Guthrie, Haischer, Hale, Hang, Harrow, Hatfield, Haugh, Herron, Hess, Hewitt, Hoydar, Hulsey, Jahn, Kikunaga, Kirby, Knight, Liechty, Marlatt, Martin, McNeal, McNutt, Moonert, Morningstar, Murray, Newlean, Nichols, Noble, Olmsted, Page, Pengra, Perkins, Pierce, Pinger, Redding, Rosenbaum, Sage, Sears, Sheahan, Sheldon, Smith, Starin, Stevens, Storey, Sullivan, Thiehoff, Thomas, Turner, Watson, Weed, Whitney, Wilson, Woodworth.

One of the cards (W. D. Cleveland) belonged to an employee of the Oahu Railway in Honolulu, which was interesting because I had never thought that there would be railroads in Hawaii. Coincidentally, I was going through a box of ephemera and came across this photo of a train station in Honolulu. You can see (click on the image for a larger version) the name Ohau Railway on the building.

Stockholders of the Maine Central Railroad Company

2007-01-19T16:29:00.000-05:00

Maine Central R. R. Co. Stockholders - Maine Central Railroad Company Common and Preferred Stockholders as of April 1, 1924. This item was hand typed on very thin paper, which made it a challenge to get scanned. In addition, the item had been kept folded for many years. I visited my local Staples store and made a photocopy of the entire document to both shrink and flatten out the pages.

The cover reads: "The complete list of shareholders and their places of residence and the number of shares belonging to each on the first day of April, 1924." I obtained this Portland, Maine document from a Florida-based book dealer who had a booth at a genealogy conference in Boston, Massachusetts. It's amazing what information is floating around out there. Now its been archived and transcribed for genealogists.

Pennsylvania Railroad Medals Awarded

2007-01-15T11:19:00.000-05:00

Pennsylvania Railroad Medals for Heroic Service - Their Purpose, Conditions of Award, and Holders. March 1926. Issued from the General Offices, Broad Street Station, Philadelphia. This is an incredible find. There are lengthy descriptions of why the medals were awarded to these 82 heroic individuals.

A Santa Fe Railway Brakeman

2006-12-09T10:49:00.000-05:00

There's one source we often don't think to check when doing genealogical research: the special collections of libraries. I was surfing around for railroad employee information and stumbled upon a guide for the A. M. Spratt Railroad Collection.

What an interesting find. A. M. Spratt was born east of Sanger, Texas, on November 15, 1906 and lived there most of his life. He owned a café in Sanger until he became a brakeman for the Santa Fe Railway Company in July, 1943, working on the line from Purcell, Oklahoma to Cleburne, Texas.

The collection, in two letter-sized document boxes, is composed of material collected and saved by A. M. Spratt over the course of his 29 year career as a railroad brakeman. According to the guide, the collection contains employee Information, which consists of a variety of material related to employees, such as forms, seniority lists, rules, regulations, and health information.

This unique resource is open for research to anyone who visits the The University of Texas at Arlington Library, and was donated by Archie M. Spratt on July 30, 1987.

Conductor Business Card Images

2006-12-03T12:58:00.000-05:00

We picked up six old business cards that belonged to railroad conductors. These have been added to the business card collection at Genealogy Today. Here are the names:

Richardson, F. M.
Cummings, L. J.
Goodspeed, R. S.
Kenyon, C. B.
Lang, J. A.
Darling, W. H.

The business card database, a free online service, currently includes hundreds of railroad employee cards from across the country.

New England Railroad Superintendents

2006-11-20T00:12:00.000-05:00

New England Railroad Superintendents 1850 Members - Reports and Other Paper of the New England Association of Railroad Superintendents from the Commencement of the Society to January 1st, 1850. What I find most interesting about this document is that I don't recognize many of the railroad names. They must be early predecessors of other more "famous" lines.

Introduction

2006-11-18T16:51:00.000-05:00

Many of us share a certain fascination with the railroads that we may have had since childhood. There's a passenger line that runs near my home, and at least once a week I see a parent sharing that fascination with their child.

Genealogists have a similar desire to know if any of their ancestors played a role in the development of the American railways, and I'm launching this blog to identify online resources that might help in that quest.

If you have some documents relating to the railroad industry and would like to share them, please contact me and I'll give you instructions for sending me scanned images or photocopies. My company, Genealogy Today LLC, also provides an archiving service if you would like to donate them to our collection.