How To Find Your Carpenter Ancestors

Union records and trade directories are key sources for researching carpenter relations

Findmypast ( findmypast.co.uk) has digitised membership books for the General Union of Carpenters and Joiners 1886–1921. Details include members’ names, ages, dates of admission, marital status, contributions made and financial payments received, including money paid as out-of-work benefits.

The union’s full archive (1845–1921) is held at the Modern Records Centre, Warwick University, which also has records for similar carpenters’ unions; see warwick.ac.uk/ services/library/mrc/research_guides/family_ history/carpntr. However, not all of these records have been digitised for genealogical subscription services, or even catalogued.

Notices in back issues of the Gazette, free at thegazette.co.uk, provide evidence for bankrupt carpenter ancestors. Articles in local newspapers available via the British Newspaper Archive( british newspaper archive. co.uk) may also name bankrupts.

Findmypast holds trade directories too, while Ancestry ( ancestry.co.uk) has Leicester University’s digitised directories, which are also available for free at specialcollections.le.ac.uk/ digital/collection/p16445coll4.