Records at Risk

With all our modern methods of protection of records, are we still as careless over the preservation of documents containing historical and genealogical information as some previous generations were – especially over nonconformist, commercial and school records?

I have just been involved in discussions about the future storage of the business records of a religious denomination in the West Yorkshire area. For years they have been stored in reasonable conditions in an educational institution associated with the movement, where they were no problem. It was always possible to get someone prepared to take charge of them and be present when they were consulted.

Then the popular interest in genealogy took off. Suddenly the call on the time of those responsible for the records has become so heavy that no one is prepared to do the job any longer. The business records also contain information on births, marriages and deaths going back nearly 300 years, which explains the demand for access. In the past they were largely referred to over such matters as checking property purchases and disposals. Now people from far and wide want to see them to trace their ancestry.