© 2024   The Magic Attic Archives

The Magic Attic

Local History - Local Heritage - from Local Folk

Registered Charity No 1094124

If you are researching your family history and you have links to the local area then the Magic Attic is certainly the place to come to.

We have a vast array of resources to help you with your research and our volunteers are always on hand to help out and guide you on your quest.

Books, documents and items of interest are continually being donated to us and this list is only a small proportion of what we have available for you to make use of.

Family Wedding photograph

Family History

Charges

Access and browsing documents is free although a donation towards our running costs would be appreciated. Access to online resources with the 1 to 1 support of a volunteer is available for a donation of £2.

Any information found can be printed or photocopied for you - prices vary and are available on request.

Volunteers can also carry out research on your behalf if you are unable to visit us in person . This again would incure a cost - please contact us for more details.

As an entirely independent organisation we are financed completely by your donations and the sale of books and prints.

Online & Digital Resources

We have an annual subscription to Ancestry, one of the leading genealogy websites and also to the National Newspaper Archives website. In addition to these online resources we also have a large number of CD’s containing parish records,and other useful information on a variety of topics.

Births, Deaths and Marriages

Births, deaths and marriages are always of great interest to family historians and we have a large collection of BDM resources as well as, of course, our large local newspaper archive. Volunteers are currently working their way through the Burton Chronicles and creating a database from the family announcements to make it a lot easier and quicker to find information. You can of course still spend a leisurely session browsing through the original papers.

We also have a large selection of other resources containing BDM information such as local burial records, baptisms and parish records.

Military Records

For those with family who served in the armed forces we have various military records. As well as the information gathered from the newspapers in our Casualties of War project we also have some information on local men who served in the Boer War.

Compilation of Service Personnel who died in WWII front cover

A sample page from the 1881 Census

Schools

We have a large number of documents relating to local schools that may be of help with your research.


Company Records

If you know that your family members worked for a particular local company then our collection of local company records may help to provide you with information to flesh out some of those names in your family tree. More information is available on our Local Industry page.