Get involved

We need YOU!

We are looking for:

Letters, photographs and other memorabilia

• Letters
• Postcards
• Diaries
• Photographs
• Service records
• Certificates e.g. medal, safe return
• Notices from newspapers and magazines
• Family bible entries
• Artefacts e.g. medals

We’d like to see (and copy, if possible) anything like these.  We’ll help with reading old faded handwriting and see if we can help you identify service units for group photographs.  We’ll add personal and service information to the Roll of Honour database.

Stories of your family and community

Do you know something about your family and/or community history for the war period and the 1920s?  It might only be hearsay or family tradition but we’d like to hear about it and see about checking it out.

• People who served in the armed forces and as nurses
• People who were in reserved occupations or were exempted from military service
• People who worked in munitions factories
• People who were conscientious objectors
• People who moved into Teesdale or away from the area because of the war
• People who worked on farms or factories or businesses connected with the war effort

Just get in touch and let us know your story – it might give us new information or relate to someone we already know about – whatever it is, we’d like to hear from.

Volunteering

We are looking for volunteers to help us do the research.  Are you interested in a particular place?  Or a particular family?  Or a particular service unit? Or have you a general interest? We can offer training and support for different sorts of research in:

• local newspapers
• church records
• records of societies and local organsiations
• local government records
• service records
• family records

Perhaps you could suggest sources we should think about consulting.  Maybe you could use your own family or local history research experience or your particular knowledge, especially about military matters, to help mentor new volunteers.

Some records will be in Durham or Northallerton (and possibly other places, too, including your community); some are in the museum; others can be accessed on-line in the museum, in your local library or at home.  Let us know if you are interested and we’ll see what suits you.

We’ll also need volunteers to input personal and service record information onto the Roll of Honour database.