We’ve had a flurry of communication from family historians this year in the archive. It seems that 5.2 million of you tuned in to watch the ever-lovely Una Stubbs on the BBC history show Who Do You Think You Are?
Una traced her family back to York where her father’s family had all worked for Rowntree’s. Una visited our confectionery factory in York (which has been owned by Nestlé since 1988) and the Borthwick Institute Archives at York University where most of our Rowntree’s papers are kept. It was great to have Una back to visit us, not just because she’s such a nice person, but also because Una was the face of Dairy Box in the 1950s and we’re all huge fans of her work.
Una was lucky because she had a few people to help her with her research, but what if you think that your family members worked for one of our factories and want to track down records for them? Your search methods will have to differ depending on which factory they worked for. We don’t keep personnel records for any of our old employees (except a handful of records relating to York employees that started in the 1890s, but these aren’t currently available for research) but there are some other records that you might try.