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Waterways Family History - Sources

Another valuable source and probably the most commonly used by family historians researching their waterways heritage is the gauge book. Many of these can be found at The Waterways Archives in Gloucester and Ellesmere Port. Boats were gauged by loading them with known weights and measuring how much freeboard the boat had with different levels. This information was recorded and given to tolls clerks who would work out how much a boat was carrying by measuring its freeboard. Gauging documents are very useful for locating relatives who worked as boatmen on the canals and tying them to a particular place at a given time. Gauge books provide the dates on which boats were registered, the names and addresses of their owners and details of the cargoes carried. Occasionally they give the names of the masters and a boat number.

Daily Passings of Boats

You can add to this information by looking at records of daily passings of boats. These tell you when a vessel passed a certain point and give names of the owners and occupiers. Some of these records can be found at The Waterways Archives, but they can also be found in other record offices. The more information you can find out about the routes boats took, the easier it will be to locate your ancestors in records such as the census.

Toll tickets or Permits

Until nationalisation in 1948, every time a boat, laden or unladen, passed from one canal to another there was a toll to pay; each canal company levying its own toll. Toll tickets (also known as permits) were issued to boatmen by the carrying companies. They guaranteed that toll fees would be charged to an organisation’s account. They can give you details of a craft’s route, what it was carrying, the weight, the name of the steerer, the name of the owner of the boat and the name of the carrying company. However, few of these survive. You may also come across duplicate copies of the information bound into books; these were made for the canal company’s records.

Rental Records

Records relating to property let by the canal company often give the names of tenants, properties rented, dates and the amounts paid. Canal companies often owned cottages for their workers and families to live in.