The Chartist Ancestors Databank is back

I am pleased to say that the Chartist Ancestors Databank has now returned to the Chartist Ancestors website.

The databank has been offline since the site was hacked earlier this year. I am rebuilding it at a new address (www.chartistancestors.co.uk), but the process is taking time, and it has taken me a while to get round to restoring the databank to live.

The Chartist Ancestors Databank is a spreadsheet containing information on more than 10,500 known Chartists. Much of the information is taken from the Chartist Land Company share registers, from Northern Star lists of donors to good causes and from conference delegate lists.

And much of it was originally compiled by other people. I am grateful to them for their generosity in sharing the data.

In compiling the databank, I have tried to give as much information as possible. So every entry has a surname; almost all have a first name (women referred to as just “Mrs” or “Miss” being the most common exceptions); and every entry indicates what merits that person’s inclusion.

Beyond that, the data becomes more varied. Some have addresses; others have less specific locations – maybe a town or villages; fewer have jobs. But every entry also gives a (almost always) primary source and credits the individual who contributed it to the databank.

It would be great if people found uses for this data as part of future research projects or simply as a means of locating individuals.

Meanwhile, the long slog of restoring the site goes on. I have not lost any information, but getting what I have back into shape for publication, and in particular re-creating the tables that accompanied many of the articles is just a long job.

It will get there in due course. But for now, thank you to all those who expressed their concern and support when the site went down. It was much appreciated.