A Frustrating Situation!

[Deer243]

I made quite a successful find this morning when searching the Greater Manchester Lives archive catalogue when I came across a record for what was described as an essay by a "W. Dillon" about his childhood in Chorlton-on-Medlock, an area of Manchester. This is the area of Manchester that my Dillons were living in and I have a couple of William Dillons in my tree so I sent an email off to the archive asking if I could pay for a copy to be scanned over on the off chance that it was a relative who wrote it.

Frustratingly, they replied that the memoirs were submitted to the archive with no documentation or conditions attached and so they have to assume that under copyright they cannot produce copies of it! The archivist was quite helpful though and gave me some snippets of info about the author from what she read of the memoirs which gave me enough info to be certain of who the author was. The author was a Grandson of my first Dillon to move to Manchester from Ireland. The archivist also said that part of the memoir does discuss his family, at least his immediate family.

So all in all quite a frustrating situation, particularly when I live at the opposite end of the country to Manchester!

[Treetotal]

I find that very surprising....I am volunteer at a heritage centre where we receive quite a lot of donated material and the donor is asked to sign a form to the effect that the material can be used for the benefit of researchers and historians and that there are no copyright restrictions. Surely people donate material for the benefit of others.
Do you know the date of the document?
Carol

[ThrelfallYorky]

If you put this information on the Lancashire board, I'm sure someone will offer to go and look it up for you, is it in St Peter's Square still? If you provide the reference, then someone may offer to skim through and at least make notes....

[Deer243]

I find that very surprising....I am volunteer at a heritage centre where we receive quite a lot of donated material and the donor is asked to sign a form to the effect that the material can be used for the benefit of researchers and historians and that there are no copyright restrictions.
Do you know the date of the the document?
Carol

The document was written in 1984, from the archivist's email it sounds as if the system of signing a form when the material is donated was not around at the time.

[Deer243]

If you put this information on the Lancashire board, I'm sure someone will offer to go and look it up for you, is it in St Peter's Square still? If you provide the reference, then someone may offer to skim through and at least make notes....

That's a good idea, I'll put a post on there and see if anyone is visiting for their own research at some stage.

The document is actually in the Trafford Local Studies archive, the document is about central Manchester but perhaps this was the nearest archive at the time that the memoir was written.

[ThrelfallYorky]

So: where is that located? Do you have any idea?

[Deer243]

So: where is that located? Do you have any idea?

South West of Manchester in a place called "Sale" (M33 7ZF)

[ThrelfallYorky]

Ah, I think that it may be easier to approach that from Cheshire, so perhaps worth using the Cheshire board also.