Cumbria Archive Service website provides details of the four record offices in Carlisle, Kendal, Whitehaven and Barrow maintained by the service. For general descriptions of holdings and contact details etc see other pages on this website.
Access to record offices in Carlisle, Kendal, Barrow and Whitehaven:
Access is by County Archive Research Network (CARN) reader’s ticket available on production of official proof of name, current home address and signature. Further details from the Record Office or online. Some records are on restricted access.
Disabled access: All offices have disabled access. For details see individual entries.
Origin of the collection:
Cumbria Archive Service was created in 1962 as the Joint Archives Committee, by the Counties of Cumberland and Westmorland and the City of Carlisle. Record Offices were established at the Castle in Carlisle and County Offices in Kendal. A third Office was opened in Barrow in Furness in 1979 after the Furness area of Lancashire joined the new county of Cumbria. In 1982 it took additional custody of the Furness Collection - an assortment of mostly unpublished archive material, gathered by the town’s Central Library since 1948. A new chapter in Cumbria Archive Services’ development came in 1996 with the opening of a new joint Record Office and Local Studies Library in Whitehaven. The Record Office in Barrow was upgraded in 1998 and now provides a joint archives and local studies service. A new Carlisle Record Office, replacing the facilities at the Castle, will open in 2011 at Petterial Bank House (also known as Lady Gillford House).
Today Cumbria Archive Service looks after over 10 miles of shelving containing historic archives dating from the 12th to 21st centuries relating to Cumbria. In addition to the four Record Offices, Cumbria Archive Service provides a specialist Conservation Unit to manage the preservation of its archive collections and a Records Management Unit to manage the records of Cumbria County Council.
Guides and Catalogues:
CASCAT: the Cumbria Archive Service Catalogue is a fully searchable catalogue but needs to be used in conjunctions with A2A (see below) since not all of the records have yet been re-entered.
Access to Archives (A2A) provides a searchable online catalogue of Quarter Sessions, Non-conformist churches, clubs and societies, voluntary organisations, businesses, solicitors, Church of England parishes, family and estate archives. To restrict the search to material held in any one office, select Cumbria Record Office, (name of office) from the drop-down list for the field Location of Archives.
National Register of Archives (NRA) website provides a listing of major manuscript holdings.
Cumbria Library Service’s online catalogue includes most of the Local Studies book stock in the county.
Manorial Documents Register: an online searchable catalogue of all the known manorial documents for Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire North of the Sands. Cumbrian Manorial Records, compiled by Dr Angus Winchester and Dr Eleanor Straughton of Lancaster University as part of the project to digitise the catalogue provides detailed guidance on the content and use of these documents.
Cumbrian Ancestors: Notes for Genealogical Searchers (3rd edition, 1998) provides a detailed introduction to the sources most likely to be of use to family historians.