about the project
Black Country History is a searchable website which allows users to look for photographs and records held by the Black Country archive services and Dudley Museum Services relating to the history of the local area.
Four record offices make up the Black Country archive services:
- Dudley Archives and Local History Service
- Sandwell Community History and Archives Service
- Walsall Local History Centre
- Wolverhampton Archives and Local Studies
Each service holds thousands of items relating to the history of the Black Country including: books, maps and plans, photographs, newspapers, trade directories, objects, local authority records and business records. Each archive office also provides a wide variety of sources for family tree research including: census returns, parish registers, electoral registers and General Register Office indexes to births, marriages and deaths.
To make this material available for public use, it is listed and indexed by staff at each service. These indexes are continually being added to computerised databases to enable quicker and easier searching. This process is ongoing and only a proportion of the services' total holdings are currently available to view online. If you cannot find what you are looking for, contact the relevant office for more information.
This website has been made possible through the 'Documenting the Workshop of the World' project, a three year Heritage Lottery Fund initiative. The project aims to digitise over 10,000 historical images and catalogue a series of important business records from across the region which, together, chronicle the important role played by the Black Country during the industrial revolution
