Annette Kerr Genealogy

Overview

On the morning of Monday 22 October 1877, an explosion tore through Pits No. 2 and No. 3 of William Dixon’s Blantyre Colliery in Lanarkshire. The official death toll was 207, although local research has since identified at least 215 victims. Among the dead were boys of just eleven and twelve.

It remains Scotland’s worst mining disaster. Almost every household in the surrounding mining rows was affected, and the loss shaped the community for generations.

Scottish Mining Website (n.d.) Blantyre Colliery explosion, 1877 [image]. Available at: http://www.scottishmining.co.uk/Indexes/blantyre1877-1.jpg (Accessed: 16 October 2026).

Genealogy Focus

Behind those numbers were families. Fathers and sons, brothers and cousins went down the pit together that morning. Twelve-year-old James Clyde died alongside his father and his brother William.

If your ancestors came from the Lanarkshire coalfield, a disaster like this can explain a lot: a man who vanishes from the records, a young widow who remarries, a family that suddenly moves away or turns up in the Poor Law registers.

Benjamin Gold, coal miner, aged 24, married to Isabella Crawford, of Auchinraith. He died at 8.45am on 22 October 1877 in No. 3 Pit, Dixon’s Colliery. His sister-in-law Mary Gold was the informant and signed with her mark. His brother John died in the same explosion.
Statutory Registers of Deaths, 1877, Blantyre (624/239), p. 80. © Crown copyright, National Records of Scotland.

Statutory death records: Most victims were registered in Blantyre. Bodies were recovered over several weeks, so registration dates run from late October into November 1877. Check the margin for a link to the Register of Corrected Entries, which may record the Procurator Fiscal’s findings.
The official inquiry report: The government report on the explosion was presented to Parliament in December 1877. It names the colliery staff and witnesses, and explains how the pits were worked.
Poor Law records: Registers of applications for Blantyre parish are held at Glasgow City Archives. Many widows were supported by the relief fund instead, so a gap in the Poor Law records may mean a family was on the fund rather than coping alone.
Relief fund records: A national relief fund raised over £48,000 and paid weekly allowances to widows and children until 1930. Surviving records are scattered, but newspaper reports of its annual meetings can help.
Newspaper reports: The Hamilton Advertiser, Glasgow Herald and Scotsman printed lists of the dead, the injured and survivors, along with funeral reports and later court cases.
Burial grounds: Many victims lie in High Blantyre (Kirkton) Cemetery. Catholic victims, many of them of Irish descent, were often buried at Dalbeth Cemetery in Glasgow.

Research Tips

Start with the death record. It gives age, address, parents and the informant. The informant is often a widow or mother who can then be traced forward.
Use the 1871 and 1881 censuses to place the family in the mining rows before the disaster and to see where survivors went afterwards.
Look for family clusters. Fathers and sons, brothers and in-laws often worked side by side, and one household could lose several members.
Follow widows and children forward. Look for remarriages, moves away from Blantyre and Poor Law claims in later years. Some widows were evicted from company houses within months of the disaster.

Do you have mining ancestors from Blantyre or elsewhere in the Central Belt? Tell me in the comments.

And if you’d like help tracing them,please get in touch.

References

MacLean, R. and Dickinson, J. (1877) Report on the Blantyre Colliery Explosion, 21 December 1877. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty. London: HMSO.
Wright, S. (1885) The Annals of Blantyre. Glasgow.
Veverka, P. (n.d.) Blantyre Pit Disaster [list of the dead, survivors, relief fund and inquiry transcriptions]. Blantyre Project.
Blantyre Project (2015) 1877 Ejection of Blantyre Widows.
Blantyre Project (2023) Blantyre Accident Fund 1877–1930.
Gazetteer for Scotland (n.d.) Blantyre Mining Disaster.
Glasgow Family History (n.d.) What records can I find in the Mitchell: Glasgow City Archives? – Poor Law.
ScotlandsPeople: statutory registers of deaths, Blantyre registration district, 1877; Register of Corrected Entries. scotlandspeople.gov.uk

Discovering family histories and creating a family tree is certainly fulfilling, but perhaps the greatest benefit of family trees is the ability to pass them on to future generations. What a priceless gift! Believe me, your descendants will be grateful for your hard work and determination. So what’s the best way to store those records?

Storing Your Family Tree

It is ideal if you have a record of all your notes and documentation gathered during your genealogy research. This information is an asset, and should be duplicated in case of disaster, such as fire, flood, or theft. Copying and storage can be done offsite. The information can also be scanned and stored on your computer, on disks, and possibly an external storage place.

If your information is stored on a computer program, consider backing it up online with an external storage site. It is also possible to back up the data to an external hard drive and make copies of it on disc.

Presenting Your Family Tree

Creating a family tree is one of the best gifts you can give future generations. The family tree can be made into an elaborate work of art, framed and printed on glossy colour paper. They can also be as simple as a binder that contains charts of each family branch. Other options include reports and maybe even a book. Several genealogy software products also offer the option to print a beautiful book. It too would be a marvellous gift to future generations.

Sharing Your Family Tree

In addition to presenting your family tree in the form of a book, report, chart and as a work of art you can also share your family tree information by recording the information, and some of the family stories you’ve learned along the way, by creating an audio or video for your family. There are software products that allow you to upload family photos, which means you can display photos you’ve found and share and record certificates like birth, death and marriage certificates.

Software products often include sharing capabilities, so you can simply email or connect with other family members online and share your research. In this digital era, this is one of the most convenient ways to share your family tree, and it can be accessed by your family and descendants with ease.

Genealogy and researching your family tree can be an exciting and rewarding experience, but it can be a long and complicated process. Even after you have created a comprehensive family tree, your journey is not over. One of the most important aspects of a family tree is that it can be shared among generations. Wouldn’t it have been great to have all this information done for you when you were a child? An amazing connection to your family and history! Sharing your research and maintaining good records for future generations is one of the joys of genealogy research.