Shale Mining Records Online

Shale Mining was once a very busy industry, employing thousands of men and women in Scotland. Although few records still survive, the Almond Valley Heritage Trust is working to preserve those that did. They are also adding digitized images of the available salary records, tenancy records, employee cards, apprenticeship records, accident records and other materials. The website also includes maps of the shale villages in West Lothian as well as photographs of the various miner’s houses.

The Almond Valley Heritage Trust have digitized a number of books on Shale Mining and made these available on their website along with a list of the various jobs within the shale mining industry. This is definitely worth a look for those with shale miners in their family tree.  http://www.scottishshale.co.uk/HistoryPages/Occupations/index.html