Flintshire Record Office Annual Report

2015/16

Contents

Abbreviations p.4

List of staff p.5

Introduction p.6

User Statistics p.7

Outreach p.8

Conservation p.9

ICT p.10

Activities Behind the Scenes p.11

Staff Changes p.12

Staff Training p.12

Voluntary Work p.13

External Links p.13

Appendix A - list of accessions p.14

Appendix B - results of remote user survey 2015 p.17

Appendix C - ICT Usage p.19

Front cover illustration: Mark Allen holding the time capsule to be buried in Daniel Owen Square, Mold. With him is Margaret Brookes from Pembrokeshire Archives. Photo courtesy of Cllr Andrea Mearns.

Flintshire Record Office The Old Rectory CH5 3NR Tel.: 01244 532364 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.flintshire.gov.uk/archives

Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16 3 Abbreviations

ARA Archives & Records Association ARCW Archives & Records Council FCC Flintshire County Council FRO Flintshire Record Office MALD Museums, Archives & Libraries Division, Welsh Government PSQG Public Services Quality Group (part of ARA) TNA The National Archives

Illustrated village trail produced at the Big Draw event (see p.8)

4 Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16 Staff

Principal Archivist: Claire Harrington

Senior Archivist: Steve Davies

Archivists: Steph Hines Liz Newman

Archive Assistants: Sue Copp Sue Millward Bridget Thomas

Conservator: Mark Allen

Admin Officer: Helen Waite

FRO staff with Ken Skates AM, who presented the office with our Accreditation certificate in July.

From left to right: Bridget Thomas, Steph Hines, Ken Skates, Claire Harrington, Steve Davies, Liz Newman and Sue Millward.

Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16 5 Introduction

This has been a year of awards! Following our achievement of Accreditation, reported on last year, in July 2015 we were proud to welcome Ken Skates AM to the Record Office to present our certificate. FRO was also recognised in Flintshire County Council’s 2015 Excellence Awards for our marketing activity, including publications, special events and use of social media. Our conservator Mark Allen received an “Outstanding Tutor” award at Flintshire’s Adult Learners’ event, for his very enjoyable book-binding workshop.

Again we have benefited from grant funding provided by MALD and administered by ARCW. Through such funding we have been able this year to undertake a condition survey of our holdings (see p.9), send a member of staff to Dublin for the ARA conference and are currently recruiting for a grant-funded project post to undertake some development work on our CALM computer system. MALD has also funded the training of two of our archivists in digital preservation. This is an area of archive work which many professionals struggle with and we are very grateful for the opportunity to develop this expertise within FRO.

This year we have passed a milestone in our history – our 5,000th accession! Over more than 60 years we have been collecting unique archive material from the local area which arrives in “accessions” varying in size from single items to huge collections filling many cubic metres. AN5000 is a single item, a 19th-century history of the Jubilee Tower on (see image on p.16). It’s a rare publication which we’re very pleased to add to our collection and we are grateful to Charles Stephenson for depositing it with us.

This year marked the end of an era in our long relationship with Gladstone’s Library. For many years the family papers of the Glynne-Gladstone family have been stored at the Library but administered through FRO. Over the years we have welcomed to our search-room academics and other social historians, television producers and journalists from all over the world to research this important collection. This year the Trustees of the Library have decided that it should be administered by Library staff and we have relinquished this responsibility with a little sadness but look forward to continuing to work with the Library in other ways.

We were privileged to be part of another historic event this year when a time capsule was buried under the refurbished Daniel Owen Square in Mold. Our conservator Mark Allen advised on the packaging of contents of the capsule and is pictured holding the capsule on the cover of this report.

We’ve had a great year for outreach (see p.8) with a wide variety of events enjoyed by a range of new visitors to and users of our service. This year’s user survey (see Appendix B) targeted remote users and shows that this area of our service is as highly thought of as ever.

Claire Harrington

6 Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16 User Statistics

Archive Service 2015/16 2014/15 2013/14 2012/13 2011/12 2010/11 Searchroom visits 2,000 2,005 1,997 1,798 2,246 2,584 Postal enquiries 47 81 101 102 175 166 Telephone and fax enquiries 421 361 401 425 512 501 E-mail enquiries 536 608 626 649 873 695 Documents consulted 4,849 5,991 6,296 4,779 6,403 6,089 Photocopies sold 3,454 3,263 3,385 3,968 5,628 5,510 Photographs sold 313 371 225 379 448 370 Photo permits issued 130 188 139 114 144 Research service orders 30 32 45 38 66

Origin of searchers 2015/16 2014/15 2013/14 2012/13 2011/12 2010/11 Flintshire 1,409 1,306 1,081 997 1,119 1,419 Rest of Wales 277 286 428 234 343 342 Rest of UK 289 358 433 543 625 767 Overseas 25 55 55 24 59 56

Classification of searchers 2015/16 2014/15 2013/14 2012/13 2011/12 2010/11 Education & publication 591 439 465 326 397 448 Genealogy 626 607 816 944 1,152 1,489 Local history 626 809 545 420 563 551 History of house 62 69 66 39 64 51 Official & legal 95 81 105 69 70 45

Guests at the “Beatnik or Hippy” event (see p.8)

Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16 7 Outreach

Following the success of our bookbinding day in 2014 we tried something quite different for Adult Learners’ Week this year. Retired Latin teacher Lynn Fearnhead gave a session on “Beginners’ Latin for Family Historians”. Using entries from parish registers in our collections and memorial inscriptions from St Deiniol’s Church next door, Lynn took us through the basics of deciphering a Latin sentence. It was so popular we had to run a follow-up session for the same students as well as a second session for those we had to turn away the first time. Lynn now comes in regularly to give help and advice to our users when they struggle with a Latin document. We introduced another innovation at our Open Doors event in September. In addition to our regular tours behind the scenes at the Record Office, intrepid staff member Sue Copp took groups on a tour of Hawarden Village, pointing out buildings of interest and their history. Embracing both ends of the age spectrum, we participated in two other national promotions: Age Positive Week and The Big Draw. One afternoon 40-plus guests enjoyed reminiscing about the ‘50s and ‘60s in our “Beatnik or Hippy” event with the aid of music from the period and artefacts provided by our Museums Service; a month later parents and children gathered to create and illustrate a village trail around Hawarden with the guidance of artist Eleri Jones (see photograph on page 4). A number of groups have visited during the year: U3A, Local History Group and WEA Wrexham. Following a workshop on the Wales-wide Cynefin project to digitise and transcribe tithe records, Steph has formed a support group for volunteers which meets regularly to discuss issues and sort out problems. Our work with schools is expanding as word gets around of how exciting and inspiring pupils find a visit to the Record Office. Following Ysgol Maes Garmon’s wide-ranging First World War project, the school has undertaken an equally epic project on the Welsh language. Pupils have visited to look at evidence in the archives of Welsh language history and teaching; Claire visited the school in December to take part in a series of interviews with Welsh and non-Welsh speakers about their experience of Welsh language and what it means to them. We’ve also received visits from Hawarden Primary School, Venerable Edward Morgan Catholic Primary School and Mold Alun secondary school. Our “Little Time Travellers” sessions for pre-school-age children have proceeded with mixed success. Using old photographs, modern toys, songs, rhymes and games, we have introduced young children to the concept of “then and now” in a series of topics including travel, shopping, schools, Guy Fawkes and Christmas. Demand for staff members as speakers continues steadily. This year Claire spoke to a ladies’ group in Hawarden and to the Hawarden & District Rotary Club whilst Mark talked about scrap- books to W.I. FRO was represented at the North-East Wales Heritage Forum & History Fair at Connah’s Quay in June, at the opening of the Ffynnongroyw Mining Memorial in September and at the Local History Fair in October.

8 Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16 Conservation

It has been another year full of activity in the conservation studio, treating items to ensure their survival for future generations. This year several new collections were deposited which had been damaged by mould and required extensive cleaning and repackaging. These papers were isolated from the main collection to ensure that they were completely free from mould spores before being added to the repository. Continuous environmental readings taken in all the strong-rooms ensure that Parchment the collection is kept in stable conditions with due reference to the document with relevant standards. pendant seal A National Preservation Advisory Office survey of the collection (ref. D/MT/809) has been completed this year with the help of grant funding. It builds on previous surveys to examine and highlight the condition of the archives and will inform conservation priorities in coming years. Through Mark’s role as instructor on the ARA conservation course, trainees from Bedfordshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire and Pembrokeshire archive services have been working at FRO studying parchment repair and book conservation. An NMCT-funded project for Record Office involving conservation work to Denbighshire Charters has been completed. Mark has also been the specialist consultant for the conservation of parchment maps in the ‘Of Mice and Manors’ project at Glamorgan Archives. Items have been conserved as part of the Wales-wide “Forging Ahead” project which has improved access and storage of steel related records held across Welsh archive services. Amongst the many items conserved this year were several parchment documents with pendant wax seals.

Conservation work 2015/16 2014/15 2013/14 2012/13 2011/12 2010/11 Exhibition items 26 0 68 20 37 66 Paper documents 894 948 165 844 1,229 1,024 Parchment documents 11 4 14 60 51 32 Maps & plans 63 68 46 31 55 109 Manilla & hard cover bindings 29 32 38 37 67 35 Folders, boxes & 58 57 1003 351 239 205 OS map guards Photographs 43 24 2 15 31 53

Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16 9 ICT

Our use of ICT has become so varied over the past few years that this time, in trying to fit everything onto a single page, I have had to admit defeat and put the usage statistics into an appendix (see Appendix C, p.19).

In addition to FRO’s pages on the FCC website, we now have an on-line catalogue (CALMView), a Flickr site, a Facebook page and a substantial presence on Find My Past in the form of parish registers and school admission registers.

Our CALM catalogue, freely accessible as CALMView through our website, is progressing well. It has been a long job for both staff and volunteers converting paper catalogues into electronic documents but we are now close to completion, with just a dozen or so collections remaining to be input. We have been successful in achieving grant funding for a short project to make some further updates and improvements to the system. This should happen within the next few months.

Unfortunately Find My Past is unable to provide usage figures for us and CALMView also presents problems in that respect. However, it can be seen from the statistics we do have that our on-line presences are very popular. FRO staff work hard to keep up interest by adding new images to the Flickr site and posting new items to Facebook. Old photographs are perennially interesting to everyone, whether or not they remember the scene as it is shown. And Facebook has proved an effective way of advertising upcoming events as well as publicising matters of topical interest such as significant anniversaries or our 5,000th accession (see image on p.16).

This year a project funded jointly by MALD and the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust has enabled us to have digital images made of the wonderful “Family Book” from the Erddig collection and of all its individual components. Two volunteers from Erddig have identified and labelled the images and we are now able to work with National Trust staff from Erddig to make good use of this fascinating resource.

Digital preservation is something that we will need increasingly to concentrate on now and in the coming years as more and more records are created in digital formats. As described elsewhere in this report, we are fortunate in having two members of staff training in this important area and Steve Davies’ work on the Wales-wide Digital Preservation Group, alongside colleagues from other archive services, is helping to give Welsh archive services the tools they need to meet the challenge.

10 Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16 Activities Behind the Scenes

As usual FRO had its Stocktaking Week in the last full week before Christmas. That week is chosen because public demand at this time of year is relatively low so minimum inconvenience will be caused by closure of the search-room. It is an opportunity for staff to catch up with back-room tasks for which there is insufficient time whilst the search-room is open. The checking of our “stock” (the archive collections) is an important part but not the only activity to take place during this week. Box-checking is the literal “stock-taking” part of the week – checking collections box by box to identify items incorrectly stored and where items are missing. Collections worked on this year included: DC (Dee & River Authority); D/L (Herbert Lewis); D/PT (Plas Teg); D/SH (Soughton Hall); NS (National Savings). Work continued on identifying and labelling items where access needs to be restricted. This year collections of parish and councils and FCC post-1995 were completed. Now that our photographic collection has been digitised and is available on the search-room computers there is no need to have the originals so easily accessible. During stocktaking week they were moved into one of the strong-rooms on the top floor, freeing up space on the ground floor for more frequently used collections. As reported last year, parish registers which are available in the search-room through surrogates (photocopies, microfilm copies or on-line) were moved to storage off-site. School registers, which have been digitised and are available on-line, will be the next category of record to be moved. Every five years or so FRO undertakes a condition survey of the material in its care, following a method developed by the National Preservation Office. This year Mark and Steph identified 400 random items from the collection and collected data which was processed externally to give us a picture of the physical state of our collection and to guide conservation priorities.

Ffynnongroyw Mining Memorial (see page 8)

Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16 11 Staff

Changes I’m pleased to be able to report that we’ve had no staff changes this year. The longer our staff are here, the more they learn about our collections, how to care for them and how to help our users. Training Record Office staff have attended a number of training events run in-house by FCC: all attended refreshers in manual handling, data protection and the handling and care of archive material. Helen Waite completed ILM (Institute of Leadership & Management) Level 2 and the first-aiders either re-qualified or undertook an annual refresher. MALD has provided a variety of training this year: Mark and Steph went to Penrhyn Castle for training on “Hazards in Collections”; Mark and Steve attended training in “Continuity & Resilience” hosted here at FRO; Claire and Liz grappled with “Service Users Adapting to Change” at Wrexham Museum; Claire, Steve and Sue Copp learned about “Dealing with Difficult People” at the Storiel Gallery in Bangor. With the generous aid of funding from MALD, Steve and Liz have embarked upon a course in Digital Preservation run by Dundee University. This runs for the academic year 2016/7 and will equip them to lead FRO’s activity in this important area. Steve and Mark attended the annual ARA conference this year in Dublin. Claire, Steve and Steph attended the ARCW Forum at Maesmawr Hall, near Newtown. Myko Clelland from Find My Past came to FRO in June to train both staff and users in how to get the most out of this family history website. In February Liz attended a two-day course on the Freedom of Information Act, run by Act Now Training. Claire has attended two out of four training sessions on Fundraising, run by TNA, with the remainder due in April and May 2016.

FRO staff at the FCC Excellence Awards ceremony. Left to right: Cllr Ray Hughes, FCC Chairman; Helen Waite; Steph Hines; Liz Newman; Cllr Aaron Shotton, FCC Leader

12 Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16 Voluntary Work

Once again we must say a big “thank you” to our loyal band of volunteers, who undertake a variety of tasks for us. Some have been working with us for many years and have become very much part of our team. We were very sad this year to say goodbye to Estelle Roberts, who has been a volunteer with us for more than five years, typing an enormous number of catalogue entries from our paper catalogues into spreadsheets to be migrated into our CALM computer system. We wish her well and hope she’ll keep in touch.

External Links

Staff continue to be involved in professional issues at local and national levels. Steve Davies serves on the ARA’s Legislation & Standards Working Group and represents FRO on the Digital Preservation Group of ARCW; Liz Newman is an assessor on ARA’s registration scheme; Steph Hines represents FRO on MALD’s Archives Marketing Steering Group whilst Mark Allen chairs ARA’s Preservation & Conservation Section committee, is visiting lecturer on the Aberystwyth University Archives course and an instructor on the ARA conservation course. He is standing down from the ARA National Conference organising committee after seven years.

Claire Harrington, as Principal Archivist, attends meetings of ARCW, Friends of the Clwyd Archives and Flintshire Historical Society. This year she retired from the Vice-Chairmanship of ARCW.

We continue to have a warm relationship with the Friends of the Clwyd Archives. Following last year’s gift of a set of stacking chairs they have this year bought us a collection of catering equipment to enhance our events, including table cloths, cutlery and crockery. Attendees at past events who have encountered our Heath-Robinson attempts at refreshments will notice a great difference.

A “hot air” balloon at the Little Time Travellers’ transport session

Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16 13 Appendix A Accessions 2015/16

Flintshire/Clwyd County Council 4910 FCC publications and photographs, 1986-2015 4919 Record Office correspondence files, 1960s-2003 4920 Brochures of official visits, 1998 & 2002 4923 FCC county and village development plans, 1950s – 1970s 4933 Records of FCC Bereavement Services, 1918-2012 4940 Education correspondence, 1970s, 1980s 4952 Copy valuation map, original dated 1912-1915 4958 Clerk’s Dept file re Welsh National Book of Remembrance, 1959-1970 4980 Electoral register, 2015 4987 CCC Highways files, 1977-1996 4990 Christmas cards from Clwyd CC Director of Library Services, 1980s 4995 FCC Treasurer’s Dept records, 1942-1974 5006 FCC annual budget books, 1996-2011

Other Local Authorities 4927 NE Wales Schools Library Service partnership agreement, 2011 4935 Community Council records, 2010-2015 4938 NE Wales Schools Library Service register of loans, 1999-2000 4946 Community Council minutes, 2013-2015 4987 Delyn finance records (microfiches), 1983/4 – 1993/4 4992 Holywell Action Plan, 2000; 27 vols press cuttings re Holywell Town Council, 1997-2012 5002 Hope Community Council records, 1970s-2000s 5004 Rhuddlan Borough Council, programme of presentation of grant of arms, 1978

Schools 4917 Records of Rhes y Cae School, 1940-2006 4949 St Mary’s VA Primary School, , newsletters, 2010-2015 4950,4967 Hawarden Village Church School records, 1902-1987 4953 Queensferry CP School newsletters, 2001-2015 4966 Ysgol Estyn school newsletters, 2011-2014 4968 Ysgol Yr Esgob, , and Lixwm CP School newsletters and annual reports, 2006-2015 4975 Llanfynydd CP School governors’ annual reports to parents, 2009-2015 4978 Wood Memorial School newsletters and photo albums, 1950s, 2010-2015 5005 St Richard Gwyn Catholic High School newsletters, 2001-2016

Central Government 4924 National Coal Board records, Llay Main Colliery, 1951-1963 4997 Records of J.M. MacGibbon, H.M. Queensferry Factory, 1918

Businesses 4903 Records of Papur Fama, 20th C. 4912 Photographs of Shotton Steelworks taken by works photographer, 1970s, 1980s 4926 Records of Elfed Bartley, animal transport business, 1980s 4942 William R. Hill, estate agent and accountant, mortgage account ledger, 1845-1945. Incl. mortgagees in Mold, Nercwys &

14 Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16 Appendix A (cont’d)

4948 Welsh Land Settlement records, 1937-1957 4979 Bills, invoices &c. of Edward Davies of , 1844-1859

Property Records 4954,4993 Trevalyn Hall Estate records, 1808-1962 4986 Hawarden Estate correspondence files, 1950s-1970s 4998 Elevations of flat developments in Well St., Holywell, 1964

Church in Wales 4928,4943 Ffynnongroyw parish records, 1884-2011 4932 Hope parish vol. re memorial bells, c.1920 4947 parish records, 1716-2015 4961,4971 Records of St Winifred’s Church, , parish of Llanasa, 1940s-1988 4984 Northop burial register, 1958-2004

Clubs/Societies 4901 Mold Rotary Club files of newscuttings, photos &c., 2000s 4904 Records of St Mark’s Masonic Lodge, 1891-2014 4907,4915,4974 Records of Deeside Round Table, 2015/6 4916 Records of Buckley Young People’s Cultural Association, 1980s-2009 4951 Records of Hawarden Park Cricket Club, 2014-2015 4957 Records of Flint & District Art Society, 1967-2005 4965 Records of Kelsterton Masonic Lodge, 1959-2010 4985 Scripts, programmes &c. re Jack Evans Amateur Pantomime Company, 1929-1942. Performed in Holywell, , Rhyl and Shotton, inter alia 4991 Scanned copy of Women’s Institute centenary scrapbook, 2015 5001 Records of Basingwerk Masonic Lodge, 1915-2000

Personal Papers 4902 John Jones of , First-World-War soldier, personal papers, 1916-1921 4914 Publications and photographs by and re Fred Bates of Gyrn, 1950-1994 4921 Carnegie medal awarded to Mr & Mrs Meredith Davies of , with related papers, 1918 4944 Papers of Edward Thomas of Holywell, c.1900-1945 4945 Working papers of T.W. Pritchard re publications, late 20th, 21st C. 4976 Llwyn y Glyn family papers, 19th & 20th C.

Printed Items 4911 Two booklets: Trefn Cwmplin by A.E. Parry 1940; official opening of law courts in Mold, 1969 4913 Election leaflets, 2015 4929 Typescript history, Williams family of Llannefydd and Holywell, 2015 4930 Denbighshire & Flintshire Service Book, junior edition. Book of hymns and prayers in English and Welsh, 2011 4941,4994 Leaflets &c. from local elections, 1992-2016 4955 Two booklets, England’s Greatest Statesman , 1898; Funeral Service of W.G.C. Gladstone, 1915 4956 Newscutting and photographs re shooting of bull which attacked Mr Gladstone,1898 4960 Postcard of Lt. W.G.C. Gladstone, c.1914; mug “from Lord & Lady Gladstone of Hawarden”, 1935 4962 Photographs, newscuttings, booklets re Flintshire History, 20th C.

Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16 15 Appendix A (cont’d)

4964 Booklet re men of Bodfari who died in two world wars, 2015 4973 Sale particulars re 14 Croes Atti Lane, , 1992 4981 Photocopies of Mostyn Estate documents, 1889-1933 4982 Advert for Bradbury & Jones, grocer, Shotton, c.1930 4983 Ordnance Survey maps of Flintshire, 1960-1977 4988 Local history material from Library, 1953-2006 4989 Order of service for rededication of bells at St Deiniol’s Church, Hawarden, 1981 4996 Prints of line drawings of buildings in Connah’s Quay, 1991 4998 Theatr Clwyd programmes, 2006-2009 5000 Pamphlet on History of the Jubilee Tower on Moel Famau , 1885 5003 History of the Hallows family of ‘The Nook’, Connah’s Quay, 2015

Electronic Media 4908 “Notes on a hillfort at Hawarden”, by Mr T. Welsh, 2015 4909 CD of recollections of school days in Hawarden by Mrs Webster, c.1985 4925 Electronic copy of article re garden at Hawarden Old Rectory, 2015 4934 Scanned copies of photographs of Ffynnongroyw and area, 2015 scans from originals c.1905-1990 4936 CD of images from T.W. Pritchard’s book A History of the Old Parish of Hawarden , 2003 4937 CD cont. Bistre parish registers transcribed into spreadsheets, 2003 4969 DVD copy of film “Grosvenor Chater Paper Mill at Holywell”, 1940s 4977 Digital copy of map of Holywell, 1686. Copied from original in Manchester Central Library 4999 Scanned copies of images from scrapbook re ship “Kathleen & May”, 1990-2012

Miscellaneous 4905 Notes on history of Leeswood Hall by Mr P. Millington, 2014 4918 Annotated copies of tithe maps, 2000s 4922 Mold railway line plans, 1846-1901 4931 Files relating to history of Rhyl, 19th & 20th C. 4939 Architectural drawings and photographs of ‘Shrublands’, Groomsdale, Hawarden, 1937, c.1970 4959 Items re time capsule buried in Daniel Owen Sq., Mold, 2015 4963 Plans of lead mine, 1864-1911 4970 Misc. items re agriculture, Gyrn Estate, 1919-1929 4972 Various maps of Flintshire, 1871-1915

AN5000, R.J. Edwards’ History of the Jubilee Tower …, published in 1885

16 Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16 Appendix B Remote User Survey

This national survey of users who access record-office services remotely (ie. by post or e-mail) took place over 11 weeks from 14 September to 29 November 2015. During this period all responses to such enquiries included an invitation to take part in the survey. It was organised and run by ARA’s National Surveys Group (formerly PSQG).

Altogether, 58 invitations were issued from FRO and 30 responses received. Of these, three were in Welsh.

The survey provides a profile of our users as well as feedback on what they think of the service they receive. As in the last remote user survey in 2013, we received more responses from men than from women: 65% of the 28 responders who were willing to state their gender were men. There was a good spread of ages, the youngest being 24 and the oldest 87, although more than half were over 60. Over the course of a year we generally get a substantial number of enquiries from abroad; however, during the period of this survey only one such response – from the USA. All others were from within the UK but geographically spread over England and Scotland as well as Wales. Half were employed and most of the rest retired.

The most common reason given for using the service remotely was living too far away to visit, although almost as many were making initial enquiries to see if we had information relevant to their research. Others cited convenience, travel costs and lack of time but only one gave inconvenient opening hours as a reason for not visiting in person.

More than half found out about our distance enquiry service through our website. Half were contacting us for the first time, the rest had been in correspondence with us for varying periods up to one for more than 10 years. 40% were seeking information on their family history, others for personal, leisure, educational or business reasons.

As always, our service was very well thought of. 95% thought both the quality of the content and clarity of our responses either good or very good (90% very good). The promptness of our responses was especially appreciated, with 100% approval. We could not expect our charges to be popular but they were approved by most with only two responders classing them as “poor”.

As always, respondents were invited to suggest changes or improvements they would like to see and 12 took advantage of this, although more than half the comments were compliments rather than suggestions for improvement. Here are a few examples:

• I was very pleased with the response on site and later through the mail; • The staff, the service and the office itself in Hawarden are outstandingly good; • I got a satisfactory and timely solution.

Some had suggestions for improvements:

• One thought we could charge for shorter periods than one hour in order to reduce costs; • Another clearly was not impressed with our website: Arrange for a web site that functions via a usable search facility; • One suggested a follow up service providing news via e-mail.

Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16 17 Appendix B (cont’d)

There are reasons why the scales of charges are set up as they are but they are reviewed regularly and we’re always happy to consider suggestions. The technicalities of the FCC website are beyond our control but the e-mail news service is certainly an idea worth pursuing.

Overall 87% thought our service “very good”, 10% “good”, 3% “average” and none “poor”. The survey has given us a few things to think about but I don’t think we can be displeased with such an endorsement!

Evocative images from our collections:

the wedding of Mary Ada Roberts and Frederick Arthur Tompson which took place at Bethel Chapel, Mold, in 1910 (ref. D/DM/1572/4/9);

Mr & Mrs Thomas Owen in 1896. Mr Owen was gardener at the Rhual Estate for 50 years (ref. PH/24/50).

We have used these images on two of our greetings cards.

18 Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16 Appendix C ICT Usage

FRO pages of FCC website

2015/16 2014/15 2013/14 2012/13 2011/12 April 4,591 3,978 448 529 288 May 4,229 5,036 462 491 369 June 4,087 4,478 426 506 376 July 4,106 3,912 471 538 293 August 4,786 5,242 611 468 511 September 4,501 4,387 514 446 530 October 4,342 5,169 5,057 490 553 November 3,888 6,265 6,717 476 514 December 2,710 4,224 4,894 317 425 January 3,866 6,194 6,478 508 706 February 4,413 5,581 4,965 534 581 March 3,102 5,695 4,402 453 496 Total for year 48,621 60,161 35,448 5,756 5,642 Flickr 2015/16 2014/15 2013/14 2012/13 April 334 544 494 May 765 661 521 June 231 453 242 July 255 531 413 From 6/7/2012 to August 245 590 347 6/11/2012 September 196 396 363 October 302 572 433 488 November 274 709 398 From 6/11/2012 to December 533 940 408 31/1/2013 January 373 546 441 1,717 February 454 527 470 746 March 419 700 489 553 Total for year 4,381 7,169 5,019 3,504 Facebook

2015/16 2014/15 2013/14 April 3,181 902 May 9,226 2,849 June 5,013 1,509 July 10,489 2,397 August 6,248 1,822 September 2,126 1,504 October 11,981 2,050 November 7,034 4,511 December 11,222 10,143 January 5,144 6,053 February 3,265 7,095 March 9,679 7,921 1,064 Total for year 84,608 48,756 1,064

Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16 19 Appendix C (cont’d)

CALMView Currently we are not able to extract usage figures for this. The nearest we can get is to note the number of hits on the “Catalogues and Indexes” page on the website, which contains the link to CALMView. This shows:

2015/16 2014/15 April 344 May 263 June 203 July 263 362 August 318 377 September 275 341 October 272 387 November 253 436 December 162 265 January 277 419 February 324 406 March 267 382 Total for year 3,221 3,375

Ken Skates AM with FRO staff Liz Newman and Sue Millward looking at our on-line services

20 Flintshire Record Office Annual Report 2015/16