A difficult area to research, as the gangs were mobile, progressing along the canals as they were built, and it seems rather unlikely that the individual labourers would have left much evidence of their existence, unless or until they married or died. The gangs would be pretty self sufficient (that is, the men would not be canal company employees), rather it would be gangmasters who would do the day to management of the men, hiring and firing or casual. It may be that looking at the evolution of the canals and the dates of construction of key parts would help you. If you have any placenames or fragments of history for the worker in question, it may be possible to track them to a particular canal. Post them here and i am sure any canalcoholics such as myself can suggest which canal... The histories of canal constructions are recorded, but not all in one place! For information about the building of the canals in general, it may be worth looking at the bookshop of the inland waterways association (IWA), but like SoG they rely on volunteers, and unlike SoG don't specialise in genealogy! If you have an inkling of a location and date, then that is your best bet: find the canal that matches and it may have a dedicated society. In turn they may refer you to the appropriate record office, who could have any record fragments remaining. The record office may not be the one where the work was done, but rather may relate to the home of the canal company - somewhere else on the same canal. I suspect the CRT (Canal and river trust - successor body to British Waterways) will be unable to help, though they possibly hold a lot of ENGINEERING material from the past 250 years, for their own use. Finally, some canals no longer exist, but some of these still have histories published, and some have societies. You may not find "proof" of a particular ancestors life, but you will gain an insight into their very hard lives. Does SOG have a "my ancestor was a navvy" title, btw? If so, is it mainly railways 1830 on, or canals, fifty years earlier? I do not know. Possibly the railway navvies would have had more local men - escaping from the mid 19th century depression. Conjecture though! One of my ancestors probably worked on the (now defunct) railway line through wiltshire to marlborough. That he did this can only be inferred from the dates and places his children were born, and its exact coincidence with progress of the railway, plus his occupation (where visible). He was unusual - married, and local. Many navvies were either single or working long term away from family, and often from ireland or other places where work was scarce. Enjoy the search! Dave Beakhust On 4 April 2014 11:22:41 Vivien Emons <emofenn@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Dear All, > Can anyone tell me if there is a means of finding workers on the early building of the canals, 1780-1800? > Thanks > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOG-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message