About Past Track

Past Track has been online since 1999, with the aim of making heritage image collections, spread around the county and owned by multiple organizations and individuals accessible to a wider audience. The online database and main digitisation project were funded by a Lottery grant from the New Opportunities Fund – NOF Digitise programme, which distributed 50m of Lottery funding to a wide range of web based digitisation projects throughout the UK between 2002 and 2004.

Since the completion of the lottery funded project Past Track has been managed by Staffordshire County Council’s Archives & Heritage Service, based at Shugborough. New material has been added continually over the last decade and the database now houses over 30,000 resource records. Each year the web site receives in excess of 1 million page views and we also now have an active Facebook page where site visitors can discuss the site.

In 2015 the web site was updated, delivering a fully responsive interface designed for use on multiple devices and many enhancements to the sites core functionality. Historical mapping is available from 2 time periods covering the 1900s and 1940s and is delivered courtesy of the online mapping facility provided by the National Library of Scotland.