Genealogy

Visualising Black Sheep Ancestor

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Preparing for my upcoming talks, I spent rather too much time creating this image using emojis.  There is actually no black sheep emoji, I got him elsewhere.

 

Findmypast releases second phase of TNA crime records

Findmypast releases second phase of TNA crime records

Over 2.75 million new crime records released by Findmypast this week. This incredibly large and exciting collection will be a real boon to researchers.  There are over 3.2 million records in total and they date from 1770 to 1935.  I look forward to delving into these records, and am only sorry that I won’t find any of my own family in them!

 

The collection includes the following records from The National Archives at Kew.

 

ADM 6 Admiralty: registers of convicts in prison hulks

CRIM 9 Central Criminal Court: after-trial calendars of prisoners

HO 8 Home Office: Convict Hulks, Convict Prisons and Criminal Lunatic Asylums: Quarterly Returns of Prisoners 1824-1876

HO 13 Home Office: Criminal Entry Books 1782-1871

HO 17 Home Office: criminal petitions Series 1

HO 18 Home Office: criminal petitions Series 2

HO 19 Home Office: Register of criminal petitions

HO 23 Home Office: Registers of Prisoners from National Prisons lodged in County Prisons 1847-1866

HO 24 Home Office: Prison Registers and Statistical Returns 1838-1875

HO 47 Home Office: Judges’ Reports on Criminals 1784-1830

HO 77 Home Office: Newgate Prison Calendar 1782-1853

HO 130 Home Office: Miscellaneous Criminal Books 1798-1831

HO 140 Home Office: calendar of prisoners

PCOM 2 Home Office and Prison Commission: prison records

PCOM 3 Home Office and Prison Commission: Male Licences 1853-1887

PCOM 5 Home Office: Old Captions and Transfer Papers 1843-1871

MEPO 6 Metropolitan Police: Criminal Record Office: habitual criminals’ registers and miscellaneous papers

T 38 Treasury: Departmental Accounts: Convict Hulks 1802-1831

Witness to Phoenix Park Murders

From late eighteenth century onwards newspapers were the premier medium through which ‘the vast majority of the… population gained most of their information about the prevalence of crime and the ways the criminal justice system was dealing with it’.¹   Historians have always recognised the value of newspapers, but dealing with the large bound volumes and delicate pages meant that overall they were underused.  Generally historians searched the better known titles, using dates of famous events to guide their searches.  Much remains to be discovered within them.

With digitisation newspapers have begun retaking their place in our knowledge of historic crimes.  Of particular interest to both historians and genealogists are the coverage of courts, the petty sessions, quarter sessions and assizes.  Court reports are lively and full of detail, often including names, addresses, occupations, ages and physical descriptions of defendants and witnesses.  While petty session records survive in their millions and have been digitised², newspaper reports are particularly valuable for cases heard at the higher courts whose records do not survive in Ireland.  Digitisation permits users to cross-reference stories across several publications, mapping reactions and the ebb and flow of a story in the press.  Digitisation also allows us to dip into newspapers and investigate a family name mentioned in a story.  It might be them after all… Read more…