Tracing Your Ancestors from 1066 to 1837

by Jonathan Oates

  In 1834 the New Poor Law led to the workhouse system; this was known as indoor relief, though this was far from universal. As this is mostly after our period, it does not need to be considered here. However, legislation passed in the eighteenth century, notably the Workhouse Act of 1722, did enable parishes to build poor houses in which paupers were accommodated and fed in return for work, though these were usually small. Parishes could also club together and have one such building to serve several parishes. By about 1750, there were 600 workhouses, housing about 30,000 people in all. Private Acts of Parliament could also lead to workhouses being built. Lists of inmates may survive, giving dates of admission and discharge, and reason for entry.

  There were also certificates of settlement, which date from 1697. These were pieces of paper signed by the parish officers which were given to someone who had settlement rights in the parish but who went elsewhere to work. They stated that, if they (and any accompanying dependants) fell on hard times and needed relief, the parish of origin would accept them back (or pay for their relief in their new parish) and that the parish where they had moved to would not have them as a burden to the rates. Usually overseers looked on potentially poor strangers with hostility and often quickly sent them elsewhere.

  Charity notice board, St Mary’s, Northolt, Middlesex, 2010. Author.

  Bastardy was another issue for the parish officers. They had to discover who the father was and make him responsible for the child’s upkeep, in order to reduce the burden on rates. A bond would be entered into whereby the father would agree to pay for his child, if he could not be persuaded to marry the mother. Alternatively he could pay a lump sum to the parish in order to discharge all responsibility. Parish records often include reference to such practices and bastardy bonds survive.

  It is important to note that many of a parish’s poor are not recorded in these documents. Many survived with the help of friends, family and neighbours. Some resorted to petty theft. Private charity helped some. Not all were assisted by the parish. Even where records do survive, they may only list parish officers, attendees at meetings and total expenditure and income, rather than listing payments and recipients. Bastardy might result in a private financial agreement which went unrecorded in parish records.

  Apprentices have already been mentioned. Children who were orphaned were sometimes apprenticed, either to another parishioner or outside the parish, often prior to the usual age of apprenticeship, which was 14 years. This was in order to remove the child from the parish’s responsibility and so ease the burden on the rates. Vestry minutes and apprenticeship indentures should give details of child and master, the latter’s trade, the date and the sum of money given to the new master. They should also detail other conditions in the agreement between parish and master. Complaints about the ill treatment of children were sometimes discussed in vestry minutes.

  Constables, churchwardens and surveyors of the highways also kept account books, but their survival is less extensive. It seems that churchwardens’ accounts are more likely to exist from before the eighteenth century in the south of England, and that constables’ accounts survive least well of all the parish officers. These accounts rarely mention individuals, except of course those who held that particular office in any one year. If your ancestor was a parish officer, you will find an insight into his duties in these books, assuming of course that they are itemized, which is not always the case.

  The churchwardens were the senior officers, and were responsible for the upkeep of the church fabric. Repairs of the building and any other expense concerning the place were their duty. They also paid the bell ringers to ring on auspicious dates, such as royal anniversaries or military victories. Surveyors were to oversee repairs to parish roads and bridges and the constable dealt with evildoers. His duties also included taking prisoners to the county gaol or attending trials, searching the parish for vagrants and, in times of war and rebellion, supplying men or arms for the militia.

  All this expenditure was financed by rates levied on the parishioners and these will be discussed be Chapter 10.

  Miscellaneous Parish Records

  Apart from the main classes of records, there are many miscellaneous ones which appear among some parish archives. Charity records are one such. Wealthy parishioners often left money in their wills to buy land or stock and then to have the interest used to feed, clothe or educate the local poor. The clergyman and vestry often administered these charities; names of the charitable can often be seen on boards in the church, detailing the bequests. However it is relatively unusual for lists of recipients to have been made. There may be copies of the censuses of 1801–31 which were compiled by the parish officers, and are dealt with in Chapter 11. There may be legal records concerning disputes which the parish entered into, perhaps over tithes or charities. Papers concerning disagreements with other parishes over settlement might exist. Deeds and charters may survive. There may even be medieval documents. Lists of pew rents may also exist: names of wealthy parishioners who paid fees for the best pews. As with much in archival research, looking through the catalogues of deposited archives, whether online or in paper form, can be a useful exercise, if documents can be located which cover, or might cover, the time span that your ancestors were residing in the parish. Some parishes were very good at preserving their archives, but this is not always the case. It is certainly worth looking beyond parish registers, and looking at other material, too. All these will be found at the appropriate county or borough record office; some have been microfilmed but most have not, so you will be able to view centuries-old documents.

  Nonconformists and Catholics

  Although by the seventeenth century the vast majority of the population were Anglican, it is worth noting that not all were. After the Act of Supremacy in 1559, Catholics and members of various forms of Protestant Dissent became marginalized and at times subject to fines, imprisonment and discrimination, which declined after 1689 for Nonconformists but only in the late eighteenth century for Catholics. Despite this, Catholicism remained relatively strong in Lancashire, Northumberland, Hampshire and London, but there were also pockets throughout the country. Nonconformists were more numerous, and especially so in the South-West, the eastern counties, Yorkshire, and London. As stated, they will often be recorded in burial registers, but their chapels created their own archives, too.

  Surviving Nonconformist registers of baptisms, marriages and deaths up until 1837 are often held at TNA. Unlike Anglican registers, the baptism registers note the mother’s maiden name. They can be searched for online under ‘Select More Records and Documents’ and then choose ‘Non-Conformist registers’, and these can be searched for by name. There are a few registers of pre-1837 Catholic churches at TNA, though most are for the north of England (RG 4) We should remember that Anglican registers often recorded the baptisms, marriages and burials of Nonconformists and Catholics, too, especially for marriages, 1754–1837. Online Nonconformist registers can also be seen at bmdregisters.com and indexes are at Familysearch/IGI. Most Catholic registers date from 1791, when practising the religion was no longer penalized; most of the registers are still with the churches, but some have been deposited and the Catholic Record Society has published some (available at TNA and elsewhere).

  Parish registers are one of the most important records for genealogy for the period 1538–1837, because almost everyone will be recorded here somewhere and sometime. But it must be stressed that parish registers are not the only fruit of the parish. Poor law records are also important, as are other records which once lay in the parish chest and which are now mostly in county record offices.

  Chapter 4

  THE PROFESSIONALS

  It is easiest of all to trace your ancestor’s career if he belonged to one of the professions, because archives of former members and their career progression are readily available. Most people worked on the land before the mid-nineteenth century (as agricultural labourers), whilst others engaged in trade, industry, craft
s or were in domestic service (especially women), and for the majority of these, no records survive. Yet others followed a profession – the church, the law, medicine being ancient ones, but increasingly the state became an important employer too, especially from the later seventeenth century. State employees also were part of the armed forces, the civil service and enforcing law and order. Major business corporations included the East India Company and the older livery companies and these kept archives. Many of these professions required their entrants to be educated at school and university, though education was for a minority, especially higher education.

  University Records

  For clergymen, a university degree was compulsory, but many other boys would have attended one of the colleges of Oxford or Cambridge from the Middle Ages to the present, too. There are a number of published registers of students, which are arranged alphabetically and give a short biography, including dates of matriculation and any degrees awarded, future career, birth and death dates, where born and perhaps father’s name. Try J and J A Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses for Cambridge and A B Emden, Biographical Register of the University of Oxford, for the thirteenth century to 1540, and J Foster, Alumni Oxonienses for 1500–1886. Most graduates until the nineteenth century went on to enter the Church, law or medicine. There are also registers for individual colleges, too, and The Times online lists names of those who graduated. Of course, others attended other universities, including those in Scotland and Leyden, in the Netherlands, in the eighteenth century. Such books often refer to a pupil’s subsequent career, so if he went on to be a clergyman, it would list the benefices he held, with dates. Catholics were barred from British universities from the Reformation until the nineteenth century, so Catholic youths often went abroad, to France or Spain, for their education.

  St John's College, Oxford, 1920s. Author's collection.

  Schools

  Education was not compulsory until 1880 and the state did not sponsor schooling in any form until 1833. However there were a great number of private schools. Many were very small and left no record, save for adverts in the local press and entries in directories. Even well-established ones, with some renown – the Great Ealing School was attended, amongst others, by W S Gilbert, John Henry Newman and Thomas Huxley, for instance – failed to leave any corpus of records. The records of former private schools, where they exist, tend to be in local authority archives. For schools which still survive, records may remain in situ.

  Then there are the great public schools, such as Eton, Harrow, Westminster and Winchester, and for boys attending these, research is usually straightforward. A researcher should first check that there are published lists of former pupils – as there are for Harrow and Westminster from the eighteenth century. These can be found on the open shelves of TNA library for instance and should always be consulted prior to contacting a particular school. Many published lists of alumni are to be found at the Society of Genealogists’ Library, too, along with school histories. These lists are arranged in chronological order, and there is usually an index. They give details of home and parents, school career (dates of entry and discharge) and subsequent career details and (perhaps) death.

  There were also special schools aimed at particular groups. Lewisham Archives have the records of the Congregational School, for sons of Congregational ministers, and the Royal Naval School, for sons of naval officers. Archives of grammar schools and charity schools may also exist. These may also include lists of pupils.

  The Inns of Chancery and of Court

  Although civil law was taught at Oxford and Cambridge from the Middle Ages, they did not teach common law until the mid-nineteenth century. Any youth wanting to be a solicitor could attend a number of Inns of Chancery in London from the Middle Ages until their extinction in the nineteenth century. These were preparatory schools for lawyers. Unfortunately pupil lists for only four of at least a dozen have survived. Records survive at TNA for Clement’s Inn and the Library of the Middle Temple for New Inn. The Law Society (Staple Inn) and those for Barnard’s Inn were published by the Selden Society in 1995.

  Would-be barristers had to spend seven to eight years at one of the Inns of Court (until the 1840s), these four being Gray’s Inn, Lincoln’s Inn, the Middle Temple and the Inner Temple. Numbers too increased, with 230 barristers practising in 1780. Admission registers exist for all four inns. Many have been published and so are relatively easily available, Middle Temple (1501–1975), Inner Temple (1547–1850, available on a database); Gray’s Inn (1521–1889) and Lincoln’s Inn (1420–1893). All these courts have libraries which have much other information, as well as that already mentioned. Lawyers will be discussed further in Chapter 7.

  These registers often detail pupils’ fathers, too, with name and occupation.

  The Apprenticeship System

  Apart from schools and colleges, there was another once common method of educating youths of both sexes, which was particularly prevalent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This was the system of apprenticeship. A master of a trade was paid to take a youth to serve under him in order that the young man would learn the business on the job. He would enter into a formal contract with his master, usually when aged 14, but possibly as young as 12, and would normally serve seven years. He would work in return for pocket money and board and lodgings. The lot of apprentices varied considerably, as Hogarth’s painting of the idle and the industrious apprentices shows – the former ends up on the gallows, the second ends up marrying his master’s daughter.

  This system began following the Statute of Apprentices of 1563, which forbade anyone from entering a trade who had not served the said apprenticeship. This legislation remained in force, with modifications, until 1814. Stamp duty was payable on the indentures of apprenticeship from 1710. These survive in the form of apprenticeship books and are held at TNA (IR 1) and must be seen on microfilm. These include lists of articled clerks. They are arranged geographically (for London see the ‘City’ registers, and ‘Country’ registers for the rest of the country), and then roughly chronologically. They list the name, address and trade of the master, the name of the apprentice and the date of the indenture. Sometimes the names of the apprentice’s parents are also given. There are indexes for the years 1710–74. However the tax was not collected until a few years after the apprenticeship was completed.

  Some apprentices enlisted in the armed forces, contrary to the terms of their apprenticeship indentures, and once this was discovered, they were returned to their masters. Lists of these youths for 1806–35 can be found in TNA, WO 25/2962. There were also military and naval apprenticeships, for boys from the Royal Naval Asylum at Greenwich and at the Duke of York’s Military School, Chelsea (often sons of former sailors or soldiers, many were orphans). They can be found in TNA, WO 143/52, covering 1806–48 and in ADM 73/421–48, covering 1808–38, respectively. There were also apprenticeships in the Merchant Navy from 1823 too. For London, these can be found in TNA, BT 150/1–14 (covering 1824–79). These give details of the apprentice’s name, age, date, terms of apprenticeship and his master’s name.

  The Watermen and Lightermen’s Company were responsible for traffic on the Thames from the sixteenth to the twentieth century and many of their employees were previously apprentices. The Guildhall Library has the apprentice binding books for 1688–1908 (MS 6289) and the apprentice affidavit books, 1759–1897 (MS 6291). These give the apprentice’s name, the date and place of baptism, the date he began his apprenticeship and the date he became a free waterman, as well as naming his master, who may be his father – occasionally his mother, if the father was deceased.

  Many apprenticeships were exempt from the stamp duty already mentioned and so do not appear in the registers above. These would include children apprenticed by charities or by parish vestries or if those apprenticed to their father. Vestry minute books refer to children of poor parents, or orphans, whom the parish paid to have apprenticed so they would no longer be a burden on the parish r
ates. There may be additional references to the apprentice if there was trouble – Hanwell Vestry investigated a case where it was alleged that a master had ill used his apprentice and steps were taken against the master to try and ensure it would not recur. One charity which paid to apprentice children was Thomas Coram’s Foundling Hospital. The London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) has registers of apprentices which are accessible for 1751–1891 (A/FH/A12/003/001–3). These are indexed alphabetically. JPs also authorized the apprenticeships of poor children; minutes of the Blackheath JPs are to be found at the Greenwich History Centre.

  Apprentices sometimes found themselves in trouble with the law. The Middlesex Quarter Sessions refers to apprentices in dispute with their masters. Pepys makes reference in the later 1660s to apprentices being involved in riots; and they were said to be prominent in the anti-Catholic rioting in London in 1688. It may be worth checking criminal records, if your ancestor was an apprentice, therefore. It should also be noted that it is estimated that about half of those who began apprenticeships in London failed to complete them.

  Some apprenticeship records are online, at Origins.net (London apprenticeship abstracts, 1442–1850) and at Findmypast.co.uk (apprenticeship records, 1710–74).

  The Church, Law and Medicine

  Doctors, lawyers and clergymen are all easy to track down in published sources other than those already mentioned. The Law List, has names from 1775 onwards. We should also note G Hennessey’s Novum Repertorum Ecclesiasticum Parochiale Londinense, covering London clergy from 1321 to 1898, and which is indexed. They are organized in alphabetical order by surname, though often within subsections – medical listings in the nineteenth century are divided into two sections – ‘London’ and ‘Country’, whereas the Law Lists have different sections for barristers, London solicitors and provincial lawyers. They give the age, address, educational and career history of the professional; retired members are also included. When names cease to appear, they are probably dead.