Stephen Wade - Tracing Your Prisoner Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians

T RACING Y OUR P RISONER A NCESTORS

Birth, Marriage & Death Records

The Family History Web Directory

Tracing British Battalions on the Somme

Tracing Great War Ancestors

Tracing History Through Title Deeds

Tracing Secret Service Ancestors

Tracing the Rifle Volunteers

Tracing Your Air Force Ancestors

Tracing Your Ancestors

Tracing Your Ancestors from 1066 to 1837

Tracing Your Ancestors Through Death Records Second Edition

Tracing Your Ancestors through Family Photographs

Tracing Your Ancestors Through Letters and Personal Writings

Tracing Your Ancestors Using DNA

Tracing Your Ancestors Using the Census

Tracing Your Ancestors: Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk

Tracing Your Aristocratic Ancestors

Tracing Your Army Ancestors

Tracing Your Army Ancestors Third Edition

Tracing Your Birmingham Ancestors

Tracing Your Black Country Ancestors

Tracing Your Boer War Ancestors

Tracing Your British Indian Ancestors

Tracing Your Canal Ancestors

Tracing Your Channel Islands Ancestors

Tracing Your Church of England Ancestors

Tracing Your Criminal Ancestors

Tracing Your Docker Ancestors

Tracing Your East Anglian Ancestors

Tracing Your East End Ancestors

Tracing Your Family History on the Internet

Tracing Your Female Ancestors

Tracing Your First World War Ancestors

Tracing Your Freemason, Friendly Society and Trade Union Ancestors

Tracing Your Georgian Ancestors, 17141837

Tracing Your Glasgow Ancestors

Tracing Your Great War Ancestors: The Gallipoli Campaign

Tracing Your Great War Ancestors: The Somme

Tracing Your Great War Ancestors: Ypres

Tracing Your Huguenot Ancestors

Tracing Your Insolvent Ancestors

Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet

Tracing Your Jewish Ancestors

Tracing Your Jewish Ancestors Second Edition

Tracing Your Labour Movement Ancestors

Tracing Your Legal Ancestors

Tracing Your Liverpool Ancestors

Tracing Your Liverpool Ancestors Second Edition

Tracing Your London Ancestors

Tracing Your Medical Ancestors

Tracing Your Merchant Navy Ancestors

Tracing Your Northern Ancestors

Tracing Your Northern Irish Ancestors

Tracing Your Northern Irish Ancestors Second Edition

Tracing Your Oxfordshire Ancestors

Tracing Your Pauper Ancestors

Tracing Your Police Ancestors

Tracing Your Potteries Ancestors

Tracing Your Pre-Victorian Ancestors

Tracing Your Prisoner of War Ancestors: The First World War

Tracing Your Railway Ancestors

Tracing Your Roman Catholic Ancestors

Tracing Your Royal Marine Ancestors

Tracing Your Rural Ancestors

Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors

Tracing Your Second World War Ancestors

Tracing Your Servant Ancestors

Tracing Your Service Women Ancestors

Tracing Your Shipbuilding Ancestors

Tracing Your Tank Ancestors

Tracing Your Textile Ancestors

Tracing Your Twentieth-Century Ancestors

Tracing Your Welsh Ancestors

Tracing Your West Country Ancestors

Tracing Your Yorkshire Ancestors

Writing Your Family History

Your Irish Ancestors

A Guide for Family Historians

STEPHENWADE

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by

PEN & SWORD FAMILY HISTORY

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Limited Yorkshire Philadelphia

Copyright Stephen Wade, 2020

ISBN 978 1 52677 8 529

eISBN 978 1 52677 8 536

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52677 8 543

The right of Stephen Wade to be identifed as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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A s usual with historical works, the research project always needs plenty of expert help. In this case, I give special thanks to the staff at the Lincolnshire Archives and the East Riding Archives. Looking at prison history demands a great deal of diverse material, and often the most relevant documentary sources are seemingly, at the initial stage, peripheral. With these complications in mind, thanks go to Keiley McCartney and Simone Baddeley in particular, at Lincolnshire Archives, and to Sarah Acton and Helen Clark in Beverley.

Researching prisons is notoriously difficult, largely because so many records have disappeared, but also because so many are closed, for political reasons. Countless editors and specialists have helped with understanding such records. We have to work with what we have.

There always momentous works of scholarship behind any work seeking to offer a general, readable account of a strand of social history. In this case, the works in question are by David T. Hawkings (on genealogy) and also Norval Morris and David Rothman (on prison history). I owe a debt to those writers in that their work provides a platform for all historians working this seam. (See the Bibliography for details of their books).

Thanks also go to my editor at Pen & Sword, Amy Jordan, who has been patient with regard to my appeals for help and advice.

For all kinds of help and consultation, thanks go to genealogist Barbara Schenck, who always gives help where it is needed, and to Brian Elliott, my first editor in the genre of crime history.

E very work of genealogy, if it aims at being a general guide, has to cover a multitude of sources of information; these will differ from mainstream material to a scattering of mixed sources. The latter will offer nothing more than a time-consuming search with a vague hope that something may turn up. But at least in the mainstream documents there are always leads.

My experience in this area of criminal history has shown me that in order to find information about an ancestor beyond the expected trajectory of the life events, there has to be a mix of optimism and serendipity. To use this book profitably, therefore, it is wisest to be satisfied with the central spine of the prison narrative, which may be outlined in this way:

A search with the name across a certain timespan

A look at the primary court records

A search of prison registers and calendars

A timespan search across secondary sources