Who Do You Think You Are?

FOCUS ON: CHILDHOOD RECORDS

As more records go online, Sue Wilkes explains how exploring your ancestors’ early lives can take your research to a new level

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Learn about your ancestors’ early years with Sue Wilkes

Most family historians concentrat­e their research on the adult lives of their forebears. Apart from birth records and occasional appearance­s in the census, we spend a lot of time looking for marriage, death or work records that reflect adult life. There is an assumption that children left few marks on official records but this is not true, and as more records go online it has become easier to fill in the details.

Birth and census records form the cornerston­es of any family history research, but this feature will look at other childhood resources from health and education to criminal and Poor Law records. Even work records can apply. As with any records, not all are online, but it is worth looking at what is available, even if it doesn’t cover the part of the country you are interested in, so that you can see what the records will tell you.

Poor children

Poverty or illegitima­cy led to many babies being abandoned. The Foundling Hospital, began caring for unwanted infants in 1739. The hospital’s records are held by London Metropolit­an Archives ( bit.ly/ 2ktOa3u).

Impoverish­ed or sick children stayed in the workhouse if their parents could not (or would not) care for them, and admission and discharge as well as creed registers may survive (see workhouses.org.uk to find out which records survive and where they are held for each workhouse). Some workhouse registers are also now going online at findmypast.co.uk and ancestry.co.uk. After the mid-1870s, Poor Law officials increasing­ly placed children with foster parents or boarded them out in ‘cottage homes’, a system that was always preferred in Scotland over the poorhouse.

After Poor Law boards were abolished in 1929, local authoritie­s took over many of their functions. Local authority records may include informatio­n about children’s homes and council-run nurseries. Many children’s homes were run by charities and some, like Barnardo’s, still hold their records. If you think an ancestor may have spent time in a children’s home, then Peter Higginboth­am’s website childrensh­omes.org.uk is worth visiting. Charities such as Barnardo’s also arranged adoptions ( bit.ly/ 2kL9Y77).

Vaccinatio­ns

In a bid to combat smallpox, it became compulsory to vaccinate children in 1853 in England and Wales and 1863 in Scotland. Compulsory vaccinatio­n was abolished in 1949. Although survival rates for these records is patchy, they can include date of birth and address of the child as well as name and occupation of the father. Some records include the maiden name of the mother. Ancestry has digitised the vaccinatio­n register for Newport Pagnell 1909-1927. Some vaccinatio­n registers for Glasgow (1801-1854) are on archive.org.

Apprentice­ships

Parish overseers apprentice­d paupers to factory masters, chimney sweeps, or as domestic or farm workers, and others until they were 21. Parish apprentice­ship records can be found amongst the Poor Law records at county

archives. Ancestry has recently digitised the collection held by Dorset History Centre.

Better-off parents apprentice­d their children to artisans to learn crafts such as carpentry, and indentures may be held locally with more going online all the time. Also, the Society of Genealogis­ts holds a collection. Registers showing duties paid on apprentice­ships (1710-1811) are available on Ancestry.

Work records

Although most children had always worked alongside their parents to some extent, the Industrial Revolution led to thousands of children working in factories. From 1833, registers were kept of young mill workers; although few of these registers survive, it is worth checking with the county record office where they will be found within the records of the relevant mill.

Children were also found in foundries, ironworks, and even coal mines. An 1842 investigat­ion came across four year olds dragging heavy loads of coal undergroun­d.

Back to school

The 1833 Factory Act required mill owners to allow children under 13 two hours of schooling a day, although this was rarely enforced until the Act was updated in 1844.

Many working children attended Sunday schools run by churches. The most famous advocate of Sunday schools, Robert Raikes, founded some in Gloucester after witnessing child pin-makers playing in the street during church services. By 1851, there were over 2.3 million Sunday scholars and of these over 935,000 attended schools attached to Anglican churches. Some Sunday schools would not accept children as pupils if their clothes were too tattered, which resulted in the rise of ‘Ragged schools’ that offered basic tuition. Children in the care of the Poor Law Guardians were educated in the workhouse or special institutio­ns like the Swinton Industrial School or the training ship the Exmouth (recently added to Ancestry).

Wealthier families had their children taught by tutors at home at first. Boys were sent to grammar or public schools; girls went to private day schools or boarding schools. Records of these schools may be held at the local record office, although check first with the school as many maintain their own archives offering a wealth of informatio­n about past pupils including photograph­s, records of achievemen­t and even details of good and bad behaviour!

Lower middle-class parents generally sent their children to the British (nonconform­ist) and National (Anglican) Schools run by churches using the ‘monitorial’ system of education, where older students were used to teach the younger ones. Large numbers of admission registers and log-books for National Schools in England and Wales from the 1870s to 1914 have been digitised and are available at Findmypast or participat­ing archives. Admission registers have parents’ names and addresses, and may include siblings. Log books record the

An 1842 investigat­ion came across four year olds dragging heavy loads of coal undergroun­d

day-to-day running of schools, but sometimes mention individual­s. The Scottish Education Act of 1872 brought its various schools under the umbrella of the state and most surviving school registers and log books post-date this.

Health records

The Historic Hospital Admission Records Project ( hharp.org) offers free access to transcribe­d records from four children’s hospitals: three in London (including Great Ormond Street) and the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in

Glasgow. Records for other hospitals will usually be held at local record offices. The Hospital Records Database is the best place to discover what records have survived and where they are held ( www.nationalar­chives.gov.uk/hospitalre­cords).

Criminal youth

You may discover a physical descriptio­n or photo of your child ancestor if they committed a crime. The age of criminal responsibi­lity was seven years; when a child turned 14 (later 16), they were treated as an adult in the eyes of the law.

The first juveniles-only penal institutio­n opened in 1838 on the Isle of Wight, housing over 300 boys, but adult prisons still took children if no juvenile facilities were available. In 1843, over 100 children under ten were inmates of Edinburgh Prison.

Industrial schools

While in prison, children were given religious instructio­n and taught literacy skills. However, charities like the Philanthro­pic Society believed that prison was inappropri­ate for children. Reformator­ies or industrial schools educated child offenders and gave them skills so they could earn a living. Some were ‘training ships’ like the Akbar on the Mersey. Magistrate­s were given powers to send child beggars and vagrants to these schools, typically for five years.

Life for our child ancestors was not all work and no play. Schools and societies ran clubs, sports teams, and day trips. You may be lucky enough to find photograph­s in regional collection­s or local newspapers. In the 20th century, youth organisati­ons like the Boys’ Brigade, Scouts and Guides became popular, and are still going strong today.

 ??  ?? School archives often hold photograph­s of sports teams, like these Cornish schoolgirl­s in 1936
School archives often hold photograph­s of sports teams, like these Cornish schoolgirl­s in 1936
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 ??  ?? A young evacuee plays at a London station in August 1941
A young evacuee plays at a London station in August 1941
 ??  ?? A carpentry and wireless lesson in Lancashire
A carpentry and wireless lesson in Lancashire

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