Discover the real Peaky Blinders
New to the collections of criminal records on Ancestry are those covering the West Midlands, yet they are just the latest addition to the wide range of historic crime and punishment collections on the website. Explore the records and learn about the ances
Why are criminal records so valuable?
The West Midlands collection on Ancestry (www.ancestry.co.uk/ search/collections/61716/?bm=w) is a fascinating example of criminal history documents: 10,157 records revealing vivid biographical clues about and insights to our ancestors’ lives. Among those recorded can be found the details of the real Peaky Blinders (the Birmingham gang on which the TV series by the same name was based). Not only do the West Midlands records show personal details, they often include a photo too.
The crimes committed also provide an intriguing clue to the, often very tough, lives of our ancestors, while the convictions reflect views and values of the wider society in which they lived.
The records in the West Midlands collection are provided on Ancestry in association with the West Midlands Police Museum, and they comprise
the original photo books and physical descriptions that were collated by the police to help them track down villains, even if they were using aliases and false identities.
What sort of clues does the West Midlands collection include?
• Name
• Age at time of incarceration
• Place of birth
• Nature of the crime
• Conviction date
• Conviction place
• Sentence
• Photo and/or a physical description of the person
What sort of other criminal record collections can be found on Ancestry?
Let’s look at the sorts of records that can be found in the criminal record collections on Ancestry.
The criminal record collections on Ancestry can be found listed in the ‘Court, Governmental and Criminal’ category www.ancestry.co.uk/search/ categories/clp_court/.
Useful to explore are: the England and Wales Criminal Register 1791-1892 www.ancestry.co.uk/ search/collections/1590/, the Newgate Calendar of Prisoners 1785-1853 www.ancestry.co.uk/ search/collections/61811/, and county-based collections such as Gloucestershire Prison Records 17281914 www.ancestry.co.uk/search/ collections/60895/.
Where can you take your research next?
On finding details of your ancestor’s sentence of transportation you may go on to locate them in the UK Prison Hulk and Letter Books 18021849 www.ancestry.co.uk/search/ collections/1989/ and from there research their subsequent lives in the Australian or American records available on Ancestry. If pardoned, you may also be able to trace them back to the UK, again using records on Ancestry.
Ancestry is constantly releasing new records, so there is always more to discover about the twists and turns in the rich tapestries of your ancestors’ lives and stories.