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Not all our ancestors were paragons of virtue. Some behaved in a manner that we would now find unacceptable or abhorrent.are we embarrassed by those family members or fascinated by them? Dr Janet Few reflects on our ancestors, their views, values and behaviour
What aspects of the lives of our ancestors might make us feel uncomfortable? Are we tempted, like the genealogists of the past, to remove them, or their misdemeanours, from the record? Does it matter when the ancestor lived; is there a point at which some actions become exciting or interesting, rather than alarming? We might be ashamed of cousin Jimmy who was convicted of importing Class A drugs last year but at the same time find the ancestor who was found guilty of smuggling brandy in the 18th century, romantic and exciting.
They say that you can choose your friends but you cannot choose your family. At family gatherings there is often that one family member who makes us cringe, who is, quite frankly, an embarrassment. We might like to imagine that all our family members were thoroughly upstanding, honourable, likeable individuals but in the past, as today, those embarrassing ancestors lurked within our families. What might constitute ‘embarrassing’ both now and in the past?
Changing views
Reactions to certain conditions and behaviours change, sometimes quite rapidly. There are those who we do not find embarrassing but generations in the not-too-distant past may have done so.
Think about the Australian reaction to convict ancestry for example. Whereas this would once have been a source of stigma, convict ancestors are now regarded as ‘Australian royalty’.
Within living memory, family instances of illegitimacy, mental illness, disability or homosexuality might well have been hushed up. Today we feel differently.
How about our reaction to our ethnic origins? These too have changed over time. Those who perceived themselves to be wholly white may, in the past, have attempted to disguise evidence of descent from someone of a different ethnicity be that Maori, Aboriginal, first nations, African or Asian. Fortunately, for the most part, that attitude too has changed.
An historical viewpoint
I do accept that ‘embarrassing’ is a subjective label and I stress that I am looking at this from an historical viewpoint. I am certainly not suggesting that all these categories of ancestor should be a cause for embarrassment today. Let us turn then to some of those ancestors who might cause embarrassment now, or may have done so in the past, and consider some of the records that they have left behind. I challenge you to search these sources for your family.
Current & controversial
We will begin with a topic that is both current and controversial, slavery. The recent heated debate, over whether we should commemorate those who were associated with the slave trade but who may also have been philanthropic with the ensuing wealth, rages on. Whatever your feelings about this issue, we have to accept that there may be those who profited from enslaving others somewhere on our family tree. We also have to realise that this behaviour was viewed very differently at the time. That does not justify it in any way but we cannot understand the past by viewing it through a twentyfirst century lens.
Let us look at the facts. There were over 12,000 known voyages that left from the UK and contributed to the enslavement of 3.5 million Africans. Despite the statement by Elizabeth
I in 1596 that ‘blackamoors have no understanding of Christ or his gospel’, there are baptisms and burials in early parish registers that provide evidence of those of African-caribbean or other non-white heritage in 16th and 17th century Britain. References also appear in documents such as court records and wills. Many of these instances refer to free men and women, some of whom may have been born on British soil. Although, at the time of their appearance in the records, it is unlikely that they were enslaved, as slavery had no basis in English law, their presence may be a legacy of slavery. Despite the legal position, there are instances of enslavement. The Somerset Case (1772), for example, led to the
emancipation of an enslaved person in England, namely James Somerset, who had been brought by his owner from America, in 1769. This case was a catalyst for the abolition movement in the early 19th century. See https://www.ourmigrationstory.org.uk/oms/african-freedom-in-tudor-englanddr-hector-nuness-request.
Slave registers for 1813-1834 are held at The National Archives in class T71, most of which are available on Ancestry www.ancestry.co.uk. They can be searched by the name of the owner or the enslaved person. The Legacy of British Slave-ownership website http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ lbs/ allows you to search for slaveowners in the British Caribbean at the time that slavery ended, in 1833. It includes biographical details of the slave owners, some of which include portraits.
Legalised piracy
What about privateering? This was legalised piracy by those holding letters of marque. It might be seen as glamorous but what they were seizing was slave-produced goods. Those of us with ancestry in Britain and most other western European countries need to come to terms with not just how we view slavery but also the whole concept of our ancestors’ involvement in Empire.
Births ‘out of wedlock’
Until recently there has been a stigma attached to births that occur ‘out of wedlock’. We are aware of these occurrences in our family’s history from parish register entries and from birth certificates that omit the father’s name. Trying to identify the un-named father can be problematic, although we have been helped in that regard by the advent of DNA testing. Sometimes a second forename will give a clue as to the father.
From 1733, Bastardy Legislation, as it was called, set out a system whereby the parish made efforts to identify the fathers, so that they could be made to support their offspring. This led to documentation. Unfortunately, survival is patchy and there are, as yet, very few online examples; the remainder are only available in county archives. A Bastardy Examination of the mother required her to name names. Then a warrant for the apprehension of the father would be drawn up and finally a Bastardy Bond would be signed. The father would undertake to pay money for the mother’s lying in, followed by a weekly maintenance sum until the child was 14. You may also be interested in Scotland’s Antenuptial Relationship Index 1661-1780, which is available on www.findmypast.co.uk. Here we learn, for example, that Agnes Brown of South Leith named Gilbert Reid as the father of her child on 1 October 1668. Gilbert confessed and was rebuked.
Conscientious objectors
During times of war, people were often reluctant to admit that family
members were conscientious objectors. Deserters too were regarded as shameful. Now, with awareness of PTSD we might be more sympathetic.
Very few records of conscientious objectors survive. There may be reports of tribunals in newspapers, although these were often underreported as they were seen as being damaging to morale. The records of conscientious objectors’ appeal tribunals for Middlesex survive in MH47 at The National Archives and can be downloaded via www. nationalarchives.gov.uk. It is here that we meet John London of Wood Green, a cinematograph operator. He requested absolute exemption because his wife had consumption and was ‘generally nervous’. He had six children the oldest of whom was twelve. The local tribunal had decided that no serious hardship would ensue if John was conscripted. As a result of the appeal, John was initially granted a temporary exemption of fourteen days ‘to make arrangements’ but then his subsequent appeal was dismissed.
As conscientious objectors were often assigned non-combatant roles, some appear in the records of the Friends Ambulance Service. These contain photographs, and are available online http://fau.quaker.org.uk/search-view.
The ‘great social evil’
So, who else might have caused embarrassment to family members? Let us look at prostitutes. Although the ‘great social evil’, as prostitution was labelled in the nineteenth century, is mentioned in contemporary writings, such as pamphlets and sermons, finding information about individual prostitutes is much more difficult. The unmarried woman who has a succession of illegitimate children might be a suspect. Occasionally a baptism record might label a mother as a prostitute. Sometimes prostitutes reveal themselves in the census but more frequently they are disguised in the myriads of laundresses and milliners. There are 446 individuals in the 1881 British census with the occupation ‘prostitute’. The oldest was 63-year-old Catherine Buckley, a widow from Ireland, who, together with other prostitutes, was in prison in Usk, Pontypool. Many prostitutes can be found in the Female Lock-up hospital and asylum in Paddington. The youngest, Elizabeth Ross from Gravesend, was just ten years old.
Where you may find details of named prostitutes is in the criminal records or in newspaper reports of trials. A series of Contagious Diseases Acts was passed in the 1860s following concerns about high levels of sexually transmitted diseases amongst the armed forces. You only have to look at service records to see many incidences of syphilis. Initially, the police had the right to arrest women found near barracks and in ports but later this was extended. These women were subjected to compulsory examination and those infected were forcibly hospitalised in ‘Lock Hospitals’, or, if these were full, workhouse infirmaries, for three months to a year. It is possible that workhouse admissions’
registers may allude to their reason for admission. Those who refused to be examined could be sentenced to imprisonment or hard labour. These Acts also impacted on ‘respectable’ women. There were many protests against these Acts, particularly as no checks were made on the male clients. Campaigns led by Josephine Butler and others involved in the fight for women’s suffrage led to the Acts’ repeal.
Dissenters
Historically, there has been a stigma attached to followers of certain religious groups. It may have been a source of shame to have family members whose way of worship was different to one’s own, or to whatever brand of religion prevailed at the time. In the wake of the religious turbulence of the 16th century and the Reformation, intolerance of dissent, on both sides of the religious spectrum, reached a peak in the 17th century when measures were enacted against both Protestant nonconformists and Catholics. The Toleration Act of 1689 changed the official policy towards those outside the Church of England but prejudices remained.
Quakers, Methodists and many other ‘ists’ were ‘different’ and could be seen as a threat by the establishment. The tendency for evangelical sects to preach in public gave free rein for hecklers. Non-conformists also targeted the very events and institutions that had previously held communities together, holding open-air services at the village fete, markets or sports days.
The Non Parochial Registers Act of 1840 required that all Non-conformist registers should be surrendered to the Registrar General. These are now at the National Archives. Many Nonconformist records of baptisms, marriages and burials, covering Methodists, Wesleyans, Baptists, Independents, Protestant Dissenters, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Unitarians and Quakers (Society of Friends), are now available online at the subscription website The Genealogist thegenealogist.co.uk.
LGBTQ+
Intolerance and the fact that a sexual relationship between two men was a criminal offence in the Britain until 1967, means that it can be difficult to identify those who belonged to what we now call the LGBTQ+ community. Societal pressures means
that many would have been living an outwardly heterosexual lifestyle. You may have family stories, letters or diaries that suggest that individuals were gay but do remember that in the 19th and early 20th centuries, people of the same sex might write to each other in quite passionate terms without having a sexual relationship.
The first documentary record in which gay family members might appear is in the court records or in newspaper accounts of trials. Evidence of both male and female same sex relationships might be found in reports of divorce cases.
Disability history
Although we don’t feel like this now, until comparatively recently, those who were disabled, either physically or mentally, were regarded as a source of shame. The attitude that prevailed was that family members who were disabled should be hidden away from society. This was partly a result of the belief that a disabled child reflected the ‘sins of the fathers’ and was an indictment on the moral conduct of the parents. For further reading on this topic, I highly recommend the relevant pages of the Historic England website https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/disability-history/.
Until the Reformation, the disabled were looked after in the community, or by the monastic houses. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the responsibility devolved to the parishes and secular private charities. Under the terms of the Elizabethan Poor Law, the disabled were classified as impotent poor. The Act reads: “The person naturally disabled, either in wit or member, as an idiot, lunatic, blind, lame etc., not being able to work, all these are to be provided for by the overseers of necessary relief and are to have allowances according to their maladies and needs.” We may therefore find records of our disabled family members in the records of the overseers of the poor.
By the end of the 18th century there was an increasing desire to institutionalise those who were incapacitated both physically and mentally. The creation of county asylums in the early 19th century catered for both the mentally ill and those with learning difficulties. With the advent of the New Poor Law of 1834 many disabled people were workhouse inmates. In 1861 a census was taken of those who had been in a workhouse for five years or more, many of whom were disabled. This can be searched on Ancestry. From 1851, the disability column of the census records certain disabilities. Service records may also refer to disabilities acquired due to war.
Mental illness
Mental illness is of course distinct from a mental disability, although, in the past, both might lead to time spent in an asylum. Why might we suspect that our ancestor was mentally ill? There are the family stories. Perhaps, from 1871, the disability
column has alerted us to what they termed a ‘lunatic’ in the family. The cause of death on a death certificate might be indicative of mental illhealth, particularly, for example, if someone had committed suicide. Suicide was not decriminalised in England and Wales until 1961 and it was also an act that was seen to imperil your everlasting soul, so had religious implications. Obviously, those who succeeded in taking their own lives could not prosecuted but those whose attempts were unsuccessful could. These instances might be reported in the newspapers. Service records too may reveal mental trauma. Finally, there are the asylum records themselves. Whereas previously you would be unlikely to consult these unless you had a suspicion that they might contain details of a family member, now many of these are being made available online, evidence that an ancestor was an inmate might come up in a general search in one of the data-providing websites.
I would highlight the records of the Bethlem National Asylum, that took patients from across England and Wales. A range of records, dating back to the 16th century, are available. The case books for 1815-1919 are downloadable on
Findmypast. Depending on date, they give name, address, age, occupation, religion, medical history, a physical description and details of treatment. County asylum records will be in local archives; these sometimes include photographs.
Criminal acts
Several of the categories of embarrassing ancestor that we have discussed might have found themselves in court. Criminals and suspected criminals in England and Wales will have been tried in a hierarchy of civil courts but trials also took place in ecclesiastical and manorial courts. Records will be found in both local and national archives and trials are likely to be reported in the press. Regarding online access, the best places to start are the main data providing websites and the National Archives website, http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. You will find useful research guides to researching criminals and to court records on the National Archives website. Transcriptions of details of trials indexed in the Scotland Court and Criminal Database 1708-1909 are available at Findmypast. There are many guides to researching those who were transported. The transportation registers from 1787-1870 are at the National Archives.
Are different crimes more ‘acceptable’ or even glamorous? We tend to have sympathy with those family members who were transported for stealing a loaf of bread, when almost certainly their family was starving. Would you feel more uncomfortable having an ancestor who was convicted of smuggling or one who was accused of the sexual assault of a child? We are human, I think most of us would be quite excited by the 18th century smuggler but would be appalled by the sexual abuser, yet, historically, the smuggler would have been given a much more severe punishment.
Witches & witch-hunters
In the 17th century, having an accused witch in the family would have been a source of embarrassment. Now we look with sympathy on the accused and are perhaps more uncomfortable with the idea of our family members being amongst the accusers. Sources of information about witchcraft trials include court records and broadsheets.
The question of intolerance
Many of the people we have been considering were marginalised in the past for being ‘not like us’. Are
they embarrassing because of our intolerance or because they themselves are intolerable? Who decides what is intolerable?
Why do we do family history? To honour our ancestors, be they honourable or not, or to preserve their memory, warts and all? Are we, like the Victorians, tempted to ‘air-brush’ our pedigrees? The 19th century antiquarian might be motivated to adjust their lineage to be suitably aristocratic. I hope that today no one would deliberately invent a different lineage but are we in danger of emphasising the heroic ancestors at the expense of the more unsavoury? In any case, is any one individual unremittingly praiseworthy, or indeed unremittingly flawed? If we focus on the more ‘acceptable’ ancestors, are we creating unrealistic expectations, for those with whom we share these family stories? Might they feel inadequate in the face of the perfect ancestors they are confronted with?
It is impossible to present history or family history without an element of the historian’s bias. Let us do our best to present a rounded portrait of our families, the good, the bad and the ugly.
About the author
Dr Janet Few is a family and social historian who lectures across the world. She has written several family history books and two historical novels that celebrate ‘embarrassing’ ancestors. Janet has recently been appointed President of the Family History Federation.