On the Wrong Side of the Law Seminar

*** this seminar will now be available as a webinar in place of the physical seminar that had to be cancelled ***

online (no booking required), just click here on or after 10.00am (UK) on May 16th

from 10:00am on Saturday 16th May 2020

From big time villain to petty thief, we can probably all find one or two ancestors who didn’t manage to keep on the straight and narrow. We were due to return to the West Country to discover more about the working of the criminal justice system, the court and prison records that will help us track down individuals, including those sent abroad, and to explore the fascinating links between crime writing and genealogy.

We are delighted to now offer a web based version of this seminar, not quite as originally planned, but definitely of interest, especially if you are looking to see if any of your own family fell foul of the law.

For quite obvious reasons, not all of our original presenters have been in a position to prepare a presentation. We fully understand that and thank them for their support for the Guild; maybe we can hear from them on another occasion but in the meantime you can see their websites below.  Thanks to those who have so kindly provided something for us, Aoife O’Connor, Michelle Patient and Richard Heaton, and to Nick Crowson who has allowed us to use an earlier presentation.

We will launch all of these presentations here on 16 May at 10.00am. You may watch them at any time over the next 7 days (at which time they will be only available to Guild members in the members room).

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Guild ‘Rogues Gallery’ of criminal ancestors displayed on the Guild site; they were set a tough task, to write on just one side of A4, but these potted histories give a real insight into aspects of the criminal justice system experienced by our ancestors.

Twitter #GuildCriminal

Provisional Programme

10:00	Presentations available online
	Getting to Know Your Criminal Ancestors – Aoife O’Connnor (Find My Past)
	Tramps’ Tales: Discovering the history of homelessness in Britain – Nick Crowson (University of Birmingham)
	Why You Need the Police Gazette (part 1) – Richard Heaton 3231
	Why You Need the Police Gazette (part 2) – Richard Heaton 3231
	Habitual Criminals, Habitual Drunkards, and Travelling Criminals – Richard Heaton 3231
	Tracking Down Transported Criminals – Michelle Patient 5840 (genealogist)
	[Saturday May 23rd – presentations placed in the members room on the Guild website]
	You may want to have a look at the websites for
	Rosalind Crone: Prison History
	Nathan Dylan Goodwin: Forensic Genealogist

 

If you need any further information please  email seminar-booking@one-name.org or telephone the Guild Help Desk on 0800 011 2182.

 

What delegates said about the most recent Littleton seminar on 22nd February 2020:

Primary motivation for attending? Fascinating topics Initially the talk on Romany ancestors, but the whole programme looked interesting; interest in travellers and theatre research Being with fellow ONS people; meeting other Guild members and others with family history interest General interest and it was a local seminar; local event; only 20 minutes drive from home. Always enjoy them Guild seminars are always interesting, even if the subject might not be relevant to my research; curiosity about areas never researched. Learning about new topics; to learn about more unusual avenues of research Love the social hosting aspects What aspects of this seminar went particularly well? Every presentation was engaging and interesting; excellent talks As always, all of it Talk on Gypsies; Gypsy Ancestors and Theatre Ancestors; the Remarkable Crichton To time, visual aids very good, sound quality good, great organisation and speakers Variety of speakers; excellent speakers All the fascinating background details in the talks Excellent venue, good timekeeping Well organised and welcoming, very good lunch, excellent value for money A thoroughly enjoyable day; thank you – a great day Thank you to everyone involved for your hard work in putting on such an interesting seminar What did you learn? History of Gypsies More thinking outside the box An introduction to itinerants (for a variety of reasons) and where to start looking Newspapers a great resource! I didn’t know about the existence of an online theatre database; the possibilities for researching theatrical ancestors are particularly interesting New websites, will check more on occupations in my family Number of different alternative sources to explore and investigate for family history research All quite interesting but didn’t necessarily learn anything as I have only found dull, conventional ancestors – so far!

 

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Other events

For details of other events organised by the Guild, go to the Events Calendar.