Doncaster Family and Local History Fair - 24th September

After a last minute rush, managed to secure a table to promote Proper People at next Saturday's fair at Doncaster College for the Deaf, Leger Way, Doncaster.

If you've got missing ancestors, someone who died in an asylum, someone missing from a census, or are just curious about what you might learn from asylum records, please come and have a chat.

Morley and District Family History Group

Big thank you to Morley and District Family History Group, especially Ann Bogue, Julie Heeley and Carol Sklinar for the invitation to participate in their 30th Anniversary Open Day yesterday and their great hospitality.

Another opportunity for me to meet fellow family history enthusiasts and tell them about the potential for discovering their missing ancestors hidden within Yorkshire's lunatic asylum records. I just happened to have a box of Proper People with me and I am pleased to report that it was much lighter by the end of the event. 

Now looking forward to revisiting Morley on 1st February next year to deliver my illustrated presentation Early Asylum Life which will include tales of local folk from around the district.

Speaking engagements in 2017

A number of engagements have already been confirmed when I will be delivering my illustrated presentation "Early Asylum Life".

The calendar is as follows:

Wakefield Local and Family History Network	The Learning Zone, Library Main Floor, Wakefield One, Burton St, Wakefield, WF1 2EB	1.30pm, Monday 23rd January, 2017
Morley Family History Society	St Mary's in the Wood, Commercial Street, Morley, LS27 8HY	7.30pm, Wednesday 1st February, 2017
Ossett Historical Society	Trinity Centre, Church Street, Ossett, WF5 8ET	7.30pm Monday 27th March, 2017
East Yorkshire Family History Society	Carnegie Heritage Centre, 342 Anlaby Rd, Hull, HU3 6JA	7pm, Tuesday 21st March, 2017
Garforth Probus Club	Garforth Working Men’s Club Barley Hill Rd, Garforth, Leeds, LS25 1AU	10.30am, Wednesday 5th July, 2017
Bradford Family History Society	Glyde House Little Horton Lane Bradford BD5 0BQ	10am, Thursday 6th July, 2017
Mexborough and District Probus Club	Swinton House Club, 20 Fitzwilliam St, Swinton, Rotherham S64 8RG	10.30am, Tuesday 15th August, 2017
Upper Dales Family History Group	Harmby Village Hall, Brook Terrace, Leyburn, North Yorkshire, DL8 5PG	2pm, Wednesday 27th September, 2017

"Early Asylum Life" aims to take the audience back to the early 19th century to experience what it was like to have been a patient in the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum.

I have my own projector and laptop but will need the venue to provide a projection screen or equivalent.

Topic UK (Wakefield Edition) Covers Proper People

Many thanks to CapitalBMedia for placing another article in the local press. This time there is an impressive two page spread in the Wakefield and District Edition of Topic UK, the free business and community magazine.

To read the original version online click here.

Yorkshire Family History Fair

I was pleased to have been able to help out on the Wakefield and District Family History Society stand at the annual Yorkshire Family History Fair held in the Knavesmire Exhibition Centre at York Racecourse on Saturday 2nd July. This was also an opportunity to promote my book Proper People which sold well confirming my belief that many family historians also have a wider interest in social history.



Richard and David, with Amanda behind the camera.
 

Our stand was ably manned by Richard Bailey, myself and my fiancée Amanda Crossley who did a sterling job at what was her first family history fair.

From the many conversations I had on Saturday it is clear that family historians are beginning to realise that asylum records may provide the answers to some of their brick walls or missing people.

Ancestry have recently published the records of the Commissioners in Lunacy which should show all  patient admissions across all asylums in the UK after January 1846 so one might expect to find a lunatic ancestor within that database. Have a look at my Early Asylum Life blog post Searching for Early Asylum Ancestors for comments on my experience of searching for patients using Ancestry which was actually much better than I had expected.




1841 Census for West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum. Courtesy Ancestry.

Consider the census which is one of the key resources used by family historians. The 1841 census return for the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum is much as one would expect for any other institution. It records all the staff, some living with their families, and all the patients are named in full.







1851 Census for West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum. Courtesy Ancestry.

Thereafter, from 1851 to 1901, while staff and their families are named, the patients are only identified by their initials. This might look like an early form of data protection but I suspect it had more to do with reducing the clerical effort. Not all asylums adopted the practice of using just the patients' initials.



In 1911 full names of patients are again recorded leaving a gap of 60 years during which a Yorkshire  ancestor may well have disappeared into the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum. More about how to search for your ancestors another day.

Mental Health Museum, Wakefield - New Exhibitions

Delighted to have been invited to yesterday evening's preview of two new exhibitions displayed at the Mental Health Museum, Fieldhead, Wakefield.

All Our Stories is the work of 2nd year history students from the University of Huddersfield who have created ‘story guides’ for the museum’s displays  - real people’s stories that help to tell the complex history of mental healthcare in the UK from the 19th century through to today.

Do Eagles Paint? scratches the surface of the complex debates about intelligence and ability testing. Using unique and intriguing objects associated with these tests, the exhibition aims to question their fairness, cultural bias, context, effectiveness and consequences.

Congratulations to curator Cara Sutherland and her volunteers including Alison Moreton who was largely responsible for Do Eagles Paint.

One eagle who certainly doesn't paint is Elvis, the museum's nickname for the polished wooden eagle lectern carved according to the museum caption by an "unknown" Asylum patient in 1869-70. It was used from then until the closure of St Faith's chapel in the grounds of the former West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum.


Elvis the eagle lectern. Author's own collection.

 



Those of you who have read my book Proper People will know by now that the craftsman behind Elvis is no longer an "unknown" patient. More about Lachlan McKenzie and Elvis in a later post.

Scrimgeour Brothers Meet For First Time

Many years ago, I decided it was time to research my father Malcolm's side of my family. He and my mum had divorced in the very early 1960s after a separation. As a baby I had no recollection of Malcolm. Strangely, I felt guilty about doing that research but when I spoke to my mum about it, she told me that she had fully expected me to want to know more about  my father's family.

By the late 1990s I knew where Malcolm lived.  I found myself in Leicester on business. I drove down Shipley Road past his house but did not have the courage to stop and knock.

Malcolm died in 2004. Five years later, with the explosion in genealogical stuff available on the internet I was able to establish his second marriage to Sheila. With that I was able to do a search on Mother's Maiden Name which led, literally, to a jaw dropping moment when I discovered that I had three half siblings, Michelle, Richard and  Karen.

At the Scrimgeour Clan Gathering in St Boswells I met my brother Richard for the first time ever. Same dad, different mums.

Extraordinary experience, but it was as if we had known each other for years. We had even chosen the same unusual "muted" Scrimgeour tartan at different times of our lives. Feels very, very nice to no longer be a single kid.