If you have family from Warwickshire, England you may well find them in one of 300,000 new Warwickshire records we added this week.
Some records in these collections pre date 1837, making them particularly useful in finding people before civil registration began. Some records actually date back to 1564 (shown in the image above).
One interesting new collection is the Warwickshire, England, Bastardy Orders, 1816-1839 which contain orders issued in bastardy cases by Quarter Session courts. In cases of an illegitimate birth, Poor Unions tried to identify the father and make him legally responsible for the child’s maintenance to keep the child off parish relief rolls. Mothers could also apply to require a father to support his child.
Bastardy orders were an official order of the Quarter Sessions court requiring the putative father of an illegitimate child to provide for the child. They contain the name of the mother and assumed father, but not the name of the child, though they specify the gender and birth date.
The Warwickshire, England, Parish Poor Law, 1546-1904 includes images of a variety of different records created in Warwickshire in connection with the Poor Laws. They can help you identify members of your family who were considered poor, find out what aid they received, and discover details of their everyday lives. It’s sometimes possible to piece together the story of a relative’s life, from their placement at a school as a child, through their time in a workhouse, up to their final fate—be it their eventual passing or an escape from poverty.
Or, you may find your ancestor on the other side of the coin, among the rate payers. Poor Law records can also be useful in tracing movements among family members—both poor and not. These records can be browsed by parish or other jurisdiction and record type.
We also added the following new collections –
- Warwick, England, Burial Slips from Warwick Cemetery, 1859-1968 (14,942 records, 22,649 images)
- Warwickshire, England, Land Tax, 1773-1830 (248,653 records, 11,153 images)
- Warwickshire, England, Militia, 1776-1825 (1,055 records, 1219 images)
- Warwickshire, England, Occupational and Quarter Session Records (7139 images)
Let us know on our Facebook wall or via Twitter if you make any new discoveries!