My
forthcoming book Tracing Your Ancestors’ Childhood, which will be published by
Pen & Sword this September, is now available for pre-order from Amazon UK!
The
first part of Tracing Your Ancestors’
Childhood and Education explores children’s experiences at home, school,
work and in institutions. In Victorian
times, children and young people formed a far higher proportion of the
population than the present. In 2009,
twenty per cent of the UK’s population was under sixteen years old. In 1841, thirty-six per cent of the
population of England was under fifteen. If you could travel back in time and walk down
a Victorian street or explore a factory, you would be struck by how many
children and teenagers were present.
Many thousands of children lived in institutions, too: in 1840, 22,300
children aged nine to sixteen were workhouse inmates.
In my
book, I discuss childhood records in detail such as poor law records,
apprenticeship indentures, school registers, criminal records, wartime records, child migrant records (including evacuees),
and so on.
The
second part of the book is a directory of archives and specialist repositories,
and children’s societies. It includes databases of online records, useful
genealogy websites, and places to visit.
Images
from the author’s collection:
1920s
postcard of children.
Two boys
working Delarue’s envelope machine. Illustrated London News, 21 June 1851.
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