Finding Blacksheep and Family Skeleton Ancestors
Most Family Trees Have a Felon, Rogue or Social Outcast
Aug 18, 2008
England had sent roughly 50,000 prison inmates to America by 1776. Most survived years of toil on American plantations and other drudgery, leaving descendants who probably lived a much better life than their lot in England would have been.
Here are some resources for finding these and other black sheep ancestors:
- Peter Coldham’s book, Emigrants in Chains: A Social History of Forced Emigration to the Americas of Felons, Destitute Children, Political and Religious Non-Conformists, Vagabonds, Beggars and Other Undesirables, 1607-1776, gives an excellent history of emigrants deported from England in the colonial era. The 2007 reprint is available from Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, MD.
- A list of deported "Convicts, Felons and Vagabonds" from Ireland to America for the years 1737 to 1743 is available online.
- The names of hundreds of American prison inmates are given online at the “black sheep ancestors” website, which lists them alphabetically by state.
- Insane asylum records from a variety of sources can be located through your browser; a few are also available at “black sheep ancestors”. In past centuries such persons as those suffering severe depression, women in menopause, radical thinkers and women and children who disobeyed husbands and fathers were stashed in insane asylums.
- Pick a county where many ancestors lived and search early court records. In the 1600s and early 1700s people were censured for not going to church, for creating a public disturbance, or stealing a pig or cow, and for other both minor and major offenses ranging from land disputes to murder.
- Punch “Parkhurst Prison” into a web browser and find a list of dozens of prisoners in that English prison during the early and mid 1800s.
- There is a criminals “hall of fame” wax museum in Niagara Falls.
- If there is a possibility of criminal ancestors in a certain state, get the address of the county jail or state prison, then look up those addresses in the census. Each inmate should be listed.
- Several books have been written about famous criminals and some of them include dozens of names. Amazon has several titles of books about criminals.
Remember this: Descendants of these "undesirables" include presidents and politicians, authors and poets, inventors and industrialists and athletes and artists.
Finally, if family researchers don’t want to claim those unsavory ancestors, they can give them a whitewash job. Here’s an example which has appeared in many genealogical publications.
A rich businessman wanted a family history and hired someone to prepare it. There was one problem: Uncle Willie, the family's "black sheep", had gone to Sing Sing's electric chair after being convicted of committing a murder.
The writer promised to handle this unfortunate situation with delicacy. He did a superb job.
"Uncle Willie occupied a chair of applied electronics at one of our nation's leading institutions. He was attached to his position by the strongest of ties. His death came as a true shock!"
P.S. “Black sheep ancestors” also gives resources for locating the names of people who were executed.
