Throughout June we have shared with you some of the different problems you might encounter when researching your Gypsy Romany Traveller ancestors, and tried to explain why these problems might exist. In the fourth and final part of these blogs, our volunteer has offered one final place you might want to search to find out more information…
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Newspapers are often overlooked as a source of local colour when researching a family. Maybe this is because it takes time to scan pages of print unsure if anything relevant is going to be found. For some a quick scan of the ‘hatched, matched and dispatched’ (births, marriages and deaths) sections for family announcements reveals an unknown engagement or confirms a family relationship, but not every family wanted to or could afford to place an announcement in a newspaper.
If you are researching families from the travelling communities the usual sources of parish registers, civil registration and the census are often of limited use when trying to identify where a family was at different times of the year.
This is where newspapers can fill in some of the gaps. If unsure where to start, the Dorset County Chronicle covers the whole of Dorset and the pages reporting on the cases in the local courts are an excellent place to start if time to explore newspapers is limited.
You may have seen old photographs of Gypsy encampments at the side of roads – there is likely to have been a court appearance if the horses were been allowed to stray onto the highway or a fire was lit beside the highway. For example, in March 1889 Noah HUGHES faced a fine of 16s for allowing a horse to stray and lighting a fire near the highway at Sturminster Newton and January 1929 saw William HUGHES fined 10s for tethering a vicious mule on the highway at Sandford Orcas – it is unclear if the additional fine of 6s 6d for damage to a constable’s bicycle was because the mule or William caused the damage!
The Bere Regis police station seems to have had a flexible approach to managing the safety of the highway and the need for a hawker’s licence. In December 1929, Mrs HUGHES left 5s at the police station in anticipation of a fine for camping on the highway, but it did not stop a 10s fine being issued to her husband, Jesse in December 1929.
When Eliza HUGHES was hawking without a certificate, she faced a fine and costs of 3s 6d; the police super replied to her defence that she could not afford the certificate by saying he would often issue a certificate and allow payment once it had been earned through hawking. Six months later in September 1882, Eliza fell foul of the law again and faced a fine and costs of 13s 6d for hawking without a certificate at Winterbourne Kingston.
Unsurprisingly, the local fairs resulted in court appearances. Being drunk and disorderly at the Woodbury Hill Fair, September 1929, Saw Daniel HUGHES facing a fine and costs of 22s; while Elizabeth HUGHES was sentenced to three months hard labour for pick pocketing at the Shaftsbury Fair, December 1863.
In most reports previous convictions are not mentioned, but possibly because Arthur HUGHES did not attend court, his 39 previous convictions were noted when he failed to attend on a charge of drunk and disorderly in the High Street, Dorchester; although the summons was served by declaration in Wincanton. Non-attendance did not prevent him from being given the choice of one month imprisonment with hard labour or a fine and costs of 21s 6d in January 1906.
Although the newspaper pages covering court appearances can be a quick win for family historians, Gypsies, Romanies and Travellers, like the rest of society, naturally appear in other articles as well. There was a sad case of an inquest into a baby’s death in Broadwinsor, April 1889, the death was natural, but the parents were blamed for the living conditions and not seeking medical help. Another Dorset newspaper, the Dorset County Express & Agricultural Gazette, has a report of a young boy by the surname HUGHES who was fed and housed at the Police Station at Dorchester when his father failed to collect him.
Hopefully, these few examples from well over fifty for just one surname will encourage you to consider local newspapers as a source when researching your own family. The Dorset History Centre holds local newspapers on microfilm, and you can drop in any time we are open to view these without an appointment, and make copies of material you find. We are grateful to volunteers who are helping to convert a card index to a spreadsheet to help identify articles on a wide range of topics. In the meantime, you may find stories relevant to your search – whether for individual, events or locations via the British Newspapers Archive online.
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June has been Gypsy Romany and Traveller History Month, and we hope the four blogs published this month have been of some interest and help in understanding some of the challenges faced when researching GRT ancestors.
You can find further information about researching GRT ancestors and about some specific families at The Romany and Traveller Family History Society’s website.
At Dorset History Centre, we are proud to work with Kushti Bok, Dorset’s own Gypsy, Romany and Traveller organisation which undertakes a wide variety of activities from raising awareness of GRT history and lifestyles at public events to vital advocacy work for today’s GRT people in the West Country. Kushti Bok is run entirely by volunteers so if you’d like to find out more and support their work do contact them.