A Trial in the Old Bailey in the 1890s
Searching for ancestors in greater London comes with its challenges. There are so many different jurisdictions and different records to search. If you are lucky the records with your ancestors have been digitized but things are still dicey if you have a common name. My ancestral name of Arment is not that common but which variations are most likely?
Different spellings were not the only challenge when I was searching back in the early 2000s. There was a group of us interested in parts of the same family line who were swapping information. Fortunately, one of our group lived in England so could go to records offices to check parish registers for birth, marriage and death records. Progress was slow.
There was hope. Some records were coming online. Free BMD, for one, was very helpful. Then about 2003 the Old Bailey Online began putting records on their website. They started with the earliest records available at first. Of course, I plugged in the Arment name just on the off chance. I hit pay direct in the 1820s records. A 14 year old named George Arment was robbed and he looked to be one of mine!
As the later years rolled out bit by bit, I kept plugging in the Arment name into the Old Bailey website. When the records for the 1840s were available I found the record of another trial involving my Arments and this time they were on the wrong side of the law. This find jump started my research and I now have a better idea about this family's life and times. This trial and its aftermath had implications that lasted for more than one generation.
Story to be continued next week.
Image:
By Various authors for Cassell
& Co. - The Queen's Empire. Volume 3. Cassell & Co. London, Public
Domain,
No comments:
Post a Comment