Genealogy Chat

Might be a silly question but i found some records online of Black Sheep indexes and i'm not 100% sure what it means. Can anyone help?

I have been on this site ages ago, but can't remember how to find it - just Google Black Sheep and it should come up. I know it was interesting. Oh now found it - Black Sheep Ancestors.com.UKprisons.

From the website: ''Black (& White) Sheep Index - Reports from various newspapers/journals etc. As this index has grown it has become ever more complicated and many of the names listed are NOT Black Sheep. They are often reports of people talking about their lives or work.'' So...the indexer has gone through local papers (and some national ones, I think) recording the names of people who appear. They have then been catagorised (there are several other indexes....police....railway....etc). As he says, some names of non-criminals appear in the black sheep index because they were mentioned in the articles in the papers. If you want to read the whole article you have to print off the application form and send of for it, along with the required payment. Merry

Have just found a couple of my ancestors on there...oh dear, hope that's not a bad thing!! Am going to order and see what it's all about. Still, the odd bit of family scandal always spices up the family research!

The index is also for police service mentions (eg in the Police Gazette) as well as criminals etc. I ordered a 'small' record about a ggguncle. It was very small - one short paragraph- but very useful and helped to fill in the picture. The site does explain that it takes him a long time to send, but it did come in the end. Can't remember how long, maybe 4-6 weeks. Anne

The indexes I ordered on 25 May arrived yesterday - that's extremely quick I think! About a week! Was really interesting because one of them I ordered had stated a name, street, year and occupation on the index - so I knew pretty well it was going to be either my grt grt grandfather or his son of the same name and occupation. I was a bit worried - I mean, finding a relative on the Black Sheep indexes you do start wondering what on earth they had done. But - just as was mentioned before - not all names on the index are actually black sheep. It turned out to be the son , aged about 17yrs, who had got into an argument with some local teens and ended up being stabbed in the back with a knife! Wow - amazing the things you can learn about your ancestors with a bit of digging around, isn't it?

There are also railway and mining accidents on the index. I sent off for two reports about accidents my great grandfather had on the railway (the second accident was fatal). I already had his death certificate and report of the inquest from the local newspaper, but thought the railway accident report might be interesting. I received the two reports yesterday and I have to say I was quite disappointed with them. It cost £10, and what I got was two A4 photocopied pages with just a very small paragraph for each accident, basically saying they were caused by his own 'want of care'. I found the newspaper inquest report better value for money, which I got from the local library for a few pence. Kath. x

Kath, I agree - they do seem a bit over-priced for what you get back. Yes, mine were both single-page photocopies (and not even clear ones at that) - but at least I had a decent amount of information in the quarter page articles. I suppose if I had travelled all the way to Colindale to search for articles it would have taken a lot of time and money (especially if you don't know what you're looking for and have to trawl through dozens of newspapers), so in that respect I suppose it's worked out cheaper and easier. But I understand what you mean...£5 for a sheet of A4 paper!

Athena, I was lucky in that I still live quite close to the library where I got my newspaper report of the inquest so it didn't really cost me much at all, and the railway report didn't give me anything I didn't already know. As you say, they weren't even very good photocopies. Never mind, you win some, you lose some!!!! Kath. x