Genealogy Chat

Hi can someone please tell me if uoung children were put in workhouses, and were the workhouses normally close to where they used to live? London i am talking about. I have a family who i cant find on 1901 census apart from the 2 youngest children aged 7 months and 2yrs, who according to census were in a convalescent home, on looking further into it, it turns out to be a home attached to a mission house/church. Am i wrong in thinking they could have been put there because of their ages and poverty instead of a workhouse? The 3 elder children and parents are nowhere to be found. maureen

Maureen, i just found someone with her 3 kids in a workhouse in the early 1900's .Her hubby had died and she had another child,Dad not listed.Her address at the baptism was given as being in the workhouse.She had older children,maybe they didn't want to take her in.I don't know if she was destitute after her hubby died or went in when she became pregnant. Wendy

Maureen - I'm afraid I can't help, but I am interested in any answers! I have 2 ancestors in 1891 aged 7 and 3 in different workhouses in London. I cannot find their parents anywhere on the 1891. Their mother re-appears on the 1901, remarried, and the eldest is back living with her. The youngest child is in a childrens home. Never found the death of their father, though.

I have a case where 3 children were put into the Strand Union School in 1879 after their father had died. I don't know what became of their older sister. The family had lived at Greenwich. Good luck Jim

I have found some people listed in workhouses where the persons surname is not given. If you know the rough area they were living in you may be able to find them by just entering the first name and approxiamate age. I found my grandfather living with his mother who had remarried. I spent ages looking for James Tocqueville only to find him transcribed as Mitchell (mothers new name) Could they have been staying with family?

Maureen, I haven't done well at all with this line! I only found out that their mother had remarried because one of the sisters was back living with her on Census 1901, and she has an unusual surname - TIRNEY. In fact the only TIRNEYs listed on this site are mine! :-( I wonder if there are any workhouse records still in existence - does anyone know please?

Try this great site on workhouses - http://users.ox.ac.uk/~peter/workhouse/index.html Should give you lots of information and some good pointers. Cazza

Carole But there are 955 Turneys. Jim

There ARE records from workhouses. It depends which area you are looking at. My grandfather was born in the Mint Street workhouse in Southwark, London, and a very kind person on GR went to the London Metropolitan Archives for me and got me photocopies of the admittance and discharge registers for his mother and also the record of his birth. It gives the time she entered the workhouse, how long she stayed and even the fact that supper was her first meal on entering and breakfast was her last meal before discharge. I also put the name of the workhouse into Google and got a medical report about the workhouse at around the same time (pretty grim reading but fascinating stuff). Kath. x

Thanks for all the advice everyone! Jim - thanks for that - I have tried the TIERNEY variant as some branches changed it to that, but never thought of TURNEY - doh!!!