Genealogy Chat

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN IN A VERY UNCOMPLICATED WAY HOW SETTLEMENT WORKED. I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHEN IT STARTED AND WHEN IT ENDED. ALSO IF SOMEONE APPLIED TO SETTLE IN ANOTHER PARISH WOULD THEY HAVE APPLIED THROUGH THIER OWN PARISH OR THE PARISH THEY WISHED TO "MOVE" TO AND WOULD RECORDS OF THIS REQUEST BE HELD ANYWHERE. SORRY FOR BEING SO DIM THIS IS A WHOLE NEW AREA. BEST WISHES, JENNIFER HARRISON CAMBS.UK

Try this site http://www(.)victorianweb(.)org/history/poorlaw/settle(.)html Beth :)

Settlement is considered to start in Tudor times with the advent of the Poor Law, and according to Michael Gandy is still in existence today! You weren't preventing from leaving a place, but if you looked as if you were likely to become a charge upon the parish, you would be examined in the parish you wanted to live in. Rules on and treatment of paupers changed over the ages. The most infamous rule was that an illegitimate child took its place of settlement from its birthplace, hence pregnant unmarried women would be harried out of a parish, but this did not happen throughout the period. You could change your place of settlement in various ways during your lifetime and even end up with no place of settlement at all. Records may survive in the place you have come from, or the place you've gone to, but survival rates differ amazingly. Brenda

You could try my fave site, a2a, this has settlement orders going back to about 1600, and maybe earlier for all I know. Including one very funny one, I thought, from the 1600s, a man complaining bitterly to the court that he was being tossed about from parish to parish like a stone. They let him settle! I have 90% proved my Gt Gt Grandfathers mother, she was subject to frequent settlement orders. Just need the final piece of evidence (what that will be, I dont know)

Jennifer I would endorse the usefulness of a2a http://www.a2a.org.uk/ I typed in my gt gt gt grandfather's name and found him as a witness. When I checked the original document in the archive, I found it was his examination regarding settlement. He was born in Oxfordshire, lived for a while with wife, family & father-in-law in Farnham Royal, Bucks and then moved to Stoke Poges. He was forcibly removed from Stoke Poges to Aston Rowant with his wife & their 3 daughters. Aston protested and the magistrates found that Stoke Poges had no right to turf him out, so he was allowed to stay. As far as I can tell he ended his days in the almshouse at SP, so he was clearly a burden on the parish in the end. His examination told me that he paid 6 guineas rent from michaelmas to michaelmas, that the roof of his house in Farnham Royal fell in, that he kept 2 or 3 pigs and sold the fruit from the orchard of this house. The court transcripts confirmed the names of his wife and children and their ages. nell

Hi Nell, This is a very stupid question but I'm a very stupid person! Re A2A : is the reference number to an archive in order that you can physically go to the repository and look up the details or are some of the records that they refer to actually on line? Magsx

Here's the site : http://www(.)a2a(.)org.uk/error/access.()asp Remove the brackets. It says access error but provides the link to enter, if you read it carefully. I found brilliant documents there which proved our family connection from New Zealand to Norwich, added information about interim settlement in Australia, and provided a family will! Good luck to anyone else who tries it. Sue (in NZ)