What a great find this website is, well it would be if I had any ancestors in West Sussex! I lived in Horsham in Sussex many years ago, but didn’t have to apply for a payment from the poor box so really have no reason to think it will be of use to me in my research!

However I can appreciate the work that went into create this database and how invaluable it is to those with ancestors from West Sussex. The database covers the period 1635 – 1835 and give access to the poor law records in this database as follows:

• Search gives Poor Law Record lists against Surname, Forename, Year and Parish parameters
• Surnames gives alphabetic surname listing of all those people listed in the Poor Law Records
• Parishes gives a listing of all those parishes whose Poor Law Records are included in this database
• Order Types gives a listing of all the many different types of Poor Law Records
• Years gives a listing of all the years for which there are Poor Law Records

The database is the work of the Sussex Record Society and they are to be congratulated on it.

http://sussexrecordsociety.org/plhome.asp?an=&ap=

Ancestry.co.uk have just announced the release of another one million Poor Law Records scanned from the London Metropolitan Archives. So if you didn’t find your ancestors the first time you searched this collection then it’s worth while doing another search.

Here is their press release…………

In March this year, we released our first set of Poor Law Records. Now, only a few months later, we’re delighted to announce the release of one million more of these fascinating records.
Since Elizabethan time, the poorest in UK society had recourse to some form of relief by virtue of the Poor Law. Poor law relief generally applied to the poorest and most vulnerable individuals such as the elderly, orphaned, unemployed, or the sick and afflicted. These individuals were eligible to receive help such as monetary relief and other daily necessities like food, clothing, and work – usually administered via the dreaded workhouses. Children could be appointed to apprenticeships or placed in schools and other institutions. The records also include registers of creed, school, apprentices, servants, children and inmates among others.
A significant development occurred in 1834 when the Poor Law Amendment Act went further and created boards of guardians responsible for the care of the poor in their respective Poor Law Unions – administrative areas usually consisting of a group of individual parishes.
It is the paper trail created by these boards that now comprises this intriguing collection, and we’re happy to say that more than one million additional records covering the period from 1834-1940 have now been added to the site.

http:/www.ancestry.co.uk

The records for the Workhouse at Southwell, Nottinghamshire are now available online at

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/workhouse.asp

There is no charge for downloading these documents as it is a joint project with The National Trust & a group of volunteer. All genealogists are going to have ancestors who had contact with the workhouse and feature in the records created by these institutions. The above link is a great way to get an understanding of the workhouses and their records.

Southwell Workhouse is the best preserved workhouse in England and comes under the car of The National Trust. Again it is worth visiting the web site page for Southwell.

And finally no post would be complete without mention of the wonderful web site run by Peter Higginbotham that tells you all you ever wanted to know about The Workhouse!

http://www.workhouses.org.uk/