Genealogy Chat

Because I ought to be something more important, I'm extracting all the census references to a certain village to match its inhabitants over the years, with a view to finding out how many transcription errors there are.

I've worked out the following: Alidloton = Midleton Clagless = Dagless Fabram = Tabram But who is Erves Savey?!

But it might well help someone one day. I've been reduced to finding people on the census because they are the children of the children of someone who MIGHT be the brother of my gt gt grandmother. Two of them died young and I've discovered another was in the county lunatic asylum for over 20 years (another 'Normal for Norfolk' rellie). nell

Erves Savey? Sounds like a character in a Thomas Hardy novel! Things are getting worse, Phoenix. As you know, on my mother's side there's a distant relative who ended his days in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. On my dad's side, I knew his uncle Fred was in a lunatic asylum, after he went mad during WW2. But further back, on dad's Norfolk side, I was tracing the family of my gt gt gt grandfather, John Dunt. Oh dear! He had 4 sisters. I've just discovered one of them in Norfolk County Lunatic Asylum. He married and had 5 children. 2 of them died in infancy, one of them had an illegitimate child and never married, one other didn't marry. The only one that did marry was my gt gt grandmother Susan. But I've also found that John's brother Adam had a granddaughter who ended up in Norfolk Lunatic Asylum too, and there seem to be a high proportion of females in the Dunt family who never married. Tainted with lunacy? Not Normal Even for Norfolk??? nell

Nell, don't be too disheartened by the lunatic asylum connections. Don't forget that loads of women were locked up as mad because of 'loose' morals, depression and a thousand other reasons. There was a case of an old lady who was in the local mental hospital in the early eighties. She hadn't spoken to anyone for as long as anyone could remember. One of the other patients had a visitor one day who spoke in Polish. The old lady's face lit up. It turned out that she had been sent to England before the war by her family. She went in to service. Her family all died in a concentration camp and she fell into a deep depression. Consequently, she was no use to the family that she worked for, so they dumped her in the Mental hospital. Of course, your rellies may have been like my Grandfather's 1st wife who was mad as a hatter! Nell, any connections with Luton :-)))))))

When I worked in a psychiatric hospital in the 1970's, there was a patient there in his forties, who had been there since he was 3 - why? He was an epileptic!! maggie

Hi all We're jumping on this thread a bit, my Great Gran was also in an asylum, she chased my mother through the town with a knife when she was a child! I know that she also had epilepsy which is another reason why they use to lock people up, so fortunate that things have changed. Without saying too much, I know my Mum takes after her Nan but I think it's skipped a generation. (I'm hoping) Alarming though, that's one of the reasons I started family research to investigate those stories! It's quite interesting to look-up what the word lunatic means xx

Janet I've been to Luton! I live about 5 miles away. nell

ERVES SAVEY...........surname is Davey. can't help with the forename. Reg

Jumping in here, but this is so strange I read Bev's response 'We're jumping on this thread a bit, my Great Gran was also in an asylum, she chased my mother through the town with a knife when she was a child! ' andI thought I wonder if that was in Luton, cos we had a neighbour who cahsed someone with a carving knife down the street. Then Helen Little Nell writes 'I've been to Luton' as if she was reading my thoughts! I hadnt actually seen Luton mentioned before that as I scan read!

Got bored with that. I think Erves is actually Avis Money! Of my many Edmund Skillings I have an affection for Edmund, son of Edmund the policeman. His mother died young. Edmund signed a royal navy apprenticeship, but never went to sea. In 1871 he is a blacksmith but by 1881 he is in Norwich gaol. Reading the prison records, he is in and out of jail, for vagrancy, drunkenness and sleeping in the open air. He never married and in later censuses is in the workhouse. He is never described as a lunatic, but clearly was incapable of coping with ordinary life. (Sings - The hats, the hats of Loooton, the Luton hats! The hats, the hats of Loooton, the hats of Luton town.)

Nell Ernest??? On the subject of Lunatic Asylums, I remember as a girl living near a huge mental asylum called Calderstones. It was the size of a small town and pretty much self sufficient. It filled me with terror. A few years ago, Channel 4 did a programme about four elderly women who had been released from this place, after being there for some 60 odd years. It made me absolutely weep and rage for their lost lives. One woman, as a young girl, was a servant. The Vicar caught her making sheep's eyes at his son, who was destined for better things than a common servant, so the Vicar, with all his clout, had her locked up as a 'moral imbecile'. Another girl had an illegitimate baby, ok, but she would keep on insisting that the father of her child was her own father - a respectable businessman. The Loony bin for her. Another was a simple soul who had been dumped by her family who were upwardly mobile, the son having married well above himself and they didnt want the new posh rellies to know. These women were released into the community in the 1980s, all in their 70s or 80s, and were pathetically grateful to be allowed to live 'normal' lives. One woman said poignantly that she 'should have liked to have had children'. Olde Crone

Yep, Reggie, you're right. I shall end up subscribing to Ancestry, just to have something to do in my spare time.

Olde Crone Yes, I was wondering whether the rellies I've found were actually insane or just inconvenient. When I was growing up, I lived near various lunatic asylums - they'd been built in what was thenopen countryside, but which has been claimed as Greater London spread out - there was Warlingham Park, Cane Hill and Netherne (where Vivien Leigh was for a time). Sometimes the inmates would be allowed out - one particularly frightening chap used to be at my busstop when I went to school. I used to pray for my bus to arrive so I could escape! Now I realise he was just a lost soul, poor chap. nell