Who Do You Think You Are? Encyclopedia of Genealogy (58 page)

A small number of foreigners would have been kept against their will in the UK, as prisoners of wars. A very limited amount of information can be found at The National Archives. WO 900/45 and 46 contain sample lists of German military personnel interned as prisoners during the First World War. General information can be found for prisoners of war in the Foreign Office records at The National Archives. WO 166 and WO 177 holds lists of names of prisoners scattered in war diaries and hospital records for prisoner of war camps during the Second World War, although no index is available for these records. Those held on a temporary basis in the Tower of London are listed in WO 94/105. Further information can be found in The National Archives' research guide no. 29.

Early records of immigrant arrivals have been discussed above in the port records section. From the late eighteenth century records began to be kept on a more systematic basis, recording the first moment an alien arrived on UK shores. Again, this was done as an attempt to monitor immigrants during the political uncertainties of the Napoleonic Wars and revolutionary fears.

The Aliens Act passed in 1816 required all ships' masters to list all aliens on their vessel and provide physical descriptions to the appropriate authorities. Surviving lists can be found in The National Archives series HO 3. The series is arranged chronologically but there is no name index to the series. There is little surviving material from 1860 to 1866. However, as this system was not thorough and many people arrived without being officially recorded, lists after 1869 were not retained.

The National Archives series BT 26 holds inward passenger lists. These were compiled from 1878 to 1960, although the bulk of the records start in 1890. The series only contains lists for those journeys that originated outside Europe and the Mediterranean (although if the vessel made a stop en route to these parts then passengers would be included in the lists). The master of each vessel was legally required to detail the name of each passenger, their age and occupation and occasionally their intended residence within the United Kingdom. These lists would then be given to the appropriate customs officer. The records are stored by port of arrival, date of entry and ship name. As there is no passenger name index to date it is only feasible to search the series if the name of the ship is known. It is possible to search the series online by the name of the ship.

If you only know the port of arrival of your ancestor you may be able to find which ship he or she would have arrived on by using BT 32. The registers in this series state which ships arrived at each port and their date of arrival annually from 1906.

After 1960 no such inward passenger lists were kept as air travel had largely replaced travel by sea. However, it may be possible to find similar information after 1960 in the archives of private shipping companies.

An important migrant community in the UK was the Jewish community, who initially came to the country with the Normans after 1066. The community was subsequently expelled by Edward I in 1290. In his Edict of Expulsion he demanded that Jews convert to Christianity, leave
the country or be put to death. After this edict there was no Jewish presence in England until the sixteenth century, when a very small number arrived from Portugal and settled in London. Significant numbers of Jewish immigrants did not arrive until after 1656, when Oliver Cromwell rescinded the Edict of Expulsion. Since this time, there have been various waves of Jewish immigrants arriving from all over Europe up until the end of the Second World War.

As mentioned, the earliest Jewish community in England was expelled in medieval times. Hence, it will not be possible to trace any individual lineage back to this medieval community. Nevertheless, there is ample documentation recording the presence of this community in various contemporary records during the thirteenth century. These can be found in civil litigation and taxation records in the Exchequer series at The National Archives.

The earliest modern Jewish community settled in London from about 1655 onwards. However, over the next hundred years or so further communities established themselves in other major towns of England and Wales, and by the end of the eighteenth century there were almost 30,000 Jews living in Britain. There was another wave of Jewish immigration as they escaped persecution in Eastern Europe during the late nineteenth century. In fact the numbers arriving were large enough to cause concern to the British government, who passed the Aliens Act of 1905 to curtail this flow. The Jewish community was made up of two distinct branches – the Sephardic Jews (who arrived from Mediterranean countries such as Spain, Portugal and Italy) and Ashkenazi Jews (who were originally from Central and Eastern Europe).

If you find a Jewish ancestor during the civil registration period, they can be traced using the same sources as for other ancestors, by using the census and other civil registration records (see
Chapters 5
and
6
). However, this can be complicated by the fact that many Jews chose to anglicize their names, or Jewish names would often be spelt incorrectly. Prior to 1837, synagogues would record life events. These registers may still be at the appropriate synagogue as there was no requirement to submit the registers to the Registrar General in 1837 (as happened with non-conformist bodies).

Synagogue records can be complicated to use as many are in Hebrew and use the Jewish calendar. Additionally, there were no baptisms; rather new-born boys would have the date of their circumcision recorded (usually eight days after birth) by the circumciser
(mohel).
This information would be kept by the
mohel
and locating the surviving registers is very complicated. (Further assistance can be obtained from contacting the Board of Deputies of British Jews, at www.bod.org.uk.)

Jews were exempt from the requirement's of Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1753 (see
Chapter 7
) and so marriages took place in synagogues. Synagogues would not necessarily keep a specific register, but may keep copies of the marriage contract (
Ketubah
). Some marriages in the early years of civil registration may not have been recorded due to ignorance of the law or language difficulties, or to avoid the expense.

As mentioned, many synagogues still retain their registers. The National Index of Parish Registers (NIPR, published by the Society of Genealogists) has a list of all synagogues in Britain prior to 1838 in its third volume. This volume also has guidance on searching for births, marriages and deaths of Anglo-Jews. The Court of the Chief Rabbi in Finchley, London, has a few early registers of some synagogues in its archive. Some registers held by this institute give the person's place of birth (which is very useful if the individual was an immigrant).

Other sources that may assist in searching Jewish ancestors include:

• The Anglo-Jewish Archive:
This was originally held in the Mocatta Library, University College of London, and is now found at the Society of Genealogists or the Parkes Library at the University of Southampton. This includes pedigrees, wills and newspaper cuttings.

• The Jewish Chronicle:
This is the longest-running and most important newspaper of the Jewish community in Britain. It has been printed on a regular weekly basis since 1844 and, similar to other newspapers, carries registers of births, marriages, deaths and obituaries. It has been partially indexed and is available at numerous Jewish archives and the British Library's Newspaper archive. The entire archive is also available online at www.jc.com. It is possible to search the newspaper collection free of charge but viewing the information incurs a cost.

• The Jewish Year Book:
This has been published annually since 1896 and provides information on active synagogues.

• The Jewish Museum
(www.jewishmuseum.org.uk): The Museum is in Camden Town, London, and has a variety of genealogical books and manuscripts including family histories.

• The Jewish Historical Society of England
(www.jhse.org): This Society is centred at 33 Seymour Street, London. The Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain (www.jgsgb.org.uk) is also at the same location and publishes many references of Jewish genealogical interest.

The last great influx of Jews into the UK occurred in the 1930s and 1940s due to Nazi persecution. Their entry has been recorded in the following places:

•
 
A very small number of records can be found in The National Archives series HO 382. It is possible to search this series by the individual's surname in the online catalogue, although a few records have not yet been opened.

• The London Metropolitan Archives retains the records for the Poor Jews' Temporary Shelter. The first such shelter was established in Whitechapel in 1886 (with another being established in Kilburn a little later) and many refugees fleeing from the Nazis would have first been housed at this shelter. The surviving records include files on individual immigrants and provide useful birth and country of origin details amongst other family details.

•
 
The Jewish Refugees Committee was also instrumental in settling newly arrived refugees in the 1930s. The Committee retained approximately 400,000 personal files of refugees. The files are detailed and provide full information on birth, nationality, occupation and date of arrival. This collection is also with the London Metropolitan Archives. Some records may be on restricted access. This archive also has other useful collections for the London Jewish community, including records of the Jews Free School.

www.movinghere.org.uk

•
This is a very useful website dedicated to the history of migration to the UK over the past two hundred years. The website has been funded by the Lottery Fund and is run jointly by The National Archives and 30 other libraries and archives in the country. It explores the motivations behind migration and the experiences felt by the new migrants upon arrival. It has separate sections on the migrant experiences of the following communities: Caribbean, Irish, Jewish and South Asian. The website also includes information on how to trace the family history of each of these communities
.

•
There are personal histories of migrants arriving in the twentieth century, recorded orally, in written stories and through pictures and photographs. Many public records from The National Archives and other archives have been digitized and can be seen on this website (such as the passenger list for
SS Windrush).

Britain faced a serious labour shortage in the years after the end of the Second World War. The British government sought to remedy this shortfall by encouraging migration from its Commonwealth countries, mainly from the West Indies and the Indian sub-continent. Additionally, migrants from these countries were eager to come to Britain in order to have a better quality of life.

Colin Jackson was born and brought up in Wales, but knew that his parents came from Jamaica in the 1960s. After talking to them, Colin was able to piece together some of his history. His maternal grandfather, Dee, arrived in Cardiff in 1955 to find work, and brought his children with him. His wife Maria elected to stay behind, and returned to her native Panama to look after her sick father. Although she tried to keep in contact with her family, Dee did not pass on any of her letters to their children, fearing they might leave for Panama, and consequently the family lost contact with her. In the meantime, Dee bought a house in Cardiff, and rented out a room to other economic migrants from Jamaica, who in 1962 included Colin's father, Ossie.

Given the range of ethnic backgrounds associated with Jamaica, Colin wanted to investigate his mixed heritage. Colin was able to use archives in Jamaica to trace his father's family through various birth and marriage certificates to his mother, Marie Wilson, and her parents, Jacob Wilson and Eugenia Stewart. Still using certificates and parish records, Colin found that Jacob's father was Adam Wilson, an emancipated slave who was linked to the Greenmount plantation owned by Valentine Dwyer. Although Adam died a free man in 1849, he was born in slavery and lived to see the emancipation of his people in 1834.

Colin remained curious about the European side of his heritage and dug a bit deeper. From Panama he obtained his grandmother Maria's birth certificate, which showed her father was Richard Augustus Packer and her mother was Gladys McGowan Campbell. Working further back, Gladys's parents were Albertina Wallace and Duncan M. Campbell, and the trail led back to Jamaica. Duncan Campbell was part of a large Scottish community on the island, and Albertina was his black housemaid. It was not unusual for white ‘gentlemen' to have children with their black staff. She was eventually given his house, and then worked as a prison warder – an important position at the time. Therefore her daughter Gladys would have been of mixed race, and at some time during her youth had moved to Panama.

There is a long history of West Indians heading to Panama during the various attempts to build the Panama Canal, first under the French and then under the American team in the first decades of the twentieth century. After some careful research in surviving employment records, Colin found that Richard Packer, Gladys's husband, worked on the canal in 1905 for six months, before finding employment in the hospital. He stayed in Panama until at least 1921, when Maria was born. She returned to look after Richard when he fell ill, leaving her own children to start a new life in Wales with her estranged husband Dee.

Between 1948 and 1962 there was no restriction on migrants arriving from these countries, as the need for labour was so great. Indeed, the British Nationality Act of 1948 ensured that these new arrivals could obtain citizenship with relative ease, by simply sending applications to the Home Office. The Home Office would grant certificates of citizenship, each certificate having a number. The Home Office would retain a duplicate set of the certificates issued, and these can be found in HO 334 (see below for further details).