RootsChat.Com
England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Cambridgeshire => Topic started by: Richard A Smith on Wednesday 03 February 21 15:29 GMT (UK)
-
The 1871 census lists a man with the initials JS – full name not given – in the County Gaol in Cambridge, which was where the Shire Hall now is. JS was a 26-year-old tailor and born in Berlin. I think there's an outside possibility that this might be my great great grandfather, John (or presumably Johann) Scheu and would like to find out a bit more about this JS. Can anyone suggest how I might do this? Would JS necessarily have been tried at the local quarter sessions or assizes? Or is it possible he just spent a night in the cells for drunkenness of vagrancy without being formally charged?
-
Criminal registers for that period are available on Ancestry. Using location as Cambridgeshire 1867-1871 does not show any entry for that name but there are 15 entries where initial were J S - Smith mainly but also other surnames beginning with S
Possibly not tried in Cambridge
-
Criminal registers for that period are available on Ancestry. Using location as Cambridgeshire 1867-1871 does not show any entry for that name but there are 15 entries where initial were J S - Smith mainly but also other surnames beginning with S
Possibly not tried in Cambridge
Oh, I didn't know it was possible to do a wildcard search in Ancestry to find people with the initials JS. That's very useful to know. Thank you.
I've just done a search of the criminal registers on Ancestry for Cambridgeshire, 1867–71, and got 18 hits, none with a German-looking name. However they all seem to be records from the quarter sessions. I can't see anything from either the assizes or the petty sessions. I imagine cases at the assizes were rare enough that they're unlikely to be relevant here, but what about the petty sessions? I assume justices of the peace had the power to imprison someone, as magistrates do today. Are there likely to be any surviving records for the petty sessions?