Genealogy Chat

Kim I've had a look at a back copy of Family History Monthly which did an article on Lunatic Asylums and under the heading Finding Out More I quote.. "Most personal or medical records for patients are closed for 75 or 100 years to protect confidentiality, so there is now a substantial body of 19th century county lunatic asylums records available." The article gives the following website http://hospitalrecords(dot)pro(dot)gov(dot)uk/default(dot)html which gives details of the location of hospital and asylum records. Bear in mind though that way back in the early 1900's children were regularly beaten. Female medical conditions recognised today and treatable were not understood then or talked about e.g. Post natal depression, pre menstrual syndrome etc.etc. My grandmother was widowed in 1929 with 3 children and my mother told me some horrendous stories of how they were kept in line. The fact is my grandmother obviously couldn't cope. Hope you make some progress and discover the truth about your ancestor. Beryl Darlington DUR

Hi Kim It may be an idea to try and find the record of her death; assuming you know her full name. Then you could work backwards, perhaps using Kelly's to track where she may have been living. Just a thought. Hope it helps.

My mother in law is trying to find out what happened to her grandmother. Her mother told her she had run away with a doctor during 1910(approx) but refused to talk about her. Her mother did tell her (much older)sister that she used to beat her with a iron frying pan when she came home from school. She left behind 3 daughters with a loving father who apparently went to search for her in his horse and cart. We thought she may have been put in an asylum because of her beating her daughters amongst other things and because it was frowned upon at the time, so they said 'she's run off with a doctor'. Finally my question is how do we go about checking if she was in an asylum. Are we able to access their records? And can anyone come up with any other way of finding her? Our thanks to anyone who can solve this family mystery.