Monday 3 August 2009

Fancy Going To A Fancy Dress Party?

well back in the 1800's be careful, if you impersonated a Chelsea Pensioner or blacken your face after dark you were for the drop! theses are just two of the 222 crimes which at that time could get you hung, the Bloody Code as it was known was locked in the National Archives, but from today details of 1.4million criminal trials which took place in England and Wales from 1791 to 1892 will be available to search over the Internet, during that period 222 crimes were punishable by death and more than 10,000 men, women and children heard the judge order that they be taken to a place of execution and 'be hanged by the neck until dead', the records, launched online by family history website ancestry-co.uk, document trials and sentences for crimes ranging from the use of bad language and scrumping (stealing fruit from orchards) to mass murder, managing director Olivier Van Calster of ancestry said: 'This collection will be of great use to social historians as they contain a variety of in-depth information about crime and criminals in England and Wales during a period of great poverty, change, and ultimately, reform.' I wonder if I will find any of my ancestors on it?

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