Prison & Arrest Records

The webste, I Dream of Genealogy, has a section dedicated to Prison & Arrest Records that you may find useful in searching for your US blacksheep ancestors. The records are for the states of California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana & New York.

Arr Mates!

Check out this extensive list of pirates, privateers & buccaneers. The links lead to interesting biographies of characters like Blackbeard AKA Edward Teach and Mary Read. Also worth a mention is the link to Captain William Kidd, it contains an excellent genealogy of the pirates family.

US Department of Corrections

The Corrections.com, the official home of corrections, is a site that offers an easy to use list of links to all of the various Department of Corrections. The DOC for each state provides a variety of information that ranges from the history of a jail or prison to the last statements of executed inmates.

Here is the link Corrections.com

Illinois State Reformatory, 1930 Index of Prisoners

There is a huge list of prisoners for the Illinois State Reformatory at Blacksheepancestors.com. The list of prisoners, for the year 1930, is broken down into surnames and alphabetized for ease of searching. You can view the list at the following links:

Illinois Reformatory (A - B)
Illinois Reformatory (C - D)
Illinois Reformatory (E - G)
Illinois Reformatory (H - J)
Illinois Reformatory (K - L)
Illinois Reformatory (M - O)
Illinois Reformatory (P - Q)
Illinois Reformatory (S)
Illinois Reformatory (T - Z)

Happy Hunting!

Family Tree Magazine

I'm pleased to announce that Blacksheepancestors.com was honoured with Family Tree Magazine's award for 101 Best Undiscovered Family Websites 2005. You can view the article about it and read about the other websites selected for this award at Family Tree Magazine. Blacksheep Ancestors is under the Document Discoveries section of the page.

Crime Library

The Crime Library is a rapidly growing collection of more than over 600 nonfiction feature stories on major crimes, criminals, trials, forensics and criminal profiling by prominent writers. The stories focus mostly on recent crimes, but an expanding collection also delves into historically notorious characters, dating back to the 1400s and spanning the globe.

If you would like to check out the Crime Library, here is the link http://www.crimelibrary.com/

South Carolina & Georgia Prison Records

Blacksheep Ancestors has put some more lists of prisoners up for South Carolina and Georgia.


Clarendon County Chain Gang, South Carolina

Spartanburg Convict Camp, South Carolina

Greenwood Convict Camp, South Carolina

Franklin County Convict Camp, Georgia

Washington County Chain Gang, Georgia

Finding Criminal Ancestors in England and Wales

Criminal Ancestors - A Guide to Historical Criminal Records in England and Wales. (mainly Victorian).
Author - David Hawkings

When a family historian discovers a criminal way back in the family tree he or she needs to know how to trace that person. David Hawkings here offers practical in-depth guidelines for researching these criminal ancestors, many of whom were 'obliged' to steal for mere survival and suffered imprisonment for the most trivial offences. His pioneering study includes surveys of material held by all county and Borough Record Offices, the Public record Office, police archives and other repositories, as well as numerous examples cases and illustrations, appendices with source material, and a case history to show the extent to which one individual criminal can be researched. Available for the first time in paperback, this unique and richly detailed book provides the essential research and reference tool which no genealogist, social historian, criminologist or the merely curious should be without.

If you are interested in learning more about this book you can visit the following

http://www.heritagemp.com/cstock/i56643book.html

Prisoner Databases

BlacksheepAncestors.com has a few new free prisoner databases online for people to check out.

Stringer Convict Camp, Alabama
http://blacksheepancestors.com/usa/alabama_stringer.shtml

Miller County Chain Gang, Georgia
http://blacksheepancestors.com/usa/georgia_miller.shtml

Georgia Penitentiary Convict Camp
http://blacksheepancestors.com/usa/georgia_greene.shtml

Oconee Convict Camp
http://blacksheepancestors.com/usa/georgia_oconee.shtml

Notorious Ancestors

Notorious Ancestors is an interesting site to take a look at and perhaps even share some of your own stories on.

Was your ancestor interesting, a family skeleton,"Renegade, Rebel or Rogue"? Or did they cross paths with historical or legendary figures? We all like a good story...Chronicle the exploits of your ancestors at http://www.gensearcher.com/notorious.html

United Kingdom Blacksheep

Its hard to find one place to get information on your United Kingdom Blacksheep Ancestors. Check out these links to help make your searching easier.

United Kingdom Prisons and Convicts
http://blacksheepancestors.com/uk/prisons.shtml

United Kingdom Executions
http://blacksheepancestors.com/uk/executions.shtml

United Kingdom Outlaws & Criminals
http://blacksheepancestors.com/uk/blacksheep.shtml

United Kingdom Court Records
http://blacksheepancestors.com/uk/courts.shtml

Hopefully one of these links will help lead you to your elusive blacksheep ancestors!

Blacksheep Ancestors

There are a lot of knew prison records on line with lists of prisoners in over 20 states in the US on Blacksheep Ancestors. These should prove very useful in finding your elusive blacksheep ancestors.

For a complete list of all prison records in the US on blacksheep go to: http://blacksheepancestors.com/whats_new.shtml

Happy hunting!

IBSSG

The International Blacksheep Society of Genealogists at http://blacksheep.rootsweb.com/ is a great site to go and discuss, as the name implies, your ancestors in the family tree that were known criminals and outlaws.

The purpose of the Society is to discuss these individuals in order to learn more about them and share information about your "Black Sheep" with other members of the IBSSG! Many times having a Black Sheep in the family leads to a family "wall of silence" and research into the family becomes very difficult. The Goal of IBSSG is to help find alternate routes to information sources, and to "normalize" the view of the blacksheep as a person, who has a place in the FACTUAL history of the family, without regard to behaviors.

Remember, the acts may be embarrassing to others in your family, but within the Society, you are not alone!