Findmypast is a wonderful resource for looking into your ancestry, holding over 4 billions records worldwide from Australia, to the US, Ireland to Canada. Such an abundance of records in one place and, mostly, transcribed is a boon but it can be incredibly tricky to navigate if you’re unused to the set up. This guide should will give you a comprehensive run down of the most common searches and how to avoid frequent pitfalls.
The Homepage
The homepage gives you access to your basic search functions, and family trees. It also displays any hints for existing family trees that have been created. We’ve currently got 6 or 7 trees for various inmates created and it appears that you can add as many as you require.
For us, the most important part of this section is the “Advanced search” function, as for most of names the standard search will give you over 100,000 results!
At the side of this screen shot you can see the option for “Institutions & Organisations”. This is what we’re going to focus on today. Click on this option and a useful little sidebar will appear.
Crime, Prisons & Punishment. Click this link to reach the Crime and Punishment search function.
Understanding the record sets
Prison records fall under three categories, called series on this site, PCOM (Prison Commission), MEPO (Metropolotican Police Records) and HO (Home Office).
Below is a list of what each series is, and if they’re available on FindMyPast
PCOM1 – Old Bailey (Central Criminal Court – or CCC) session papers 1801-1904. – NOT AVAILABLE ON FMP – But partially available on https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/
PCOM2 – Prison Records – The logs of incoming and outgoing prisoners at the main county prisons.
Records 1-4, 8-13, 20-42, 45-57, 59, 62, 65, 67-80, 99-106, 108-111, 113, 115, 128-138, 141-146, 153-156, 162, 165, 184, 187, 189-190, 194, 197-221, 266, 292, 296-310, 312-314, 328, 330-336, 342-348, 350, 352, 354-366, 368-391, 393, 396-398, 400-462, 465-466, 468-469, 472 are available on FindMyPast.
141 -146 are Woking Prison Specific!
PCOM3 – Male Licences 1853 -1887
PCOM4 – Female Licences 1853 – 1887
PCOM5 – Court orders for the transfer of inmates to and from prisons. Unfortunately only 3500 records are available on FMP.
There are plenty of other PCOMs, but most of these are currently unavailable online.
MEPO6 – Records of habitual criminals in the metropolitan London area. Later records do include images of some habitual criminals.
HO7 – Convict Miscellania
HO8 – Quarterly returns of prisoners at various establishments. These are not well transcribed on FMP and currently are incorrectly dated.
HO13 – Warrants and letters
HO17 – Criminal petitions 1
HO18 – Criminal petitions 2
HO19 – Criminal petitions 3
Each of these records can be searched cumulatively or individually. I would recommend an individual search, particularly if your ancestor has a common name as browsing through 600 “Thomas Williams” is quite the feat!
We hope you have enjoyed this first step on your pathway to research Nirvana, if you have any helpful tips below or have any questions regarding above, please do let us know.