Thank you for sending us your latest 'Ask the Expert' genealogy questions. Elaine Collins and the findmypast team of experts have answered your questions this time round.

Elaine works for findmypast.com and has a long history in genealogy - having edited The National Archives 'Ancestors' magazine for 18 months, as well as being Chair of the Anglo-Italian Family History Society, and writer of 'The Good Web Guide to Genealogy'.

If you wish to submit a question to Elaine and the findmypast team, please email expert@findmypast.com.

Elaine is only able to answer a modest number of questions. If your question is not chosen, we do hope that you will still read the useful advice that Elaine and the findmypast team give to others, as it may relate to your own research.

Q. Having just found out that an ancestor was a prisoner at Wormwood Scrubs in 1891 how do I find out why he was imprisoned, how long he was sentenced to, where he was sentenced and when he was released? He was only 15 when imprisoned!

Firstly, it is possible that there might be a record of the ancestor towards the latter end of the series of criminal registers HO27, held at TNA in Kew. These records are arranged by county and year and are not name-indexed, so research is necessarily labour-intensive. The objective of this research would be to establish the date and place of conviction and the sentence. In turn, this might lead you to either court records or to local newspaper reports. However, without knowing more, it is difficult to be specific.
Another archive which might hold interesting material is the London Metropolitan Archive (LMA). Good online catalogues are available at A2A and Familia. Local newspapers can be found at the British Library’s Newspaper Reading Rooms in Colindale.

Q. Could you tell me the meaning of ‘Nurse Child’.

This usually means foster child: in other words, a child in the care of a family not its own and not legally adopted by them (there was no legal adoption in England & Wales till 1927). In some cases, the foster parents would have been paid to take care of the child, but not always.

Q. I am having tremendous difficulty in deciphering the uppermost rank or profession on this marriage entry of 1847. The 'General Dealer' part is very obvious, but I'm struggling with the other, and would be enormously grateful if you would offer an opinion.

The consensus here is that is might be ‘Smith’, although it is indistinct handwriting. The best way of checking would be to try to find the man in the 1841 census – now online, and see what it states as his occupation there. By the way, it’s great to imagine the conversation that led to the bride’s father stating his occupation as Gentleman, and then being persuaded, presumably reluctantly, to admit to being a ‘General Dealer’. It is not uncommon to find people exaggerating their social status in wedding certificates, and lying about ages seems almost routine – particularly in my family!

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