February | 2023 | The Family Mess

I had written half a blog for last week’s prompt (Social Media) but hadn’t got around to finishing it before this week’s prompt came around. Sorry about it. Now on to this week’s writing!

Outcasts. My immediate thought was to look at social outcasts: the undesirables. Hobos. Vagrants. Tramps. Vagabonds. The demonisation of the poor is nothing new, and something that is still prevalent in society today. In fact, in the UK, the first piece of legislation making it a crime to be unemployed (known as idleness) dates to 1349. A vagrant was a person who could work but chose not to and, having no fixed abode or lawful occupation, begged. Vagrancy was punishable by being branded or whipped.

I’m pretty sure that if this was suggested today that a surprising (or not so surprising??) subset of the population wouldn’t have a problem with it.

(more…)

This week’s prompt seemed a bit familiar, so I checked my Archive from 2020 and here is the first time I wrote on this theme. All of that still holds just as true today as it did back in 2020 – and no shade to Amy for recycling prompts!

I’d like to think that with experience comes wisdom and that I am less prone to research oopsies. Still, this past week I did order a birth certificate for a suspected illegitimate Holborow birth which I discovered 20 minutes after submitting the order had been double registered with the obvious birth father’s name as well. So I am definitely not saying I am infallible. (And, yes, it was incredibly irritating.)

But have there been any earth-shattering oopsies in my research, something that has meant unpicking an entire family line and/or hours of research? Or have I ever uncovered someone else’s oopsie?

(more…)