missing an old rascal !!!

[bykerlad]

brand new member on this site and wish i had found it earlier.am researching my  great,great grandfather james bracken.born 1828 allegedly in roscommon(ireland).i have a census transcript with him living with his mother dolly(not sure if that is short for something else) and his wife catherine whom he married in berwick in 1855.i can trace him further on along with his children and lo and behold he ends up at 'her majesty's pleasure' in newcastle upon tyne,for what reason i dread to think !!
any information on his parents and exact birthplace would be of enormous help as i am pulling my hair out trying to trace him.
many thanks,so glad i have found this forum. 
hello to everyone,
bykerlad.

[Eyesee]

Hi Bykerlad, welcome to Rootschat.

This looks like it might be him.

England & Wales Criminal Registers 1792-1891
General Quarter Sessions, held at Guildhall, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 6th April 1881
James BRACKEN, charged with Unlawfully and maliciously wounding, sentenced to 4 months imprisonment.

So would have been locked up in 1881 census.

Ian C

[jimmijam]

Hi Bykerlad,

Have you tried the National Archives? I found several records for a James Bracken under law and order:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/search/search_results.aspx?c=CATEGORY:3:Law+%26+order+(28):C10017:&st=q&queryText=james+bracken&searchText=james+bracken&queryType=ALL&ShowAllCategories=0

There might be something here that could help tie in with Ian's record.

Best wishes, Jimmijam

[Michael Dixon]

 From the pages of the Newcastle Courant newspaper

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Fri 21 Jan 1881

John Bracken (27), Mary Bracken (25) and Hannah Cunningham (25) were sent to gaol, 2 months with hard labour for the first two, and 1 month with hard labour for the latter, for stealing 10s- 6p from William Mothersdale while in a public house in Pilgrim St, on Saturday last

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8 April 1881

James Bracken (54) shoemaker was indicted for malicious wounding Peter McGinty when in a lodging house on Silver Street on 15 Feb last.

Prisoner had received great provocation and in consideration of this, the learned recorder sentenced him to only 4 months in additional to the 2 months he had undergone .

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Source; Newcastle City Library web site

Michael Dixon

[Ruskie]

Welcome to rootschat bykerlad.

Do you already have James and family in the 1891 census? James is 61 and a boot finisher. Looks like he's on the straight and narrow by that time.  Do you have him in other censuses, and if so which ones?

Unfortunately as you probably know, a birth place of 'Ireland' means a dead end for many of us.    but some have better luck though, so there may be hope. I take it you got the birth place of Roscommon from one of the censuses? I'm going to be cynical here, but knowing he came from Roscommon is more info than many will get about the origin of their Irish ancestors. Armed with that birth place the next thing you might be able to discover is a really rough idea of a town/land that some Brackens lived/farmed in in the approximate time that your Brackens may have lived there. And that's about as far as you're likely to get. Sorry to sound so doom and gloomish and I hope someone will be able to tell you otherwise. Some have had success with Irish research. 

If you have him in a census with his mother Dolly, perhaps other members of his family also came to England. Do you have James's marriage certificate which should give his father's name? Have you looked for others with the surname Bracken in the same area?

I'd better sneak off now ...

[bykerlad]

Thanks so much for the replies regarding my thread.
Eyesee and jimmijam,thanks very much for the criminal records,now i know what he did to deserve his sentence.
Ruskie, thanks for the info about Irish history,it is frustrating trying to trace anyone back there.
The address i have him with mother Dolly(dorothy) is in Berwick 1851,as i said his wife Catherine is there with him.i originally traced his marriage to Catherine to 1855 in Berwick her maiden name was McDonald but i have since found that a James Bracken married a Catherine (nee leunan) but way back in 1850,also in Berwick.
This would be the more likely of the two as james and catherine's first child was born in 1851 also in berwick,just gets more complicated eh.
Anyway,once again thanks for the warm welcome and interesting responses.
kind regards,
bykerlad

[bykerlad]

I  also in my haste forgot to thank Michael Dixon for his very informative reply,my mind was racing following up the links everyone has kindly passed on.

bykerlad.

[Ruskie]

Well, looking at that 1851 census, there are quite a few siblings for James.  It also looks like the 1850 marriage may be the right one, because in the 1851 census Catherine is his wife.

In 1851 there is another slightly younger Irish born James Bracken lodging in Liverpool. I wonder if he marries the other Catherine in 1855. Big co-incidence if that is the case. 

Might be a good idea to purchase that 1851 marraige certificate to find out both James and Catherine's father's names.

I did think it odd that James was a blacksmith in 1851, though perhaps this is not that different from shoemaking .... 

PS. Forgot to ask - how do you know that Dolly is James' mother? In fact her surname looks a bit different. I know it has been transcribed as Krucken.  I can also see Bracken when I try, but the letters appear to be a bit different ...   

[Michael Dixon]

Bykerlad,

I think there are dangers in you making assumptions about how big a "rascal"
was James Bracken.

When I saw the sentence, provided by Ian, I thought 4 months for "malicious wounding" was very lenient.... it should have been more like 4 years.

But as the Recorder points out during the trial, James was under " great provocation".

Was James "more sinned against than sinning"  (King Lear)

I covered about 25 years of the newspaper 1870-1895.... and this crime was his only one I could see !
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Roscommon, together with Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim, etc were particularly hard hit by the famines of 1840s, and many folk from these counties ended up in Northumberland and Co Durham ( sometimes via Lancashire, Cumberland, west of Scotland, east of Scotland) looking for shelter and work.
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 The "Instructions to the Householder" given to each householder before the census date,  gave this for completion of the "Where Born" column... (1841 census was different).

" If born in England or Wales write the County and Town or Parish"

"If born in Scotland or Ireland ...... etc..... state the County.."

So Ireland-born folk were not instructed to state their place or parish of birth.
However, many Irish folk ( at least in Northumberland and Co Durham) did sometimes add names of towns/villages/parishes to the county of their birth, and some enumerators transcribed this additional info to the census sheet.

In Northumberland on 1851 census about eight different places within the county of Roscommon are listed as birth places.  On the other side of the coin, many are recorded without even a county of birth.... was this slackness on behalf of cenusus enumerator or did these Irish folk just not know in which county they were born... was there any reason for them to know ?

Anyway, I tracked my Slgo and Mayo folk through all the England censuses- still waiting for a Sligo clue, but on Census 1891 bingo, I  was rewarded with a specific parish in Mayo.

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Also be aware that Roman Catholic church records in Northumberland and Durham can reveal extra bits of info.  The priests recording info in baptisms and marriages were usually Irish-born themselves, and some added info on root places in Ireland.  One particular priest ( St Patrick's Felling) in marriage records not only added home parishes of the spouses, but entered the four parents of the couple with their parish details and the maiden names of the two mothers !

In the Newcastle area in mid 1800s, the Irish used St Andrews and St Mary's.
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If you get a moment google " irish naming pattern" !

Good Hunting
Michael Dixon
Newcastle