Settlement certs/examinations general chat.

[coombs]

A general discussion about settlement records and how they can be worth their weight in gold. The survival rate is patchy as we know but the surviving ones can be great.

They were only really for paupers or people who may be likely to receive relief in the future. It is a myth that everyone who moved to a new parish needed a settlement cert. Also peoples places of legal settlement could change over time, it doesn't mean they were born there, as there were other qualifications for settlement such as renting a property worth £10 or more, or having been hired as an apprentice to someone legally settled, of have lived in the parish for 40 days without complaint.

My ancestor was subject to a settlement examination in a parish and it said that he was bound apprentice to a shoemaker in a previous parish for 7 years but they agreed to part after 4 years when he turned 21. It must have been a pauper apprenticeship as it is not listed in the register of duties paid on Ancestry and FindMyPast. A subsequent settlement cert said he was legally settled in the parish he served an apprenticeship with. He was not born there.

He stayed in the parish he was subject to a settlement examination but I think the previous parish said they would take him back if he ever needed poor relief. He remained a shoemaker and stayed in the parish until he died in the early 1800s.

[Top-of-the-hill]

  Not part of my family history, but a sad story I came across dating from 1670 of a case at Quarter Sessions. Mary was the widow of a probably fairly poor gentleman, and had been living for a while at a friend's house in Canterbury, as she was "aged and had been very ill". (In fact she was only about 44) She wanted to return to her home in a nearby village where she had lived for many years "and paid all dues willingly as long as she was able", but the officers and some of the parishioners refused to let her come into the parish. (Presumably because they could see she would be a charge on the parish.) She asked the court to confirm her settlement there and 2 of the local magistrates were ordered to look into it. 
   There was a sequel, as she was back in court 2 years later. It seems she was grudgingly accepted back, but the parish officers had not been paying her rent! They were ordered to pay the arrears, and future rent.   
    Of course, I couldn't leave it at that, and found out all I could about Mary. She was the daughter of a (very) minor canon of the Cathedral, baptised in 1626, and married in 1648. There were 2 children and her husband died in 1665.Soon after his death she petitioned the Cathedral authorities for assistance, "being lame and in a miserable condition". Her son pre-deceased her and possibly her daughter as well.
    A life, it seems, of genteel poverty, lived through the time of Civil War and the Commonwealth.       

[coombs]

A certain family of mine in Suffolk moved around a few times and were subject to settlement certs. I even held the original settlement record when i was at Ipswich in 2006. Holding a 200 year old document felt brilliant.