Hello Roy I agree with Gareth that Higginbotham's site is excellent for a general overview of the poor law system. As to the Narberth records... Pre-1837: try the Pembrokeshire Record Office (PRO) to see if any Narberth parish poor law records survives. 1837 -: there are a couple of options but they depend on whether your ancestors were subject to discussion/vote by the Board of Guardians. eg. there may be a record of a decision to put the sons into apprenticeship. Any such vote will be recorded in the minute books - see the archiveswales site for more details. _http://www.archiveswales.org.uk/anw/get_collection.php?coll_id=12423&inst_i d=32&term=narberth_ (http://www.archiveswales.org.uk/anw/get_collection.php?coll_id=12423&inst_id=32&term=narberth) Secondly, the Poor Law letter files held at The National Archives at Kew hold a treasure trove of information about individual cases. For these to be useful your ancestor again must have been the subject of a problem which the local guardians or other interested parties applied to the Poor Law Commissioners in London for guidance on. I have found correspondence about one of my ancestors from a do-gooder in the parish complaining that my ancestor should not be paid relief as she had no place of settlement in this parish. Search for Narberth in the TNA catalogue under class MH 12 to see what is available. _http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/default.asp?j=1_ (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/default.asp?j=1) I'd err on the side of caution suggesting that there will be something in these files for you. But you never know! If your ancestor was still alive around 1871 and in receipt of poor relief living at home or in the workhouse, then there is a sequence of bi-annual reports held at PRO that lists ALL paupers in receipt of relief in the Narberth Poor Law district. The reports also list the amount of relief paid and for what purpose eg contribution to funeral. PRO's ref is HDX 1026/1/.... If memory serves me right there are 15 reports up to about 1881. This is a great collection of documents and I found several surprises in them relating to my family. Jon In a message dated 21/01/2010 17:08:21 GMT Standard Time, tirbach@clara.co.uk writes: >In the 1861 census a relative of mine, Mary James, was described as a > "pauper." Does that mean that she would have been receiving financial > assistance from the authorities? Hi Roy Peter Higginbotham's excellent site should tell you all you would want to know about paupers and workhouses - mayb take some digging around as there's a lot on there http://users.ox.ac.uk/~peter/workhouse/index.html Gareth Genuki Wales http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/ Help Page http://home.clara.net/tirbach/hicks.html Cwmgors/Waun http://www.tytwp.plus.com/Waun/Waun.html