Go to Chester County archives and look at the Poor house records. Also the census 1850 and later will list in the right most column if people are not "right" e.g. "lunatic". When you get to the page where the poor house imnates are listed, all the reasons are there- pregnancy, imbecile, lunatic, old age, etc. Normal people stay only a short while- children would be apprenticed out, and adults who were fit, would be found jobs and discharged. Also, lots of them "absconded" that is, just left without leave. All these records are available. Anne Wiegle -----Original Message----- From: Dora Smith [SMTP:tiggernut_48@yahoo.com] Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2000 8:57 PM To: PACHESTE-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [PACHESTE] where local insane asylums and how to check on if my family were there I would like to check on if members of several of my London Britain and New Garden, Chester County and White Clay Creek, New Castle County families had any members ever put in local insane asylums. I have several families who clearly carried mood disorders, of whom many members are not accounted for. Were there any insane asylums in the area, what were their names, and how would I check to see if my people were there? Yours, Dora Smith __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ ______________________________