Hi folks, This is a fairly common term in New England. Here's an article on it: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~pluralsm/98wrb/intro.htm And part of a review of a book on Warnings Out in Rhode Island, reviewed in The William and Mary Quarterly. Full review here: www.wm.edu/oieahc/wmq/Jan02/HerndonJan02.pdf Volume LVIV, Number 1 William and Mary QuarterlyReviews of Books 2002, by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture Unwelcome Americans: Living on the Margin in Early New England. By Ruth Wallis Herndon. Early American Studies. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. Pp. xvi, 243. $49.95 cloth, $18.95 paper.) Between 1750 and 1800, Rhode Island towns warned out thousands of unwelcome transients. The warning out system, used throughout New England, provided the means whereby town officials ensured that transients did not become eligible for poor relief in whatever community they were passing through. The settlement laws determined who had the legal right of residence in a particular town and hence who would be supported by that town if they fell on hard times. This wasa system the colonists had brought with them from England, and for the most part, it ensured that everyone, pauper and property-holder alike, had some place where he or she be! longed. But in the increasingly mobile society of the late eighteenth century, the system became overburdened with large numbers of transients moving around New England in search of work, family, or opportunity. Town officials spent a considerable amount of time keeping track of transients, warning them out, and sending them back to their supposed hometowns should they appear likely to require poor relief. Ruth Wallis Herndons Unwelcome Americans casts new light on the lives of the transient poorin Rhode Island during the second half of the eighteenth century. Herndon begins her analysis with a statistical overview of the close to 2,000 persons warned out of Rhode Island towns between 1750 and 1800. The vast majority of transients were natives of Rhode Island or newcomers from neighboring colonies or states; a mere 3 percent had emigrated from the Old World. Poverty in eighteenth-century Rhode Island was very much a home-grown phenomenon. As today, so in the eighteenth cen! tury, poverty afflicted women and children disproportionately. Children figure prominently in the records, as do women and persons of color. Some two-thirds of the transients ...... ----- For more info type www.google.com and then "Warning out". Press <return>. Read, read read. Best of luck! Linda Merle ________________________________________________________________ Sent via the WebMail system at mail.fea.net