----- Original Message ----- From: BaggyGenes <bagygenz@napanet.net> To: <SCOTLAND-GENWEB-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, September 27, 1999 3:30 AM Subject: Re: Would appreciate a suggestion. > Hi Edward -- Would you happen to know where one might obtain prisoner's lists > from Dunbar and Worcester? There are several other researchers who have been > trying to locate such lists, without much luck. There's evidently one ship's > list for Worcester prisoners online but nothing else. Would prisoners have > been listed in Scotland, or in England? What ports were used to send them to > the colonies? > > Any help most appreciated. > > Judy Think about it. Americans are still looking for MIAs from Viet Nam, and after WW2 there was a lot of work which had to be done in trying to locate displaced persons. 350 years ago there was not the same interest in records, and people would not have been thinking in the possibility of people coming behind having any interest in the people. The armies which fought were not full time. People either turned up or were made to turn up and marched off. Luck would be the essence of the game. A piece of paper survives, or someone copies a list into a journal which survives. The reason why, until recently, history has been the story of the great and famous is because the only sources which existed in profusion are about the great and famous. We may well know all about the guy who had his head chopped off in the Tower, and not even have the names of a dozen who were hanged at Tyburn. You ask would the prisoners have been listed in Scotland or England. Think about it. The 13,000 of the Scottish army - a Scotland which was being garrisoned by English troops marched south. 2,000 were killed and 10,000 made prisoner. What lists would there be in Scotland? Muster lists. Scotland was however undergoing military occupation. Towns were being besieged. The Scottish records were captured in Stirling, the Honours of Scotland (Crown Jewels) narrowly escaped the same, and the records were taken down to London. The ship sank which was bringing them back. In England there might be a list. At what stage would it be taken? by the NCO who was at the capture - he probably couldn't write, and hadn't paper handy. The gaoler when they got to a building? The answer is that they would probably only be listed when they were told off for deportation. Fortunately, I believe that there is a record of them (or at least a partial record of them) and I think that it is published somewhere. It is however not my subject and I only know a very little about records of interest to Americans The amazing thing is not that there are so few records of that time, but that there are so many. To get at them however you have to be actually looking at places like the PRO. Some is published, some has been transcribed and not published. Some turn up in Private collections. There is very little on the net. It is really an area where if you want to get anywhere new, you need professional support. People comment about how difficult it is to trace people on this side of the pond. Generally speaking your records are better kept. There are also more public records which have survived. There is also much more interest in genealogy in America than there is on this side of the pond. You now see why it is important to have an understanding of history and the society about which you are working. Edward Andrews St. Nicholas Buccleuch Parish Church Dalkeith, Midlothian, Scotland Visit our Web site http://www.btinternet.com/~stnicholas.buccleuch/index.htm