Tracing Your Ancestors in Lunatic Asylums: A Guide for Family Historians (Tracing Your Ancestors)

by Michelle Higgs

How can you trace forebears who were patients in lunatic asylums and find out about their lives? What sources can you consult to discover their personal histories and gain an insight into their experiences? In this concise, accessible handbook, Michelle Higgs answers these questions. She provides a fascinating introduction to the subject and gives readers the means to explore the records for themselves.

She concentrates on the period from the eighteenth century through to 1948 when the National Health Service was founded and looks in particular at the Victorian era which is the most popular period for research. Using original records, contemporary accounts, photographs, illustrations and case studies of real individuals, she brings the story of the asylums and their patients to life.

Different types of institution are described such as private madhouses, county lunatic asylums, facilities for idiots and imbeciles, and military mental hospitals. Chapters look at the admission procedures and daily routine of patients, plus different kinds of mental illness and how they were treated - for instance, those with depression or mania, criminal lunatics, mothers with puerperal insanity, epileptics and soldiers suffering from shell shock. There are sections on the systems in Scotland and Ireland, as well as England and Wales. Information is provided on all the relevant sources, from wills and the census to casebooks and admission and discharge registers.

• ISBN13: 9781526744852
• Publish Date: 14 November 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Pen & Sword Family History
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 208
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Tracing Your Ancestors in Lunatic Asylums is a resource and history guide and part of a series for family historians produced by Pen & Sword. Due out 19th Jan 2020, it's 208 pages and will be available in paperback format.

I have always been interested in the personal and family side of history rather than the huge overarching wars and migrations. As a healthcare professional, medical and medical care history has been an interest of mine as well. Most of the content of this book is a well annotated discussion of the care and treatment of people who were institutionalized for mental health problems (as they were defined and understood at the time).

There are numerous case studies included here. They are often heartbreaking; the reality of daily life for many people suffering from mental illness was brutal (and short). The chapter are arranged roughly chronologically with descriptions of care and housing prior to 1800, nineteenth century and 20th century. These are followed by descriptions of the medical understanding of different illnesses, the setup and running of mental institutions of the time, different types of institutions (for the dangerous/criminally ill, developmentally disabled, as well as the treatment of mental illness in the armed forces). There is also a chapter covering different potential sources of information for the researcher trying to uncover information about a relative who might have received care for mental illness in the relatively distant past.

The appendices include an alphabetical glossary, links lists (slanted toward sources in the UK), a bibliography as well as links to modern day memorial and living history museums to visit.

As a history of mental illness and treatment in the British Isles, this book is superlative. I would say it's of moderately limited use to genealogists searching for specific information on family members. It is a poignant testimony to the often heartbreaking realities of mental heathcare in the past.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.