Professor Heather Shore  of Manchester Metropolitan University is one of our key note speakers alongside Professor Helen Johnston FrHistS FHEA of the University of Hull on Researching your criminal ancestors

We spoke to Heather about the inspiration behind her fascinating work..

“My interest in crime history is long-standing, even as an undergraduate I wrote essays on historical criminals and popular disorder. This led to me to undertake my PhD which focused on juvenile crime in London in the early nineteenth century, and I’ve continued to focus my research and teaching on the social history of crime, policing and justice.

The inspiration for our talk was a project we developed which worked with members of the public to find their criminal ancestors, or indeed other ancestors who had had contact with the criminal justice system. This might include criminals, victims, police or prison officers, or even witnesses to crimes. As well as family historians, we also worked with many people who got involved with the project because they were interested in the criminal history of their own local area.

Our talk will give some context to the project and the challenges of searching for criminal ancestors; it will move beyond newspapers and other well-known sources to look at this history, and introduce some of records that can be found when individuals encounter the criminal justice system, and particularly, the prison.”

To find out more about our conference and to book a free place: https://www.qualifiedgenealogists.org/2021-conference