Author name: Josie Mackie

The popularity of clandestine marriages in the 17th and 18th century can make it challenging to research your ancestors in the local parish registers. Unless, that is, you know where else to look.

It’s no fun being poor, and certainly not if you lived a few hundred years ago. Josie Mackie examines the requirement for paupers to wear stigmatising badges when receiving help from the parish.

If you fell on hard times in the past, there was no help from the government. If you were unable