Did You Have Ancestors in a Poorhouse?

There have always been poor people, in every society and every time period. However, our treatment of those less fortunate has not always been exemplary. Sometimes a poor person might have had family or friends to help them out, but if not, a poor person might be dependent on the community for care, and their treatment would vary, depending on where and when they lived. If you had an ancestor who was in a poorhouse, you may want to learn more about what that meant and how to discover what might have caused them to be there. Read on for details.

Baby Gardens and Potters' Fields: Burying Babies and Poor People

With Halloween around the corner, this week seems like a good time to talk a bit about burial customs for the most vulnerable of our ancestors. In the past, we have covered several related topics, and you might want to check out some of them before we move into looking at how some infants, children, and poor people were treated at the ends of their lives.

“Did Our Ancestors Trick or Treat?” 25 October 2021

“Funeral Rituals and Traditions, Part 1” 19 April 2021

“Funeral Rituals and Traditions, Part II” 26 April 2021

“Broken Mirrors and Spilled Salt: Some of our Ancestors’ Superstitions,” 26 October 2020