We set up an appointment to go look through the Doncaster Archive.
We were a little surprised to find and old school with some signage.
The experience was one i would recommend, although strange, it was fun.
I expected a computer and some “whizzy” process to find Gypsies and Travellers in Doncaster history.
That is not what you get.
what you get is lots of little tiny drawers with index cards in, it reminded me of the first scenes of Ghost Busters. where the cards start flying around the library.
No food drink, no bags on tables no pens…….
So me and my colleague sat looking at each other, not entirely sure WHAT to do!
The staff were helpful in explaining how it worked.
The system is more archaic than we expected, so we just randomly picked “Gypsy and Traveller” surnames and started searching.
You cant use search words like Gypsy or Traveller, just surnames!!!!!!
Much back aches and “please look at this later” we found some sweet stories, some ugly stories and many references to crimes we were unaware of.
one such crime which kept being repeated seems to involve a man (we guess) being prosecuted for having a child out of wedlock.
We found Lovely pictures of George Thomas Tuby from the 1920s, he was Mayor.
Stories of Mr Hall driving his horse and cart recklessly down St Sepulchre Gate.
We ran out of time and we are unsure as to weather we can use these images for the project.
I would highly recommend any person interested in their family history, to go have a nosy in their archives. you never know what you might find!
