Find your ancestors in City of York calendars of prisoners 1739-1851

What can these records tell me?

Included in this collection are records from calendars of prisoners from York Castle, handwritten until circa 1775 and printed from 1769 to 1851.

Both transcripts and images are provided with every result in this collection.

  • First name(s)
  • Last name
  • Age
  • Birth year
  • Year
  • Calendar
  • Sessions month
  • Sessions year
  • Crime arrest date
  • Address
  • Place
  • County
  • Country
  • Archive
  • Archive reference
  • Record type item
  • Year range item

The images provided will often provide additional information about your ancestor such as occupation, crime committed and against whom, and sentencing details.

For example, from the image for Luke Wright, aged 11, we read the following: ‘Luke Wright, late of the parish of Rotherham, in the County of York, shoemaker, committed the 7th day of April, 1810, charged by the Coroner’s Inquest, on view of the body of Matthew Anderson, lying dead at the parish of Rotherham aforesaid, with feloniously stabbing, killing, and slaying the said Matthew Anderson.

Details of sentencing can be particularly useful in your family history research. If your ancestor was sentenced to transportation, which could explain why they disappear from English records and can help you discover where they were sent to and how long they were required to stay there. The records could also explain why your ancestor was found where he ought not to be; for example, Thomas Milner was found ‘guilty of feloniously, and without lawful cause, being at large within Great-Britain [sic], before the expiration of the term of seven years for which he was ordered to be transported’.