19th cent. school lists as research material

[Eve Mary]

Sometimes my research leads me to census records of Jewish schools, with long lists of pupils' names. I'm curious to know if anyone has found these lists a useful source for tracing connections.
Did people send their kids to the same schools their kin/friends/business associates did?
Did pupils form connections at school that led to marriage, business partnerships etc?
No doubt the answer is yes at least sometimes. But I've wondered if it's worth recording the pupils' names and tracking their families to fill in some gaps.
Any thoughts?

[Pam Downes]

But I've wondered if it's worth recording the pupils' names and tracking their families to fill in some gaps.

My big question is - why?
To me that's as illogical as tracing the families of people who lived in the same street as my granny to see if any of them might be related to her.
I have some less-common surnames in my family so do record instances I find of those names local to the area in which my lot resided, 'just in case'.

If there's someone with a surname that's in your family tree (or linked to the family in a business connection) then by all means record it, though hopefully you should be able to take that person back to an earlier census to find out who the parents were, and then bring them forward to see what their occupation was in later census. And then expand from that.

Otherwise I wouldn't bother.

Pam

[Lesley Robertson]

From a completely different angle, some of the people who’ve helped me a lot have been the ones who collect info that isn’t related to their own research. Sometimes building a database of nearly random info turns into something very helpful to the Genealogy community. My own One Place Study began as a list of the people who had previously lived in my Partner’s house. I have no family connections in that county.

Do be warned, it can get quite addictive....

[Eve Mary]

Aha! A researcher who understands my approach.

Pam, in many instances, tracing the families of the people who lived across from your Granny - to use your own example - would be a very sensible approach. In fact, checking out who is in neighbouring households in census records is good practice, especially for groups of immigrants, or families who didn't move far. (In my own apartment building there are several Philipino households who have familial or community ties.)

I research in what probably appears to be a haphazard way, but it isn't. I'm not good at having a specific goal and aiming for it in a linear fashion. I get too easily sidetracked. But I do collect a lot of bits and pieces along away and often, sometimes years later, will find other pieces that tie in with them and connect them to "my" family.

I also look for patterns. Details like occupation, for example, can be very useful in locating links between 18/19th century Jewish families. Hence my wondering about youngsters, the schools they went to, and their ties to schoolmates. I probably won't go as far as recording all 100 pupils from a school in which I recognise only one name, but that doesn't mean that others haven't used this approach. Especially with a relatively small population such as British Jews of the 19th century. The poorest kids would be taken out of school early and sent to work, those who weren't would have gone to local schools, and the kids of wealthy families would have had governesses/tutors. The number of kids going to boarding schools would have been very few, I imagine. Without knowing under what circumstances parents shipped kids off, or how they made their choice of school, we can't say that we're likely or unlikely to find patterns of connections between families.

[phillip]

Eve and others
See JewishGen UK Data base with specific reference to the Jew's Free School pupil records 1856-1907 and also the National Archives Records -Westminster Jews Free School; Jews Free school Camden, Spitalfields Bell Lane Jews Free school, - these records are held at the London Metropolitan Archives.

The Jewish Chronicle Archives provide a very useful background to the high status placed by Jews on children's education which continues to the present.

I have found important records on my own line and associated ones among the school data and there are examples of later close relationships through marriages or business. However, I tend to be a magpie and note possible links based on last names which may or may not bear fruition.

Phillip