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Seeking Asylum Patient? Head To Court

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By SHARON TATE MOODY

Tribune correspondent

Published: January 25, 2009

Society generally has not been kind to those with mental illnesses or quirky personalities. Embarrassed by such relatives, their families of decades past often sent them to institutions and never talked about them again.

So how do genealogists find these individuals and restore them to their rightful place in the family history?

One approach is to search the files of the local probate court, which traditionally handles guardianships. This usually is the first stop for a family seeking to put someone in an institution.

One researcher had great results with this after a hospital refused to grant access to records on an ancestor who died in 1917 after 14 years in the facility. The probate court records, which were not closed or protected, revealed why the family thought the man was insane, including records from the physician's examination.

If you find that your ancestor died in a psychiatric facility, you can expect that he was buried on the grounds. But don't expect to find his grave site. The graves of many patients are unmarked and others are marked only with a patient number.

Not every person relegated to asylums was mentally ill. In Illinois, the 1851 Legislature passed a law that "married women and infants who in the judgment of the medical superintendent are evidently insane or distracted may be entered or detained in the hospital on the request of the husband of the woman or the guardian of the infant without the evidence of insanity required in other cases."

What a convenient way to get rid of a nagging wife!

A celebrated case stands memorial to this. In 1860, Elizabeth Packard's husband had her admitted to an Illinois institution after two doctors took her pulse, asked her no questions, and declared her insane.

Incidentally, the Rev. Theophilus Packard's grounds for accusing his wife of insanity were that her Christian beliefs conflicted with his Calvinistic teachings. (To read about this case in Elizabeth Packard's words, go to www.archive .org and type "marital power" into the search field.)

Censuses offer another way of identifying ancestors with mental issues. The easiest way to research the census is through Ancestry.com. The site allows you to search and see a list of names as the results of that search, but you will not be able to view the documents on your personal computer without a subscription. You can access it for free via the computers at Hillsborough County public libraries.

Censuses began in 1790 and are taken every 10 years. But they're protected for privacy reasons and available for research only after 72 years; the 1930 census is the most recent one open to the public. Early censuses asked very few questions, so the earliest in which you likely will find evidence of mental illness will be 1850.

At the Ancestry site, enter the individual's full name in the search box. If that doesn't produce a result, take a virtual side trip to learn names of mental institutions that existed in the county where your ancestor lived. You can ask at the local library, genealogical society or historical society.

By typing "insane" into Ancestry's keyword search box, I got hundreds of hits, and it was fairly easy to sort through the various states.

There were no attempts by census takers to disguise the facilities or protect anyone's shame or embarrassment. You can expect to find facilities called insane asylums and poor houses, hospitals for the insane, and county homes.

Try putting the name of the facility into the Ancestry census search engine. If you get a hit, click on the link to the specified page in the census to see a list of all the patients and staff living in the facility. Unfortunately not all facilities were put into the index, in which case you must face the tedious task of searching census page by page in the county in which you know the facility was located.

Researching these records reveals some sad lives. In the records of the Beaufort County (South Carolina) Home, I found an entry for a 50-year-old black man born in North Carolina and identified only as "Hump Back Sam" with a notation of "insane" by his name.

In the Louisiana State Insane Asylum I found 30-year-old "Silly Charley." He probably was dubbed that by a staff member who knew no real name for him. One of Silly Charley's fellow inmates was "Unknown Dummy," only otherwise enumerated as a 31-year-old white male. In that same facility, I found "Old Catharine" with the entry "inmate for 22 years - identity lost."

In many cases individuals with mental or emotional problems remained with their families. Next week we'll see how to use the census to gain more insight into these families.

Jewish Society Meeting

The Feb. 8 meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Tampa Bay will provide a review of research basics and explain the challenges and rewards of Jewish genealogy.

Bill Israel will present "Finding Your Jewish Roots; Bringing Your Past Alive" at Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services, 14041 Icot Blvd., Clearwater. A social begins at 1:30 p.m.; the program begins at 2.

Israel has spent more than 28 years researching his Jewish roots. He has traced nine generations of his family lines and documented more than 1,600 directly related individuals. He is a founding member of the Jewish Genealogical Society and served two terms as its president.

This program is open to anyone interested in learning how to do Jewish genealogical research. For information on the organization or directions to the meeting, call Sally Israel at (727) 343-1652.

Send your genealogy questions and event announcements to Sharon Tate Moody in care of Getaway, The Tampa Tribune, 200 S. Parker St., Tampa, FL 33606, or e-mail stmoody0720@mac.com. She regrets that she is unable to respond to requests for locating or rese

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