​Hints and Tips – Quarter Sessions
Have you considered looking at Quarters Session records to search for your early ancestors? These might help in finding more about your missing man.
The Court of Sessions was held 4 times a year. In England they started in 1388 (Wales 1535) and these courts were abolished in 1972. The courts did deal with certain criminal cases but they did much more. 
For example they supervised how the vestries administered the Poor Law, they dealt with the roads and bridges, administered the gaols, they had powers relating to the raising of the militia, setting the county rate, licensing of Public houses and much, much more. Your ancestor’s name could crop up in relationship to any of these perhaps multiple times.
Each county had to keep the Quarter Sessions records and for Lancashire they are kept at Lancashire Archives. To search for your ancestor just type in his name into the search box in the online catalogue LANCAT. (It is very similar for other counties.) LANCAT: Home Page (lancashire.gov.uk)
As an example I typed in my father’s name ‘Tom Chapman’ and got the following 
“Lived in Oswaldtwistle since aged 12 years. Used to live in New Lane. Worked for local council since returning from World War 2 Burma posting with Royal Artillery. Was with water board for 20 years. Talks about local mills, work, pay and conditions. Recalls depression and means testing. Talks about the ghost of Duckworth Hall, his part in the hoax, trick photography.” (This is not my dad, he came from County Durham.) 
Try it you might find something. This will search the whole collection not just Quarter Sessions. To limit the search to Quarter Sessions you will need to use “Advanced Search”. The result is the Reference number and often a summary of the document, as above, but to see the actual document then you will have go to the archives or pay for a copy to be made and posted to you.
Don’t limit your search to just a single name, think broader. Look for the wife, father, mother, sons and daughters but also the places where they lived, their church or their occupation etc.
Here is an example of what can be obtained with some work. I did some research in Lancashire Archives a few years ago to try and determine the names of the Manors in Lancashire and I discovered that in 1784 the government decreed that the court should contact the Lords of the Manors within the county and discover the name of the Game Keeper they employed. The head man not the underlings. This was for taxation purposes. (An account of Deputations of Gamekeeper within the County of Lancaster Registered in pursuance of an Act of … QDG/1/7)
I gathered all the data onto an Excel file and it is available in printed form at Chorley Research Centre. In it are listed the name of the Manor, the name of the Lord of the Manor and the name of the Game Keeper. It was interesting to discover that a Lord of the Manor often owned more than one Manor in Lancashire. He may have owned Manors in other counties as well. The Game Keeper might look after more than one manor. (E.g. Thomas Lees looked after 6 Manors for Sir Thomas Egerton Bart and a Thomas Lees (may or may not be the same person) looked after 5 Manors for Thomas William Coke.) Some Game Keepers are described as Gentleman or Esquire. Some 188 Manors are listed but it is not a complete list as not every Lord of the Manor replied to the deputation.
Look to see if your man was a criminal but also look for him as a publican, in prison, in the militia, in a lunatic asylum, in the police, as an insolvent debtor, could you find him in the returns of persons using weights and measures, the registration of boats, barges and other vessels used on navigable rivers (See the LFHHS database), annual returns of Freemasons’ Lodges, Taxes -Hair Powder, Hearth, Window etc., Bastardy and Filiation orders … the list goes on.
Have some fun and see what you can find. Be imaginative. Don’t assume that you can just type in a name and find him in the Hair Power tax list. The search only looks at the summary and the summary will probably not have a list of names but bastardy bonds might.
Good luck in your searches. Don’t forget that you can learn more about this topic and many others on our Family History Courses which start in September.
Next time on Hints and Tips – The Poor Laws