Tracing Deaf Relatives

[MercianQueen]

Google has not served me well so hoping for some creative suggestions to a bit of a niche problem!

I'm tracing my husband's family tree. In some ways it's really easy as they've stayed in one place for centuries. But I'm drawing an absolute blank on one side of the family - literally can't get past one parent.

GPs and GGPs on this side were deaf and dumb (apologies if that's not the right term now, it's not meant insensitively). I suspect that's the reason records are patchy / non existent. Added to which it's a very problematic family set-up, I can't help my husband identify his grandparents 😢

I need a very specific resource or study looking at pre 1960s deaf / dumb people in the West Midlands. There was one charity in charge at the time, but website gives a broken link, and I can find nothing else online. We are within a day trip of the area so can visit a local archive if needs be, I just don't know where to start!

I don't think the deafness should be a factor - deaf children had their births registered, they married and died like hearing people. Have you obtained a birth certificate for the person / people you are struggling with? That should give you details of parents, then go back from there.

How are you getting on with this now @MercianQueen? Have you got any further?

I have deaf ancestors but have not seen it in any documents other than census reports. But they were home educated so that is probably why. Two of them married but deafness was was not on their registration.

I watched a series on the night shifts in 1999/early 2000 called "deaf century" or "the deaf century".

It was a documentary about deaf people's experiences over the 100 years. If I remember correctly, many deaf people were put into institutions/asylums.

After a while it was forgotten that they were deaf, and the staff working there didn't know.

It's possible that if this happened, that they were sent to the local asylum and died there.

I remember someone on the documentary saying how when they had been into one of the old mental health hospitals, they had been told there were no deaf people there.

Then someone said there was a patient who never spoke. When they approached and started signing, the patient signed and they spoke. Heartbreaking.

m.imdb.com/title/tt1776148/

It was Channel 4 - Deaf Century 1900- 1999.

It was almost 23 years ago, but it's stuck with me. My mother was deaf.

Thank you all, and apologies for the tardy response. I am drawing an absolute blank. I take the point that "deafness shouldn't be a factor", but there are a lot of factors which would have pushed them under the radar. Hence I was hoping that there might be a resource that could help.

My relative (still living) was born into a family in the 40s. All the immediate family were deaf and dumb - relative was the only hearing member. There was also a very low level of literacy, and some abuse. Throw in a hefty dose of confusion over parentage, it's proving difficult to piece it all together. Hence my concerns about record keeping - not as a result of the deafness. Instead I'm hoping that there was some form of charity or archive which might help me find records that I can't find through the usual routes.

It feels like such a sad and hopeless case, and the thoughts about them going to an asylum are equally sad. But that would at least potentially have records - and would help me cast a bit of light on a very murky area for my relative.

I think the term now is "non verbal", OP.