If poor relief registers do not survive for a parish, is it worthwhile looking in parochial board/parish council minutes for information on a pauper?

The amount of information in parochial board or parish council minutes relating to individual applicants varies from parish to parish. The minutes for some parishes, particularly rural parishes, contain a lot of information, including the residence of the applicant and their living conditions, the reason for application, reasons for the application being accepted or rejected, other members of the applicant’s family and their earnings, and other comments by the Inspector of the Poor. However, for many parishes the minutes include very little information on each applicant, often containing the name and the decision of the board or council and little else. After the 1920s the minute entries may be anonymised by referring to case numbers and not to surnames. In addition, remember that searching through minute books can be very time-consuming.