Showing posts with label ANCESTRY-CENSUS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ANCESTRY-CENSUS. Show all posts
12 Jan 2012
found our Annie from the Lakes in Blackburn
Annie Ward is sitting quietly at home at Troutbeck Bridge aged 12 in the census. Little did I know that once her mother died, all three girls would go off to the cotton mills of Blackburn and there find husbands. In 1911, Annie's husband just left most of the birthplaces blank. In 1901, here is Annie born in Windermere. But the Ancestry index has a garbled version which slowed me down finding her. I had to guess she'd married in Blackburn like her sisters and follow up the only possible marriage there from freebmd. Annie was the only one to have any family, and her son-in-law's youngest sister is still living in Blackburn. I'd like to know more about these Blackburn girls. Census image: Crown Copyright
Sure looks like my Ellen in Chowbent
Every so often I have a purge of hard-to-find relatives. I clapped my hands with joy when I found Ellen and her eight siblings back in the 1990s thanks to the will that never was. Little did I know that each and every one of them would prove a cow to find, across five counties. Nathan gave me microfilm finger, Anna became Elizabeth, Sarah had the same name as her step-sister, while Carrie never married her husband. And Ellen, I eventually found, had married as Sarah Ellen and moved to Lancashire. When I saw this census entry I knew I'd got her. Born in Matlock orphaned at 16, her father took the family away from that town's helpful records to Bollington where she disappeared. Until now. Thanks to the Atherton records at the online parish clerk, the Davies next generation haven't been too painful to follow up. Census image: Crown copyright
Omitted from this account is my method. Well, I wasn't really convinced that Ellen might have died between the censuses. I went through all the Ellens born in Starkholmes, before spotting the Starkholmes reference in the above census. The name Esther clinched it as it was her mother, mother of the brood of nine.
census: 'my wife's cousin', a nice clue
I love clues like these: rare, yet so very helpful. Jane Harris is named in the census image here as being cousin of the Taylors, specifically the wife Isabella. Unfortunately much of the fun of the chase went as I already guessed she was Jane Airey baptised 1836 at Troutbeck. However I didn't have her marriage, and good old freebmd showed this took place near Warrington, Lancashire. And familysearch's Cheshire records gave the parish and confirmed her father's name. The Lakes had so few people then it was easy to find Jane's remarriage, and later, her will. Which led me to a great-niece (sic) aged 90 in the Isle of Wight. Census image: Crown copyright
30 Nov 2011
A tale of two grandmothers
I can see I will have to go to Furness, the isolated bit of Lancashire accessible only by coast, from Morecambe, and now swallowed up by Cumbria. My grandmother worked at Bassenthwaite Hall during the War, inland, and later married at Ulverston Methodist Church, Furness.
Strangely, I do turn out to have family members in Furness, but nothing to do with this grandmother. It was my OTHER grandmother, born at Turnpike Lane (on the Piccadilly line) in the London suburbs, who has the Lakes ancestry, although she never lived there, and rarely had the chance to visit. She was the granddaughter of John Airey the grocer of Windermere. Or Winandermere, to give it its full name.
It was formally known as Applethwaite, or Lower Birthwaite, but I think it had always been known locally as Windermere. When the God-given railway arrived in the 1840s, up went the sign WINDERMERE, and in came the visitors. Hill-walkers, Wordsworth enthusiasts, consumptives, artists laden with oils and canvas, all the wealthy from Leeds, Manchester and London, were keen to visit England's biggest inland body of water. John had just bought a site on Victoria Street, built by an uncle, and had forty very good years in the town. The town also became a home for Annie, whose father had been crushed to death in the North-East aged 30, John's future wife.
John Airey also had two grandmothers, and the younger of these gave me much puzzlement. She was Betty born about 1779 in Troutbeck round the corner from Windermere, long before the tourists got in. She had clearly married, to Joseph Barnett, and had a slew of children, and descendants, most of them in the Furness pensinsula. There were several Bettys born about 1779 in the parish, but none of them looked very interesting.
That was until a rogue tree on Ancestry made me consider Betty might after all have been someone already on my tree! That is: Elizabeth Airey baptised in 1780 at Troutbeck. Timing was very very tight as a girl was supposedly born 16yrs later. But if we ignore her, that buys us more time. She still has to marry at 18, for the true firstborn of 1799. The censuses scream that 1780 is just too late, but they're wrong. Elizabeth Airey DID marry, in 25 Feb 1798 at Troutbeck, to Joseph Barnett.
We are fortunate to know so much about a 4xgreat-grandmother. She and her sisters all survived until the time of the censuses, and various family names were passed around which may lead us yet further back. Of course we now descend from the Aireys of Westmorland twice over, and so it's for us even more a tight-knit family, centred around the beautiful unspoilt village of Troutbeck.
Strangely, I do turn out to have family members in Furness, but nothing to do with this grandmother. It was my OTHER grandmother, born at Turnpike Lane (on the Piccadilly line) in the London suburbs, who has the Lakes ancestry, although she never lived there, and rarely had the chance to visit. She was the granddaughter of John Airey the grocer of Windermere. Or Winandermere, to give it its full name.
It was formally known as Applethwaite, or Lower Birthwaite, but I think it had always been known locally as Windermere. When the God-given railway arrived in the 1840s, up went the sign WINDERMERE, and in came the visitors. Hill-walkers, Wordsworth enthusiasts, consumptives, artists laden with oils and canvas, all the wealthy from Leeds, Manchester and London, were keen to visit England's biggest inland body of water. John had just bought a site on Victoria Street, built by an uncle, and had forty very good years in the town. The town also became a home for Annie, whose father had been crushed to death in the North-East aged 30, John's future wife.
John Airey also had two grandmothers, and the younger of these gave me much puzzlement. She was Betty born about 1779 in Troutbeck round the corner from Windermere, long before the tourists got in. She had clearly married, to Joseph Barnett, and had a slew of children, and descendants, most of them in the Furness pensinsula. There were several Bettys born about 1779 in the parish, but none of them looked very interesting.
That was until a rogue tree on Ancestry made me consider Betty might after all have been someone already on my tree! That is: Elizabeth Airey baptised in 1780 at Troutbeck. Timing was very very tight as a girl was supposedly born 16yrs later. But if we ignore her, that buys us more time. She still has to marry at 18, for the true firstborn of 1799. The censuses scream that 1780 is just too late, but they're wrong. Elizabeth Airey DID marry, in 25 Feb 1798 at Troutbeck, to Joseph Barnett.
We are fortunate to know so much about a 4xgreat-grandmother. She and her sisters all survived until the time of the censuses, and various family names were passed around which may lead us yet further back. Of course we now descend from the Aireys of Westmorland twice over, and so it's for us even more a tight-knit family, centred around the beautiful unspoilt village of Troutbeck.
7 Jan 2010
you go and save the Hester last
Alright so Amy Dunkerton had already amazed me. She died in 1831 in Pilton, Somerset aged 40 but that hadn't stopped her fiesty daughters from carving their own futures:
* Caroline Amelia, married 1847 St James Piccadilly to a waiter
* Charlotte, married 1838 Sussex Gardens to a jeweller
* Sarah, married 1842 St Pancras Euston Road to a police constable
Excuse me weren't these ladies supposed to be home by five o'clock and what pray were they doing in London. Shouldn't they have been making sheep's eyes at the local farmer's sons back in Summerzet?
I have spent several dozen man-hours following up on the London descendants, and now for something unexpected.
The girls' father William Dunkerton left a will in 1855 and had then six daughters living, so in particular what had happened to the youngest, Hester? Died? Married young THEN died? Where was the marriage.
She'd married at St John's Chester (of course?!) in 1856 aged 31, to a young innkeeper and gone to bring up another slew of daughters at the Rossett Bridge Inn between Wrexham and Chester before dying ten years later (neatly avoiding most censuses). Thank you http://pilot.familysearch.org for this useful marriage entry.
These girls were every bit as interesting as their mother and aunts, here they are:
* Esther married 1886 Chester St John, a plumber of BANGOR
* Mary Ann married 1882 Wrexham, a tailor of WREXHAM
* Eleanor married 1884 Manchester, a labourer of NANTWICH
* Caroline married 1892 Islington, a restaurant cook of LUTON
Thanks to this lost and missing marriage entry I now have relatives in eastern Cheshire and in North Wales which is new and exciting territory.
One of the granddaughters was called Nellie Evans, but she proved absurdly easy to trace in Wrexham, to a sad death aged 29 in childbirth. I think I have had a very blessed couple of hours researching and should probably quit while I'm ahead.
* Caroline Amelia, married 1847 St James Piccadilly to a waiter
* Charlotte, married 1838 Sussex Gardens to a jeweller
* Sarah, married 1842 St Pancras Euston Road to a police constable
Excuse me weren't these ladies supposed to be home by five o'clock and what pray were they doing in London. Shouldn't they have been making sheep's eyes at the local farmer's sons back in Summerzet?
I have spent several dozen man-hours following up on the London descendants, and now for something unexpected.
The girls' father William Dunkerton left a will in 1855 and had then six daughters living, so in particular what had happened to the youngest, Hester? Died? Married young THEN died? Where was the marriage.
She'd married at St John's Chester (of course?!) in 1856 aged 31, to a young innkeeper and gone to bring up another slew of daughters at the Rossett Bridge Inn between Wrexham and Chester before dying ten years later (neatly avoiding most censuses). Thank you http://pilot.familysearch.org for this useful marriage entry.
These girls were every bit as interesting as their mother and aunts, here they are:
* Esther married 1886 Chester St John, a plumber of BANGOR
* Mary Ann married 1882 Wrexham, a tailor of WREXHAM
* Eleanor married 1884 Manchester, a labourer of NANTWICH
* Caroline married 1892 Islington, a restaurant cook of LUTON
Thanks to this lost and missing marriage entry I now have relatives in eastern Cheshire and in North Wales which is new and exciting territory.
One of the granddaughters was called Nellie Evans, but she proved absurdly easy to trace in Wrexham, to a sad death aged 29 in childbirth. I think I have had a very blessed couple of hours researching and should probably quit while I'm ahead.
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