LANCASHIRE FAMILY HISTORY AND HERALDRY SOCIETY

Rossendale Branch Newsletter February 2011

Research and Advice Sessions:

at Rawtenstall library every Tuesday

1.30 - 3.30 pm

and every Monday at Haslingden Library

5.30 - 7.30 pm

Rossendale Branch has a group of members who are on hand every Tuesday and Monday, to assist members of the public with their Family History enquiries. You will find us upstairs at Rawtenstall or Haslingden on the appropriate days, as indicated above. We may be able to do simple look-ups for distant members.When contacting us with an enquiry, please include your membership number.

The LFHHS Resource Centre.

The Society's Resource and Research Centre at 2 Straits Oswaldtwistle, BB5 3LU is open every Thursday from 1pm - 5pm. and the Centre will now open on the 1st Saturday of each month 1pm

www.lfhhs.org.uk/download/index.htm

Coming Events

Friday 25th February - 27th February 2011

National History Show.

Who do you think you are? Live. London Olympia.

www.whodoyouthinkyouare.co.uk

Sunday 6th March 2011

Merseyside & Cheshire Family History Fair

at Hulme Hall, 23 Bolton Road, Port Sunlight, Wirral, Merseyside CH6 5DH 10.00am - 5.00pm

Saturday 26th March 2011

City of York. Family History Fair.

The New Folk Hall. Earswick, York. YO32 4AQ 10-00am - 4.00pm. £1 admission

Refurbishment at Bury Central Library

Disruption to Local Studies and Family History Services 24th January - 5th April 2011

From 24th January the Local and Family History resources at Bury will be on the move, with access provided at alternative sites, as part of a limited service at Bury Library. The library has produced a two page leaflet listing in detail each resource, where, when and if, it is available. Some items will be housed in the Archives Section, others will only be available at local branch libraries.

During this period the Archives Section will be open as usual, excluding January 31st - February 7th, when structural works could lead to the disruption of normal service.

From March 7th the Archives Service will close for the main refurbishment to take place.

From April 1st no resources will be available for four days.

The new service for Local and Family History will open alongside the Archives Service on April 5th. There will be new opening hours.

Enquiries:

Bury Reference & Information Services.

Email: information@bury.gov.uk

Telephone: 0161 253 5871

Write: Bury Library Manchester Road, Bury, Lancashire BL9 0DG

1911 Census - Update

The exclusive licence to use the images of the 1911 census held by findmypast has now expired.

As a result the complete 1911 census for England and Wales is becoming more generally available.

Genes Reunited has now made the complete household schedules available to its members. Rights to transcribe and publish the census have been acquired by both the Genealogist and Ancestry.co.uk and publication of the full census records on these sites should start shortly.

LancashireBMD - Recent additions for the Hyndburn and Rossendale Area.

5th January - Haslingden Deaths (1837 - 1861)

18th January - Newchurch Births (1837 - 1857)

Cumbria BMD

There is one part of pre1974 Lancashire which is not included on the LancashireBMD website. If your ancestors lived in Barrow in Furness, you will be pleased to learn that the new CumbriaBMD (which went online in January) has already added a considerable number of records for Barrow.

Rossendale News Notes and Queries

Thirteen years ago in February 1998, I rather tentatively produced the first newsletter for the Rossendale Branch. This was well received and I have been producing a newsletter ever since. Several years later when Wilf Day started the Rossendale Branch website he transferred all the newsletters onto the site.

Wilf tells me that our website now has over 1000 pages, consisting not only of the newsletters but information and photographs of Rossendale churches and old photographs of the Rossendale area. He has listed most of the war memorials and provided a very useful "Links and Miscellaneous" section which includes a Township map and statistical details. The number of hits on our website is growing month by month. The hits come from a wide spectrum of countries, ranging from the United States and Commonwealth countries to the likes of Latvia and many more places that you wouldn't immediately associate with Lancashire Family History.

Ten of the Best Articles

I have been looking back at the diverse articles that have appeared during the past thirteen years and would like to draw your attention the ones which I think give the best all round view of Rossendale, its people and its history:

1. The Honor of Clitheroe. December 2006

This is an abstract from a much larger article by Milton Ormerod which appeared in "Lancashire" November 1990. It traces the history of Rossendale from the early 16th century deforestation, and lists the surnames of the early settlers from the 1507 and 1527 Rent Rolls. It also gives an explanation for the abundance of Ashworths in this area.

2. Forest of Rossendale, 1878 January 2002

An anonymous letter published in the Sheffield Telegraph November 1878. The writer has some scurrilous comments to make about the inhabitants of this town, particularly the quarrymen. He is obviously an educated but sarcastic and bitter man, who has not enjoyed his stay in Rossendale.

3. Andrew Taylor - Husband, Father, Innkeeper. March 2005

This man claimed to have fathered 37 children by 5 wives, and twice married a deceased wife's sister. His marriages took place on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and a Friday. Andrew was a mining engineer until he retired to become an innkeeper. I keep hoping that one of his descendants will get in touch with me.

4. "Rossendale "on the sea" February 2005

How in 1873, a group of Rossendale business men came to build a thriving seaside resort on the Fylde Coast, which they named "St. Anne's on the Sea" . It took many years of perseverance before the company became profitable and St. Anne's became the place where Lancastrians came to holiday, to convalesce and to spend their final days.

5. Clough Bottom Reservoir. December 2008

In the process of tracing her Pickup & Brown Families, Judith Wheatley went to the Bury Archives Department to check the Bury Corporation Waterworks Plans for 1899. She found a wealth of information which includes lists of landowners. lessees, reputed lessees and other occupiers of the land which was covered when the reservoir was built..

6. Mary (Holden) Hindle March/April 2002

The story of Mary Hindle who was transported for her involvement in the loom riots of 1826 is fairly well known locally. However we were very excited when a letter was found in an old Bible belonging to the Chew Family, which proved to be from Mary to her husband George Hindle, Dated November 1827, it described her experiences up to that time.

7. Odd Women and other Friendly Societies June 2009

In the Bolton Chronicle February 22nd 1834, I found an account of the burial of an "Odd Woman". She belonged to one of a number of funeral or Friendly Societies which then flourished in Haslingden. This article fired my imagination and led me to try to discover more about her family and the function of friendly societies.

8. Casting the Wider Net January 2005

This article was written by Wilf Day after he had transcribed the registers for St. Mary's and All Saints Church at Goodshaw. He found that only a quarter of the baptisms related to the Chapelry itself. There were entries from as far away as Todmorden and Stansfield in Yorkshire. He speculates on the reasons for this and advices us to "cast the wider net".

9. The Townsend Family of Holme and Townsend Fold. April 2010

I have included this one to represent the many articles on different local families because it started with a heraldry enquiry. Derrick Walkden and the Heraldry Society were able to assist with this. Also I went to Haslingden graveyard and photographed the family arms shown on what must be the largest gravestone in England.

10. Petition to the King Henry VIII. May 2000

c1510 the inhabitants of the Forest of Rossendale sent a petition to the new King, setting forth the reasons why a church was desirable. The chapel was built in 1511 in the area still known as Newchurch in Rossendale. The population at that time was said to consist of 80 souls. This first Chapel was named All Souls. The building and its name have changed many times since then..

If you are a member with Rossendale ancestry and have a query, or a story to tell, don't hesitate to contact us.