LANCASHIRE FAMILY HISTORY AND HERALDRY SOCIETY

Rossendale Branch Newsletter July 2008

** Please give your names to Leo Turner, if you wish to attend, so that transport can be arranged.

Research and Advice Sessions at Rawtenstall Library

every Tuesday 1.30 - 3.30

The Rossendale Branch now holds regular Research and Advice sessions at Rawtenstall Library. We have arranged a rota of 10 members, of whom 2 or 3 will be on hand each week to assist members of the public. We may also be able to do simple look-ups for members not able to attend the library in person.

The Society’s Resource Centre

2 The Straits, Oswaldtwistle, (200 yards from Oswaldtwistle Mills) 01254 2399919 (Answer phone)

The Society’s Central Resource Centre is open each Thursday 1pm to 5 pm until further notice. Advice & Help with your research. Access to the Society’s Library; 4 computers with Internet Access & microfiche readers, the Society’s Pedigree Database; and opportunity to try out different programmes for recording Family History. etc. Free Admission

See www.lfhhs.org.uk for details of additional opening times.

Coming Events

Friday 12th September

The Society’s Annual Dinner

This year the Annual Dinner will be hosted by the Rochdale Branch. It is to be held at Rochdale Town Hall, the Esplanade, Rochdale OL16 1AB.

The speaker will be Ian Tootell, MBE talking about the humour of police work. The menu and a booking form to reserve places at £19 per head, can be found in your May "Lancashire" journal.

Saturday 1st November

North West Group of Family History Societies Family History Day Fair 2008 at St. Georges Hall, Liverpool 10.00 – 1600 celebrating:

’08 Liverpool – European Capital of Culture’. featuring Family History Societies, GRO,, Register and Record Offices, etc. and lectures by Dr. Nick Barratt, Consulatent Genealogist for the BBC, David Stoker, Manager Liverpool Record Office and the Rev. Professor D. Ben Rees talking on the Welsh Immigration to Liverpool (1750-2007)

Admission is £2,00 on the door, £4.00 if you wish to attend the talks. Seating for the talks is limited and will be on a first come first served basis. No charge for young persons under 16.

GRO Indexes

Following the closure of the Family Records Centre, GRO indexes for all registration events have been made available at six centres. One of these is the Greater Manchester County Record Office, 56 Marshall Street, New Cross, Manchester M4 5FU

The indexes available at each of these centres include: Births, Deaths, Marriages 1837-2006; Adoptions from 1927 – 2007: Civil Partnerships 2005 – 2007; Overseas Registrations from 1761 – 2006 and provisional indexes of Births and Deaths for 2007, During 2008 and 2009 each of these sites will receive updates and replacements. Time for a Family Reunion [BBC]

Have you always wanted to gather together your extended family for a big reunion?

The BBC is looking for people from the Lanca-shire area who are keen to hold a big family get-together.as part of a major new documentary series.

The reunion will take place over an all- expenses weekend away in the UK and will offer each family a chance to discover their collective history, take part in genealogy workshops and family activities, and re-establish family bonds.

If you would like to know more, email Anna at allewellyn@blastfilms.uk

Rossendale Miscellany:

News, notes and queries

As you may already have noticed, Wilf Day has recently revamped the branch website. I hope you like it. If you have the site as one of your favourites please note that the web address has changed slightly to www.rossendale-fhhs.org.uk

Wilf is still looking for someone who is willing to write brief synopsises of the Haslingden churches for the website. Contact me if you feel you can provide this information. Our new miscellaneous section provides useful links to other Rossendale websites.

Pickups

I recently received a booklet entitled "The Pickups of Rossendale" by Peter W. H. Pickup which gives some account of his ancestors. His earliest known ancestor is "John Pickup, son of John and Alice Pickup born 29th March 1767. He married Mary Madins in 1789. They lived at Lane Top Farm in Goodshaw. Their son Peter was born in 1790 and they lived in and around Higher Booths for many years. Their children married into the Haworth, Ashworth and Hudson Families. Peter traces their progress from farmers to coal owners.

His grandfather established Rishton colliery and the family were particularly influenced by the marriage of Jane Pickup (b1822) to George Haworth, who became a cotton spinner and manufacturer. The booklet will be put in our branch library.

email pickupsandp@hotmail.co.uk

A Visit to Rossendale Beryl Venables recently came from Nottingham to one of our meetings. She has sent this account of her visit: "Our newsletter editor kindly published an article by me in October 2007 with my childhood memories of my grandparents’ families in Bacup Waterfoot, and Britannia.

I said then that I was sure that there will be many changes when I visited the valley again. Well, I have been back. And the sun did shine!

I had especially timed my visit to coincide with the Rossendale monthly meeting and talk, - 'Bacup to Crawshawbooth' by Wendy Watters.

I have for a while been registered with Rossendale online, and the local chat helped me put the valley into its modern context and followed a link to the Geograph site. A site of photographs, countrywide following an OS map to get pictures for every square of the country. Some good valley pictures on both sites.

I have also read much of the bacuptimes website. As their guestbook entries suggest many an hour is whiled away on that site! I had email contact through the site but hadn't realised that the speaker at the Rossendale meeting was the same Wendy as the Wendy on the bacuptimes site!

It was nice to meet Rita Hirst with whom I have has email contact (and still hope to pick her brain in the future), and other local members.

I had a very nostalgic walk around Waterfoot. My grandfathers house is for sale - Turnpike doesn't look quite as steep as I remembered. I think the view down Miller Barn/Townsend Street is much improved without the railway embankment.

Bacup Cemetery has obviously been neglected and vandalised previously but was tidy with grass neatly mown now. I found my relatives gravestones still intact and readable. I was surprised at the number of people walking through the cemetery. Perhaps on winter days it is almost deserted, but not on a lovely May day. It is still a place to feel the history that has been in the valley and the views to the hills show the scars of the industries.

I was able to visit the Bacup 'Nat' [Natural History Society Museum] and found some information in the Bacup Times newspapers. What a store of local knowledge this Society is!

I obviously want to return to Rossendale again and it can't be as long an absence as the last one. I had not realised how I loved the hills, although my aching calves told me I am still a flat lands girl.

Thank you to all who give of their time to make available the history of the valley to those of us who live far beyond it.

My family interests -

Abraham Jackson b c1805 Shawforth, his wife Martha nee Lomax born Lumbhall

Rothwell Mawdsley b c1828 Haslingden, his wife Alice nee Ogden b c1831

James Graham b c1817 Whalley – seems to be from a family of Blacksmiths, his wife Mary Greenwood/Holt born c1818 at Stansfield . Her parents, Richard Holt b c1796 Grace Greenwood b c1796. Mary seemed to use either surname"

email: berylvenables@talktalk.net