LANCASHIRE FAMILY HISTORY AND HERALDRY SOCIETY

Rossendale Branch Newsletter June 2013

LIBRARY DROP IN SESSIONS
Beginners Welcome. Haslingden Library every Monday 5.30 – 8.30 pm
Note: the doors to Haslingden Library close at 7.30 pm.

and at Rawtenstall Library every Tuesday 1.30 – 3.30 pm

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 1.00pm – 5.00pm and 1st Saturday of each month 1.00pm..

Coming Events

Saturday, 15 June

Medieval Day for all the family at Lancashire Archives Record Office
Bow Lane, Preston. PR1 2RE
11am-3.30pm FREE
Talks by Dr Kate Ash and Dr HF Doherty
Activities for children; Refreshments available.
For more information see www.archives.lancashire.gov.uk

29th June 2013
York Family History Fair,
Knavesmire Exhibition Centre, York Racecourse, York
10.00 – 16.30

3rd August 2013
Chorley Celebration of Local History.
Astley Hall, Chorley, Lancs.

Our 40th Anniversary Celebrations

14th September 2013.

The LFHHS is holding a Family History Fair at King George's Hall, Northgate, Blackburn BB2 1AA. The day starts at 10.00 am until 4.00 pm. It is expected that each branch will have its own stall. There will also be bookstalls and representatives from other relevant bodies, the GRO, local Register Offices, etc. Admission £3. Children free.

15th September 2013

The Rossendale Branch will be hosting the Society's Annual Dinner which will be held at the Masonic Hall, Ashday Lea, Haslingden Road, Rawtenstall. 12.30 for 1.00pm. For full details see the May edition of “Lancashire”. or you can click through from our Rossendale Branch website where you will find an application form, menu and information on how to reach the venue.

General Register Office
The GRO has changed its website and you will find it under www.gov.uk and then click the “Births, deaths, marriages and care” link.

Rossendale News, Notes and Queries

Last month Tony Foster gave an excellent talk on the history and progress of the LancashireBMD website. He described many features of the site, which were unknown, even to regular users. The site has been in continuous operation since August 2002. If you want to know what records are held for the Rossendale area (formerly the Haslingden Registration area) you should check under “Hyndburn and Rossendale”. The great feature of this site has been the addition of mother's maiden name to the entries. This is still ongoing.
Tony has contacted me to say that he should have mentioned that there are some unofficial websites that claim to obtain BMD certificates for you. At first glance they appear to be an "official government website" but be careful as some of them charge up to £25.00 for a certificate you can get from the GRO for only £9.25 (local office £10.00).

A reminder: We still don't have a volunteer to compile the programme next year.

Old 18th & 19th Century Newspapers
If you are a member of Lancashire Libraries you can obtain access to the British Library Old Newspapers online. The British Library offers national, regional and local newspapers, taken directly from the holdings of the Library. The whole collection is fully searchable and you can view digital copies of the original newspapers.

Click “Browse Publications by Location”. Then click “North West”. This will then give you a list of papers and the dates covered:
e.g. Blackburn Standard 1835 - 1900.
Lancaster Gazetteer 1801 – 1894
Liverpool Mercury 1811 – 1900
Manchester Times 1828 – 1900
Preston Chronical 1831 – 1894

Choose your newspaper:

You can search by subject, area or name just add this to the “Search” box.
If you have chosen the Preston Guardian the index will list 666 items for Rossendale arranged in chronological order. For Haslingden there are 2173. For the surname Haworth, 1601. The chosen search word is highlighted within the article in each case.

During the past few months I have been working my way through the Lancaster Gazetteer. This being the only paper which covers the early years of the 19th century. I have checked out 43 items relating to Rossendale in the period from 1801 – 1823. They include the births, deaths and marriages of prominent persons, accidents, bankruptcies, auctions of property and some miscellaneous items. Some of the more interesting pieces have appeared in previous newsletters.

The Lancashire Libraries also includes the 17th -18th Century Burney Collection
This shows titles from all around the world from Barbados to India but isn't as grand as it appears. For instance it has only one issue of the Manchester Mercury, November 16th 1776. Before 1700 there were no provincial newspapers in England.

Newspapers on find my past
The newspaper collection on findmypast.co.uk spans the period 1710 to 1963 and includes millions of pages of local newspapers from across England, Wales and Scotland. All the above Lancashire newspapers are covered by findmypast but this site is geared to personal names rather than places. I don't find it easy to negotiate as the required “search” item is not highlighted.

Manchester Mercury
If you are interested in 18th century Lancashire, the best paper to consult is the Manchester Mercury. This paper commenced publication in March 1752 and was printed weekly until 1830. In general there were four pages, two pages of international and national news and two pages of advertisements. Local news consisted of half a column of information at the end of the back page. The paper which cost 2d was distributed throughout a wide area of Lancashire and Cheshire and even into Yorkshire.

There is a microfilm copy of the Manchester Mercury in Bury Library and some years ago I went through this newspaper from its commencement in 1752 – 1781. I abstracted every item relating to the old parish of Bury and included all the areas which are now in the Bury Metropolitan area. This included, Ainsworth, Ashworth, Birtle-with-Bamford, Cowpe with Lenches, Elton, Heap, Great Heaton and Little Heaton, Hopwood, Musbury, Pilkington, Prestwich, Shuttleworth, Tottington, Higher End, Tottington Lower End and Walmersley. I indexed it by surname, locality and by subject.

 Unfortunately, the only parts of present day Rossendale included in this list are Tottington Higher End (Edenfield), Cowpe Lenches and Musbury.

Manchester Mercury is online as a subscription site. Using my transcript I had little luck finding any of the items in my index and when I did, I found that because of the 18th century font it came out as utter gibberish e.g. “ To be Sold to the higeft bidder, o*i Thurfday the I tjf Day of May 176? at Two of the.... Name of Slacks, filatch in Musbury within the Kewhold of the Manor of Accrington and Farish of Bury confiding of tp veral cc.oh^h or....” Try that on your spell checker!

I had thought that I might get some possible dates from the index and go into Bury to check the microfilm. I have decided to stay with my extracts from local papers on the Lancashire Libraries website.

find my past also has the Manchester Mercury. I have tried it with various names and subjects from 1753 – 1780. In my transcript I found 10 references to John Haworth. My request gave a nil return. Nor could I find the property sale in Musbury mentioned above. The indexing of newspapers has a long way to go.