LANCASHIRE FAMILY HISTORY AND HERALDRY SOCIETY

Rossendale Branch Newsletter November 2010

Tickets are on sale for our Christmas party tonight. Cost £3.50 per head.
It will once again by a potato pie and peas supper with mince pies etc., and whatever entertainment Leo, our programme organiser has devised for the night.

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. When contacting us with an enquiry, please include your membership number. Not a member? Then see the Benefits of Joining on our Home Page.

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

There have been additions and the new items These include: 1851 Unfilmed Census Returns for Manchester, Salford & surrounding area on CD. These are in Acrobat format and are fully searchable. For more details see

www.1851-unfilmed.org.uk/intro.htm

Lancashire Parish Register Society transcripts: Volume 168 St Mary's Church & Christ Church Todmorden 1813-1837; Volume 169 Stretford St Matthews Chapel 1598-1837; Volume 170 Ormskirk 1715-1770 and Juvenile Offenders in Victorian Lancashire – W J Garnett & The Bleasdale Reformatory; Accrington Acclaimed by Geoff Taylor & Bob Dobson.

FINDMYPAST.CO.UK TO DIGITISE MANCHESTER RECORDS

A two year project to scan 8,000,000 records First time these records have ever been made available online www.findmypast.co.uk the UK family history website, has been awarded the contract by Manchester Archives to digitise cemetery registers plus institutional (gaol, school, workhouse) records of Manchester and will work with FamilySearch International, the world's largest repository of genealogical records, to make them fully searchable online for the very first time. FamilySearch will scan original images of the registers for findmypast.co.uk to then make them available online at www.findmypast.co.uk with an index search on www.familysearch.org & www.manchester.gov.uk/libraries/arls

Rossendale: News Notes and Queries

Our talk last month, by Bill Taylor was very well attended and enjoyed. You will be pleased to know that Bill will be here again next October.

In the past few months we have had quite a lot of new members joining the society, who have an interest in the Rossendale area. Many of them live overseas or out of County. I have invited several of them to submit details of their researches and I hope you will assist them in knocking down their brick walls.

Firstly from Janette Finney member 9387, who came from North Somerset to visit us this summer, we have this account of the:-

Liveseys of Cowpe Lenches

Cowpe is an area of Rawtenstall which was formally the north eastern portion of Bury Parish.

Many of the Liveseys listed below were registered at Ebenezer Baptist Chapel, Bacup. Janette needs to know where they came from to Cowpe.

Janette says:

I inherited the role of Livesey family researcher after my father Eric Livesey passed away as it occurred to me there was only one person remaining (my uncle, David) who could shed any light on our Livesey family history. I was delighted to find that he and my aunt had already carried out a great deal of research and traced back to the early 1800s and this was where I picked up the trail.

Censuses confirmed that the Liveseys (also spelt Livsey/Livesy/Livesay) were living in Cowpe at the time of John Livesey’s marriage to Ann Ashworth in 1836 and at the birth of their children Richard (1837), Ann (1841), John (1845) and Joseph, my paternal g.grandfather, (1852).

I have since found the Livesey family grave for the above at Waterbarn Baptist Church Stacksteads, with the exception of Joseph who moved to Bolton and became a Master Draper. He and his second wife Lydia are both buried together in Bolton. The Liveseys appear to have been Baptists later in life but I do not know when they came to follow this religion.

Family lore tells that the Livesey family came from "over the hill at Edenfield" to live in Cowpe. It is cited in W. Hardman’s "The Village of Cowpe - History of an Old Part of Rossendale" that the Livesays came from Cheesden and set up Cowpe Mill along with the Ashworths so this would suggest they originated from that area.

It is possible that John Livesey’s parents were John (of Middleton) and Mary Wild (of Bury parish) who married in 1805 at Bury, according to the marriage certificate I was given by my uncle and aunt. However, I shall treat these findings as suspect until I have located a full birth record for John abt. 1812. I have found a birth entry at LRO for a John (abt 1812) to John and Mary but have been unable to find records of any other of his possible siblings, or birth and death records of the father John (who would probably have been born abt 1780, or of Mary Wild.

I have also checked the various Livesey wills held at the LRO for clues. There is a potential link in the will of John Livesey, Woollen Weaver of Cowpe (one of the Mill owner brothers) dated 1822 and 1835. His wife is shown as Peggy. The 1851 census for Cowpe shows my ancestors living in the next property to a Peggy Livesey – widow (with a marital link to the Ashworths). Her age suggests she would have been born around 1780. She also appears in the 1841 census for Cowpe (as Margaret Livesey) without her husband.

This is the point at which I hit my brick wall and I would be pleased to hear from anyone who may have information concerning the Livesey family or suggestions that could help me with my quest. Janette Finney

email: jan1e@blueyonder.co.uk

My Problem Pilling Family

Letter from a new Member living in Bristol. Stephen Pilling Membership No. 9768 Hi folks this is my first note to the Newsletter, hoping that someone out there can unlock this mystery now that I have hit a Brick Wall in my Family Research.

Abraham Pilling my GGG/Grandfather was aged 69 when he died 16th Dec 1872, Therefore he was born about 1803. (I can’t find his Baptism so therefore I can’t find his Parents) He married Martha Fletcher in St James Church Haslingden, on 12th March 1829. At that time both he and Martha were living in Rawtenstall (one of the witnesses was a Joseph Pilling. I do not know who he was.

I have found three children of the marriage:

1. Elizabeth Pilling shown as aged 9 in the 1841 census living at Gregory Fold Haslingden. She must have been born c1831/2. In 1851 Elizabeth was living with Grandmother Ann Barnes at Back Rakefoot in Haslingden. ( I can’t find her baptism or marriage)
2. Benjamin Fletcher Pilling born 22nd Oct 1832. Bapt 2nd Dec 1832 at King St Wesleyan Methodist Chapel Haslingden. ( I can’t find him in 1841 Census)
3. William Pilling shown as aged 5 in the 1841 census with sister Elizabeth as above. On his Gravestone in Tonge Cemetery Bury Rd, It states he was born 9th Feb 1835 & died aged 80 in 1915. (Again I can’t find his baptism). Although I have found his admission to St James Church Day School, Haslingden Aug 9th or 19th 1841. It seems strange that Abraham & Martha Pilling had Benjamin baptised but not Elizabeth & William. Abraham was a witness at the marriage of an Isaac Pilling to Mary Tattersall 29th Oct 1826 in St James Church Haslingden, Isaac was also given as, "of Rawtenstall". I believe Isaac might be Abraham’s brother but again I can’t find a baptism for him.

So that’s where I’m stuck. If I could only find the Parents of Abraham Pilling it would be wonderful.

To help - in 1851 Abraham was shown as aged 47 born in Bacup, In 1861 Aged 58 but mistranscribed as aged 38 born in Rossendale, and in 1871 born in Newchurch aged 68.

It appears they were Methodists so maybe the answer lies in that direction. PS. I am a Lancashire Transcriber for FreeReg http://freereg.rootsweb.com and the website may help many of our members to find hidden Family, it is being updated monthly and many Transcribers are hard at work behind the scenes. – When you get the home page up, Just Click on ‘Counties & Parishes’ Scroll down & click on Lancashire, then click on 1st Letter of Town or Village you need to Research, this will give you a list of transcriptions to date. To search just go back to home page & click SEARCH.

Sorry to all who knew that Info already.

Steve Pilling email: stephenpilling@btinternet.com

LancashireBMD Extract from the Chorley & Leyland Newsletter for October 2010…. Branch projects are thriving…work done by the Chorley Branch BMD Team on Rossendale Deaths is now on the Lancs BMD website.

Check www.lancashirebmd.org.uk/  - for further information.