The Seventh Son

Christmas is lovely, a welcome break before winter sets in properly and lots of glitter and lights to cheer me up (not to mention chocolates and Christmas cake), but it's not a good time for delving into the family histories. There are just too many other things competing for priority, not least of all the day job.

When the latest clutch of certificates arrived on my doormat this morning it felt like a welcome return to "the good old days"! I had been particularly keen to discover whether my grandfather, Jim Salthouse, really was "the seventh son of a seventh son" - to which he attributed his luck in life. I had found two births in the indexes which were most likely to be his brothers. The certificates duly confirmed that Richard Salthouse (1880) and Henry Salthouse (1888) were both the children of William Salthouse and Janet Braidwood. My grandfather, born in 1897, was now confirmed to be a Seventh Son.

But he was not the seventh son of a seventh son. His father was certainly one of seven sons - but he was the first son, not the seventh. So grandfather could easily have said, for all we know, that he was 'the seventh son of seven sons'. Did this make him lucky?

Perhaps his near-claim to a charmed life resulted in a near-lucky life? He was the youngest of 10 children, born when his mother was 46 years old and with a gap of seven years between him and the previous child, Janet. When Jim was of school age the family moved to Ditton, Widnes, possibly in the hope that the eldest brother, 'Our Will', might recover from TB, but 'Our Will' died in 1906 and in 1912 Jim's father, William Salthouse, died of bronchopneumonia. Jim appears to have had engineering in his blood and he studied at Widnes Technical School and obtained an apprenticeship at Widnes. The first World War internvened and, when the family returned to Liverpool, he was able to transfer his articles to another engineering company. His apprenticeship completed, he immediately went to sea, eventually becoming a commissioned officer. Unluckily he was torpedoed twice, luckily he survived relatively unscathed.

After the war he married Maud Ralston. Sadly their first child died after a few weeks of life. When my mother was born the depression had set in and Jim was unemployed. He obtained work in Southport and had to walk from Liverpool to Southport every day. Presumably he accepted lifts if he could but he said that the depression was so bad that there were few vehicles on the roads. Eventually he got work as a driver with Jarvis Robinson Transport (JRT) in Liverpool - he got the job because of his engineering background as much as for his driving skills, and he drove their best lorry, a Scammel 8-wheeler, between Liverpool and Hull. His luck ran out, though, when one of his vehicles, which was supposed to have been repaired overnight, went out of control and he was badly burned in the resulting fire.

Although the build up to WW2 created new opportunites, Jim was probably considered to be the wrong side of 40 to rebuild his engineering career, but he did get better jobs and was also the sergeant in the Home Guard responsible for keeping the Home Guard and Volunteer vehicles running throughout the war. In the late 40s he went into semi-retirement in North Wales but he never stopped working on his passion - motorbikes - and was well known in the Llangollen area for the work he did with vintage motorcycles.

So, was he lucky or not? He might have hoped for a better career had the wars and the depression not intervened, but he did well to survive two wars, unemployment in Liverpool and that awful accident.

William Ellery

I have added a picture of William Ellery to my website at http://www.belton.me.uk/Pages/Galleries_Pages/Ellerygallery/ellery_gallery.htm#williamellery1 At first glance, the framed picture looks like a portrait, but actually it is a very good pencil drawing, possibly with some sort of pastel highlights. The photograph is good, not perfect, as I did not want to risk taking the picture out of its frame.

When was the portrait drawn? Mr Ellery appears to be at about retirement age, so between 1891 and 1901, perhaps? William Ellery was my great great grandfather.

Remembrance Day

I have updated my website at http://www.belton.me.uk/ and corrected a few links to the War Memorial pages - the link on the home page goes to a list of memorial pages, following the links for each serviceman leads to a copy of the Certificate from the CWGC and also gives more personal information about some of the servicemen. The Certificates and photographs are provided by courtesy of the CWGC at http://www.cwgc.com/

If you know of any other relatives of mine who should be included in these pages, please let me know.

Isaac Belton

A few months ago I bought a copy of the will of Isaac Belton. In his Will, Isaac stated that he lived at Waen Fawr in the parish of Hope (Flintshire, North Wales) but, at the time, I was not sure of just who he was, there are several Isaac Beltons in my tree - and wills, as you may have noticed, often give details as to the health of the testator, his address if you are very lucky, but very rarely do they indicate an age or date of birth, and this was no exception.

Tonight I researched a certain George Belton, son of Isaac Belton; George married an Ann Kelly, and I was trying to match the information from the census and from other researchers with the information on our Belton family tree when I had the greatest surprise: Isaac Belton turned out to be none other than my direct ancestor, my great great great grandfather - and this is his Will!

It's nice to know that someone in the family had a bit of money to bequeath - even if it was only £13/2/6d ! (Ps, that £13.12 in new money).

A Belton in British Columbia

I have just received an interesting message from BC, telling me that one of my relatives, Ann Jayne Belton, who once lived in Bwlchgwyn, emigrated to British Columbia just over 100 years ago. I hope to hear more, soon, but in the meantime I am just wondering - why? What would make a young lady travel so far? Did she travel with other relatives?

Ann Jayne's brother, Edward O Belton, emigrated to Pennsylvania a few years later, he had already left Bwlchgwyn to work in the deep mines in South Wales and he and a friend from South Wales travelled together. A couple of years later, after a visit home, Edward returned to America accompanied by his younger brother and a cousin. They went abroad to work in the anthracite and coal mines, the motive is reasonably clear (and, so far as I can tell, Edward O Belton did well for himself in America), but Ann Jayne? That, I think, will be an interesting tale!

Ann Salthouse and James Hathaway

My internet wanderings turned up a lovely surprise tonight! I had been Googling "Salthouse Didsbury" and I discovered a photograph of my great great aunt, Ann Salthouse, who was born in 1812 at Didsbury, and who lived in Ewelme, Oxfordshire, after her marriage to James Hathaway. This is a wonderful find, the earliest picture I have ever seen of any of my Salthouse relatives and the likeness is there. Ann seems to have been a very strong and indomitable character.

The photograph and some information about Ann and her family is on the Oxfordshire Family History Society website at http://faces.oxfordshirefhs.org.uk/Anne_SALTHOUSE.html. It is very generous of the family to post the photograph on the internet and share this information.

Thomas Fisher of Liverpool

He was Thomas Fisher of Kendal, really, a currier who established a good, solid business in Liverpool and who eventually earned the titles of leather merchant and gentleman. Throughout his working life he traded at 137 Dale Street (recently converted to apartments with an empty shop space at ground level) where he employed a fair number of men and girls to make, amongst other things, boot uppers which were then sold on to shoemakers here and in Ireland. He also took over the leather seller's shop of Thomas Salthouse at 232 Scotland Road, Liverpool.

Thomas Fisher moved to The Acres, Lower Bebbington, and his three daughters married from there. The eldest daughter, Sarah, married Benjamin Payne Coxon, son of Captain John Crow Coxon - was he the famous Captain Crow's descendant?

After Thomas Salthouse died, a John Fisher took over the leather seller's shop and premises at 232 Scotland Road. Do you happen to know whether these two Fishers were related? A quick search around in inconclusive; the only Thomas and John Fisher that I have found (of the correct age and location) have different parents.

Thomas Salthouse of Liverpool

This weekend I have been researching the life of Thomas Salthouse who occupied property at 224 Scotland Road, Liverpool, where he traded as a leather dealer.

I can't be certain of Thomas' parentage, but he could have been the son of George Salthouse and Mary Burns and christened on the 18th August 1802 at St Nicholas, Liverpool (IGI). On the 15th January 1827 Thomas Salthouse married Elizabeth Depledge at St George, Liverpool (IGI). In 1841, when he was about 38 years old, he was living at Litherland and working as a leather tanner.

By 1851 Thomas Salthouse had moved to 224 Scotland Road, Liverpool, from where he was carrying on business as a leather dealer. I knew that Thomas died in 1859 and my particular interest was the next owner or tenant of the property or the person who took over his business.

For a long time I "lost" 224 Scotland Road at this point. On Ancestry the property disappeared - right up to the 'clearances' it appears to have been just a gap in between the houses, possibly a building that had literally fallen down and never been repaired or rebuilt but demolished instead. What happened to his business? I put the case on a back-burner for a while.

Over the weekend I had another trawl through my collection of CD books. The 1858 Post Office Directory turned up Thomas Salthouse - not at 224 Scotland Road, but just a little further along the street at 232 Scotland Road! Good news! Now that I had a new address for the business I had a chance of discovering the new owner, if any. (The directories revealed what the census did not show - 224 Scotland Road did survive for many years; after Thomas Salthouse left it was occupied by William Ashley Wilson, an engineer and shopkeeper, and in 1881 Kelly's Directory it is the Northern District Post & Money Order & Telegraph Office & Savings Bank, but I didn't have access to so many directories when I started all this!).

It is possible to walk along a street using Ancestry but (unless you have a surname to start you off) it's not always easy, especially in a city, to find the right piece and page. There is an easier way, however, with Find My Past, which has an address search facility for the 1861 census. But neither 224 or 232 were included in the addresses for Scotland Road, Liverpool. Either they had both been demolished or they could have been business accommodation only, therefore there would have been no return for them on the census.

Back to the CDs - this time to search for the new address 'Scotland Road'. Some of the trade directories had street directories which were quite easy to find, others needed a search on 'Scotland Road'. The first reference that I found to 232 Scotland Road was in the 1869 Slater's Directory of Lancashire and this gave me the all important name of the new owner - Thomas Fisher. Thomas Fisher was listed at two addresses, 137 Dale Street and 232 Scotland Road, Liverpool. A quick check through the census returns showed that Thomas Fisher was from Kendal and had been working as a currier at Dale Street since at least 1841 when he had an apprentice currier, Robert Collingwood. I wonder if Thomas Fisher had bought his leather from Thomas Salthouse and then extended his business interests by taking over the business at Scotland Road and thereby keeping control of his supplies? The 1855 directory shows two Thomas Fishers trading in Liverpool, one as a currier (Dale Street) and the other as a bootmaker, the families of these I shall sort out another night, but at least I have a means of going forward again.

And, as Thomas Salthouse does not seem to be related to my Salthouse family, why am I so interested in his business and his successors? Because my great-grandfather, William Salthouse, who left Alderley to work in Birkenhead as a nurseryman and then, when he became of age, joined the Lancashire Police Force, subsequently left the police force (having received a reward for bravery) "to go into business on his own account" - according to the police records. This was just after the 1871 census and subsequent records show him as a leather and hide warehouseman, though he always declares himself to be an employee, not the owner. If he had gone into business with Thomas Salthouse that might have led us to a connection between the two families, but in his day the Scotland Road business was owned by Thomas Fisher, later by John Fisher and I can't find a family connection there. Not yet, anyway.

That wedding in Alderley again!

The CD containing the marriage records of St Mary, Alderley, includes the wedding which took place on the 27th December 1851 between Mr John Bruce of Liverpool and Miss Maria Josepha Bell of Alderley.

Miss Bell was the daughter of the late Rev Isaac Bell; at the time of the 1851 census Maria and her older sisters were teaching at their mother's school for girls at Heawood Hall, Alderley. I don't think that the Bells were a wealthy family but, by virtue of being the daughter of the well-known Reverend Bell, this was quite a large and important wedding and was noted in the Manchester Times in January 1852. The witnesses were Eliza Bell, William Bell, John Garniss and Thomas Garniss. After the wedding the couple settled in Liverpool.

But who was John Bruce? Neither the bride or the groom were giddy young people, John Bruce was about 40 years old and Maria was about 35 years old. John Bruce had been a clerk in Liverpool's HM Customs office and his older, unmarried, sister lived with him; there was usually also a younger relative living with them as part of the family. According to the marriage certificate, John Bruce was the son of another John Bruce, manufacturer, and had been born in Northampton, possibly at All Saints. Quite possibly John's father had died before the 1841 census, but I may have found him in an 1825 census, as a manufacturer of ladies' shoes in Northampton.

How did John Bruce of Liverpool and Maria Bell of Alderley meet? Geographically they were miles away. True, train journies were relatively easy, but they were unlikely to meet, for example, at the shop or at a concert. Was there a third party? Did any of Maria's siblings live in Liverpool? Did John Bruce have any occasion to visit another family in Alderley?

Answers on a postcard! (email of course!) Because, as yet, I can't find this missing link!

Weddings at St Mary, Alderley

It's been one of those months - not helped, in a family history sense, by having to return to work after the summer holidays!

With less time to spare, the little research that I have done has been particularly unproductive; the underlying cause is, predictably, that I have exhausted the usual online sources of information and I am unable to visit record offices or museums at the moment, but keeping an eye on existing sources does still pay dividends as new records are added all the time. My growing collection of data CDs also helps and a chance find on the CD of parish records at St Mary Alderley (available at Alderley Church, Nether Alderley, amongst other places) has led me back to Liverpool and a completely new avenue of research - possibly a red herring, but anything is worth a couple of hours of online searching, if only to eliminate the people involved and therefore narrow the focus a little more.

William Ellery in Liverpool 1910

William Ellery was born in Bodmin in 1837 and is recorded in every census return from 1841 to 1901. For all of his married life he worked as an Outside Customs Officer in Liverpool. According to the London Gazette he was appointed, in 1910, as Examiner of Masters, Mates and Fishermen with the Board of Trade. Or was he?

A quick check on FreeBMD revealed that a William Ellery died in Liverpool in 1909 - but there had always been two William Ellerys, of almost identical ages, living in Liverpool - so which one had died in 1909? A few days later I received a copy of the 1909 death certificate from Southport and the information recorded clearly identified this to be my William Ellery.

So, unless there was an amazing delay in gazetting the appointment, William Ellery, Outside Customs Officer of Liverpool, was not the William Ellery who became the Board of Trade Examiner of Masters, Mates and Fishermen at Liverpool in 1910.

Tonight I decided to update my Ellery family tree and tidy my files. In doing so I noticed that the 1901 census recorded William Ellery as "retired" Customs officer. That clinches the deal. But who is the other William Ellery, the one who is mentioned in the London Gazette of 1910?

Family Tree Maker 2009

I have just installed the free upgrade from Family Tree Maker 2008 to 2009. I'll play around with it later, but the good news is that the program now has a complete suite of charts, forms and reports in the Publish Section. It seems to have everything I ever wanted!

Nant y Ffrith

I have been researching over the last few days, but I haven't found anything of great, must-write-about interest.

It never ceases to amaze me, though, just how hard our lead and coal mining ancestors worked - not just in the 1870s and 1880s but right up to fairly modern times, or the coming of the family car. The long hours and arduous work were only one aspect of their working days: the walk to and from work was a job in itself.

I was following the lives of some families (including George Belton's family) who lived in Nant-y-Ffrith, Bwlchgwyn. For census purposes, this covers roughly the area from the bridge on Llanarmon Road and follows the Nant-y-Ffrith river through the deep valley right down to the Ffrith itself. These families lived close to Llanarmon Road - so where did they work?

George Belton and his sons were all coal miners, not lead miners, and the coal fields end at approximately 700ft above sea level - roughly by Hurricane House on the Ffrwd or where the old railway line crossed Ruthin Road at the Coedpoeth crossing. I am not aware of any coal mines higher than this so it is likely that they walked, every day, down to Nant y Ffrith, through the valley and either followed the path past the foxstones to the Ffrith or they joined Nant Road or Glascoed Road at some point and made their way to Brymbo.

That is a long walk. In winter, never seeing daylight, frequent frosty or snowy spells, sodden tracks and paths, sometimes iced over, heavy drizzle, thick fog, it must have seemed twice as long, exceedingly dreary and not without dangers. Was there a possibility of transport? It doesn't seem very likely. Most of the cottages in this part of Nant y Ffrith were not much better than hovels. In one census, George Belton, Mary his wife, two adult sons (also coal miners), and a younger son and daughter, all lived in a house with only two rooms inhabited. That's not two rooms plus a scullery or anything else, it is literally two rooms in which to do all the washing, cooking, sitting, eating, dressing and sleeping. And it would have been damp.

The housewife would have worked as hard as her husband, getting the children off to school (if not prevented from attending by inclement weather, illness or being needed at home) and maybe taking the first of the children to school every day - another long walk, this time to Bwlchgwyn village and back, until the oldest children were old enough to escort their younger siblings; trying to keep the bedding dry, the house warm, wash and dry clothes, carry water and do her best to have a hot meal ready for the men on their return from work. For all that they were poor, they were still proud people and, if they adhered to one of the chapels or the church, they would take their places with pride at the Sunday services, mixing with their extended families, visiting, exchanging news.

Nanty-Ffrith seems a very remote place to have lived but, a very small comfort, there were a lot more people living in that area than would be apparent now. The houses were usually very small, occasionally one or two low walls or stones remain, but most have disappeared completely, the ruins overgrown or the stones recycled. Although most of the houses were isolated, they were not isolated by any considerable distance - a young lad could run to a neighbouring house for help and the women and children would have had some opportunity to socialise every few days.

In fact, things hadn't changed all that much in 1951, when I was born (in the relative comfort of the village itself); the cottage did benefit from one cold water tap and some electricity, but otherwise it was only marginally more habitable than the hovels in Nant y Ffrith.

Why did the people put up with these conditions? Why didn't they move? That's a story for another day.

St. David's Day in Bwlchgwyn

I recently came across a newspaper report of the celebration of St. David's Day at Cae Adar Farm, Bwlchgwyn, in 1896.

The celebrations were actually held on Monday night, the 2nd of March, at Cae Adar Farm, when about a hundred people thoroughly enjoyed a special St David's Day supper, prepared by Mr. George Jones, the grocer. This was the first time that an event of this kind had been held and Mr John Jones, the owner of the farm, hoped that everybody would have an enjoyable evening. The concert president was Mr. John Edwards of the Brithdir and the secretary was Mr. Robert Williams of the Gors. The accompanist was Mr William Williams of Minera who also sang several solos. Shem Jones and his party sang and Mr Robert Roberts gave a solo. There were many other singers, too. Speeches were made by Messrs Samuel Kendrick, William Davies the schoolmaster, Richard Rogers, draper, of Bradford House and Edward Kendrick, who read a paper about the history of St, David. Mr. John Jones of Cae Adar sang the closing song to St. David and, united in the chorus, everyone was enjoying the evening like none before.

What an evening that must have been! I can remember concerts in Bethesda Chapel and Church Fetes, Harvest Festivals and Nativity plays, village sports days and bonfires in the rec (King George's playing fields), but I can't imagine this sort of concert being arranged, or so well attended, these days. If any of my readers does remember similar events, I would love to hear about them.

Arthur Belton

The next photograph (I think this blog is probably better read in reverse order!) is still firmly ensconced in its frame and, having been stored safely for 50 years, has acquired some obscurity in the glass. As I was not going to tackle a dis-framing or risk anything more than an e-dust over the glass, the quality of my photograph is not good - but the original is not very clear and sharp either.

The subject is a really beautiful studio protrait of my grandfather, Arthur Belton, looking every bit like my father; my grandmother, Edith (nee Edith Davies Williams), their two sons, Horace and Harold (my father was yet to arrive), and, appearing a bit spooky because of reflections, the little dog posing at Edith's feet.

I never knew these grandparents, or Horace, but my cousin always refers to them by their proper Welsh titles of Taid and Nain. Arthur Belton and his family lived at 17 Wesley Road, Bwlchgwyn and this picture was taken between about 1913 and 1918.

Mrs Ralston's Photograph

Over the years we have collected some really old family photographs - glass negatives and, possibly, some tintypes as well as the usual snapshots, and today we got out the framed pictures with the intention of photographing them.

One picture is particularly interesting as it is still in its frame but the frame is falling apart, allowing us to remove the picture. After a lot of internet research, I think that the picture must be a tintype which has been coloured. It fits most of the criteria - the image is on metal, it can only be viewed properly at the right angle, it has been tinted or coloured and, from the style of lady's costume, appears to have been taken around 1887-1888.

On the frame backing there is a postage label. "Don't Crush", it implores, and is addressed to my great grandmother, Mrs Ralston (nee Ellery) of 2, Sea View Buildings, Hoylake Road, Moreton. The sender was Howard Ford & Co., Ltd., Russell Buildings, School Lane, Liverpool. I immediately hot-moused it to my favourite site, Liverpool Photographers, but there was no mention of Howard Ford. Then reality took over. This lady is wearing a bustle, Mrs Ralston had the shop at Sea View Villas around about 1930, the two don't match. A quick look at Kelly's 1938 Directory for Liverpool and suburbs revealed the answer: The afore-mentioned Howard Ford & Co., Ltd., were hosiery manufacturers (they later became famous for the Bear Brand range of quality lady's stockings and tights); Mrs Ralston's shop was a gentleman's and lady's outfitters, selling, amongst other things, socks and stockings. During the 1920's or 30's the frame had been in need of repair and the cardboard packaging from a recent delivery of hosiery had been recycled for the purpose. That also explains why the postage label demanded "Don't Crush" instead of "glass - fragile - handle with care".

And who is this lady, so smartly dressed? The postage label does help, because we now know where that picture was between the wars. With the help of other photographs and glass plates, we believe the lady to be Mrs Ralston, herself, when she was about 20 years old and known as Miss Amelia Ellery of 24 Grampian Road, Liverpool.

Moses Chappell

Late last night I was wandering around the net and looking for inspiration in my Favourites list, when I spied a link to the Lancashire Online Parish Clerks, another of my favourite free sites created by generous volunteers. This site lists transcriptions, as you would expect, of many pre-1837 bmds for the county. Much of the information is also available on the Family Search site, but these are (I believe) new transcriptions - and every source of information is worth checking, you might just find that one extra snippet of information that fits everything together.

I had decided to search the whole county for Salthouse marriages and the database returned several pages of results. Right at the very end - in 1836 - one name jumped off the screen and lit up in front of my eyes: "Moses Chappell!" I exclaimed. "Mmmm", said the one member of my family still trying to stay awake - they are all used to such exclamations and take little notice these days...

Moses Chappell. He was a witness to the wedding of Ellen Salthouse and James Massey Ashcroft at the Collegiate Church, Manchester on the 30th May 1836.

The story begins with the death certificate of my great, great, grandmother, Sophia Salthouse (widow of Anthony Salthouse), who died at Hulme, Manchester on the 1st April 1859. The registrar was notified of her death by James Chappell. Who was he? His full name name proved to be James Light Salthouse Chappell - a pretty good clue that he was a relative of some kind! Following his life forward through the census returns and trade directories was a joy, but tracing his ancestry was more difficult. James Chappell was born in 1827, the son of Moses Chappell and Sarah - but Sarah who?

Over time I have searched and re-searched the relevant websites but no suitable Sarah was ever found, even less a Sarah Salthouse. So last night I looked, instead, for the birth of Ellen Salthouse and she proved to be a hitherto unknown daughter of Anthony and Sophia Salthouse of Didsbury; when she married she became Mrs Ashcroft - and Moses Chappell witnessed that marriage. Checking back through my records I noticed that on one census an Annie J Ashcroft was recorded as the niece of Sarah Chappell. Still with me on this? One final search for Moses Chappell's wife, presumed to be a Sarah Salthouse, and the IGI turned up just one record for the time and place - Sarah Salthouse, daughter of Anthony Salthouse and Sophia, previously unknown to me despite many trawls of the IGI.

Now I can finally link the Salthouse and Chappell families. Anthony Salthouse and Sophia of Didsbury had several children, one of their daughters, Sarah Salthouse, married Moses Chappell; another daughter, Ellen Salthouse, married James Massey Ashcroft and Moses Chappell was one of the witnesses to their marriage. Sophia Salthouse was probably widowed before 1837 and spent the next 20 years employed as a monthly nurse. In 1859 she was living at Hulme and her nearest family was her grandson-in-law, James Chappell, who lived just around the corner and, I assume, looked after Sophia during the illnesses and when she died and who notified the registrar of her death.

The main mystery has been solved, just some loose ends for further research. A result!

Rev. Robert Salthouse

Would you pay for information which is already available, free of charge, on the internet?

Subscription sites are fine - I wouldn't be without my subscriptions - but it's always worth checking out the free sites first. Take, for instance, Find My Past, who now advertise that they have over 20 million baptism, marriage and burial records on their site. Undoubtedly some of these may be exclusive, but I did not find any baptism or marriage records relating to my research that are not already available, free of charge, on the Family Search site, or available on the National Burial Index CDs which I purchased a while ago. The same applies to the Family History Online Site - which also contains the 1851 Manchester unflimed census returns - something else which I had bought in CD format over the years. So I would always support and check the free sites first, then make best use of the subscription sites by knowing exactly what I need to pay for.

This was prompted by the August issue of "Who Do You Think You Are", on tracing Anglican Clergy. The magazine brought to my attention a new website that I had never visited before: Crockford's Clerical Directory. The initial search is free of charge (excellent) but my search for the Rev. Robert Salthouse resulted in absolutely no results at all - I wasn't surprised by that as I had checked a copy of the directory previously and found no result, but I am still surprised that neither he nor his predecessor are mentioned. The magazine article and Crockford's site also referred me to The Clergy Database, my Reverends were not there either. It was not a wasted journey, however, as the sites contain more information and more links that I could find useful another day. If the Rev. R. Salthouse had been listed, and if he had been more central to my research, I might well have subscribed for a year and extracted some very useful information.

The Rev. R. Salthouse has turned up in other parts of the internet, though. His birth is not listed on Family Search, but there are census returns for 1841 and 1851 that look hopeful. In 1861 Robert is a scripture reader, lodging with a family in Preston, in 1871 and 1881 he is the incumbent at St James, West Derby, but he is not in the 1891 and 1901 census. There are quite a few announcements of weddings in the Liverpool Mercury 1866-1867 at which Robert had officiated; Liverpool Record Office has a copy of a sermon he gave at St James on the 14th November 1869 (possibly his first sermon as incumbent after removing from St Peter's and All Saints in Everton), and by smply trawling the internet, I found a reference on an antiques site to a silver goblet, made in 1872 by Wordley & Co., Liverpool, and engraved with "Ethel Eleanor Briggs from her godfather Robert Salthouse, February 1874". The Rev. Robert Salthouse shouldn't be too difficult to follow through one evening.

Wigley

New information always seems to come as a surprise, in this case a totally unexpected name - Harriet Wigley - appeared on my screen when I was looking at some photographs taken by Lee Weston at Coedpoeth cemetery. (Harriet Wigley was the wife of John Wigley and mother of Eleanor and Theophilus Wigley).

My grandmother - the young lady of my profile picture - was Edith Davies Williams who was born in Minera, Denbighshire. Edith's mother was Selina Mottershead who was born in Prestbury, Cheshire. Selina's mother was Maria Flint who was christened at Ashover, Derby. Now, this is where the family connection stretches a bit thin; Maria's mother was Sarah Austin of Newington, Surrey and her first husband was Joseph Flint (who she married in 1813 at Newington, Surrey), but her second husband was John Wigley, who she married at Bonsall, Derbyshire, in 1827.

So, is it likely that the family of Coedpoeth - who were Welsh speakers - could be related to my grandmother's family? Early indications, as they say on the lottery, are that this family was living at Pantymwyn, Mold in 1881 and both children had been born in the Holywell registration district (Harriet 1871 and Theophilus 1880) and that they were a lead mining family - plenty of possibilities there for a link with Derbyshire as so many of the Derbyshire miners moved to the Halkyn/Flint/Mold area before moving on to the Llandegla/Bwlchgwyn/Minera mines. Certainly some of the children's christian names are in common with the older generations.

This is where the blog will be useful to me. I have notes of tonight's research on my computer, of course, but I can pick up this research another day at another computer - perhaps at work, perhaps elsewhere - and I have sufficient information to continue where I left off.

Nos da!

Little Annie Salthouse

My grandfather, Jim Salthouse (James Thomas Salthouse), used to say that he was the seventh son of a seventh son, but when my mother recited the names of her aunts and uncles he turned out to be the youngest son of only five sons - William Salthouse, John Braidwood Salthouse, Francis Walters Salthouse, Alfred Salthouse and himself, James Thomas Salthouse.

The 1881 census (then the only census available online, at Family Search) partly soved the mystery - another child, Richard Salthouse, was listed. Presumably he died young, but he had never been mentioned by my grandfather - possibly conversation never got round to siblings who had been born and died long before my grandfather was born in 1897. So now there were six sons; would there be any more?

Gradually more information became available on Free Bmd and Lancashire Bmd and it is likely that Henry Salthouse, 1888-1889, will prove to be the last son needed to make up the "seven sons" - of which my grandfather would have been the seventh son.

Which brings me to this morning's post. I received a copy of the death certificate of little Annie Salthouse, a previously unknown sister to my grandfather, named after her aunt, Annie Salthouse.The older Annie Salthouse had kept the village shop in Nether Alderley and seemed to have been the head of the family for many years. Little Annie Salthouse died of tubercular meningitis in August 1880, poor little thing, it doesn't alter anything, but I'm glad that she has been found and included in the list of William and Janet Salthouse's 10 children (at the last count).

William Ellery of Liverpool

A few nights ago I decided to have yet another go at identifying my ancestor, William Ellery. This time the catalyst was the Civil Service Evidence of Age List available on subscription at Find My Past. William Ellery, born at Bodmin, was a customs officer at Liverpool. The List provided one crucial piece of data - William Ellery was born on the 3rd May 1837, just before the modern system of collecting bmd registrations was begun.

The next part of the chase should be preceded by "with some certainty" as it involves piecing together clues from the census returns, transcriptions of parish registers and other published genealogies. The story is becoming clearer but at one point, at least, there must have been more marriages and widowings than I have found.

"With some certainity", the story seems to go like this: The Family Search site does not list William Ellery's birth or christening, so the earliest clues have to come from the 1841 and 1851 census returns published online by Ancestry. In 1841 William and his older brother Nicholas are living with their widowed mother Elizabeth, a shoebinder, at Downing Street, Bodmin; in 1851 all three are living with Elizabeth's unmarried brother, William Bray, a boot and shoemaker of Bodmin. By 1861 both brothers have left Cornwall - William is in Liverpool and Nicholas is in Uppingham, but Elizabeth has two young grandchildren living with her. The Family Search website yielded the information. When William Ellery was only 19 he married the 30 year old Mary Jane Bligh, daughter of Richard Bligh, a retired printer, of Fore Street, Bodmin. At the time, William was a musician, a bugler in the Royal Cornwall Rangers. Two children were born in quick succession, then Mary Jane died. All this happened between the 1851 and 1861 census returns.

There is less certainty about the rest of the story. We know that William Ellery removed to Liverpool and started a new family with Grace Warburton. (No marriage certificate yet, but it is not unusual for the GRO record to be missing). His sons were brought up in Bodmin. I have to assume, knowing what little I heard about William Ellery, that he wanted or needed a better future, that he could not take the babies with him to Liverpool when they were well looked after in Bodmin, and that hopefully he earned enough to do his best for them.

As to William's parents? According to his marriage certificate, William was the son of Nicholas Ellery, a hatter, who was trading in Bodmin in 1830, and of Elizabeth. On the census returns, William Bray states that Elizabeth is his sister and suitable records for the birth and christening of both William and Elizabeth are on the Family Search site. However, a Nicholas Ellery married Elizabeth Ellery, widow of his brother Richard, but this seems to relate back to an Elizabeth Brewer, not Elizabeth Bray, and some of the dates don't match, so this is for another day....

Alexander Ralston

One of my grandmothers was a Ralston - Gertrude Maud Ralston. This is one of those families where you find the earliest recorded person first and then gradually prove the connection as more and more information becomes available on the internet. That first person was Alexander Ralston who was listed in the Liverpool Poll Book of 1832 as a Block Maker of Upper Frederick Street, Toxteth.

Yesterday I revisited the excellent Toxteth Park Cemetery Site, a free site, generously given, and now graced with a site search engine. A quick search for "Ralston" provided a lot of new information. Alexander's wife, Sarah [Coleman] died in 1876, his daughter-in-law, Catherine, died in 1862 and one of her children died in 1863 - along with another of Alexander's grandchildren; the two babies, who would have been first cousins, were buried together in one ceremony. There were other, previously unknown, children, too. Sites like this are excellent for finding those children who were born and who died between the census years and who can't be identified from the bmd records (usually because the surnames are too common). My next task is to find out why there were so many deaths at this time - was it the Lancashire Cotton Famine or the cholera epidemics or some other reason?

Why write a blog about my family research?

Researching my family is pure fun! Nothing else!

For various reasons, my research is about 98% internet-based; the internet offers so much these days - free sites, subscription sites, image searches, forums, webhosting and emails.

What will I do with all the information?

I'll write it up, print it, give copies to the grandchildren (if I have any) and generally bore other people silly. I'll leave a copy with the family history society so that it can gather dust (the book not the family history society), then a film producer will fall over a discarded copy, read it and immediately offer me a film advance of £750,000, which will come in very handy as I've always wanted to be able to build my own carehome for me and my aged friends/family...

Why write the blog?

For me. There always seems to be something new to research that I forget what I was researching last night and go off on yet another tangent. So this is my way of reminding myself what I'm doing........what was that about wanting to build my own carehome?

If you find the blog interesting or useful, that's fine; if it's relevant you can find out more on my website, (you can contact me from there, too), otherwise - happy internetting!

Hilary