Happy Dancing
The joy and sorrow of genealogy is that just when you find the most exciting things… you run into the reality that you may not find anything else for that family due to the lack of extant records. There just aren’t that many things from the 1700s. The other reality is that there are even fewer if your people were poor. About the best you can hope for is christening and marriage records from the local church. These are all I’m working with right now.
Based on the records in Wigans All Saints we know that the mother of our immigrant ancestor William Bromilow (1800-1873) was Jane/Jenny Turner. The baptism record for her first child George stated the family’s abode was Shevington, a small town near Standish. Through the Lancashire OnLine Parish Clerk Project, I was able to locate Jenny’s christening record (as shown in the previous post) in St. Wilfrid’s in Standish. I can’t tell you how excited I was and how much giggling ensued. The name William Turner got to me immediately. I had visions of Orlando Bloom as Will Turner in The Pirates of the Caribbean. I immediately downloaded a picture of him and made it his profile picture on Ancestry. I’ll eventually replace it with an image of one of his records, but just allow me my moment…
Once I had Jenny’s christening record, I bounced into the marriage register to see if her parents had married there, or if they’d made the trip to All Saints in Wigan. I was incredibly excited to find their marriage record and more giggling immediately ensued.1
Here I am staring at a 1754 marriage record and all I hear in my head is The Beatles singing “Eleanor Rigby.” How lucky am I?
Even while singing, I began digging for records and building the family.
Based on the records in St. Wilfrid, here’s what I’ve gathered:
William Turner (?- buried 2 Apr 1791)2 married Eleanor Rigby (?- buried 6 Jan 1778)3 on 30 Sep 1754. I found three known children:
1. Jenny baptized 18 Jun 1758 m. William Bromilow (unknown b&d) abt 1789
2. William baptized 16 Jul 17614 m. Elizabeth Kitchen 15 Jul 17825
3. John baptized 1 May 1768,6 buried 16 Oct 1791 St. Wilfrid.7
In looking for William Turner’s baptism, I found no viable candidates in the baptismal registers of St. Wilfred between the years (1720-1741). While there are several William Turners in the “area,” I have no way of narrowing them down at this time. Nor can I rule out the Williams born between 1710-1720 as there is no way of knowing if this was a late marriage or even a second marriage.
There were no Eleanor Rigbys within that range either, but there was an Ellen Rigby baptized 11 Nov 1739, daughter of John and Margaret. While I’ve seen Ellen and Eleanore used interchangeably, I wouldn’t want to hang my hat on this one. ** Note – The Ellinor Rigby baptized in All Saints in 1727 is NOT ours – that Ellinor married Ralph Jolley on 29 Apr 1753. Yeah… I was disappointed too.
There are other parishes to be searched, but this is where I’m going to leave this line for now. I made it back much further than I ever thought I would.
1. Marriage Record, St Wilfrid, Standish, Lancashire, Marriage Registers 1754-1792, p3, 30 Sep 1754 – William Turner, carpenter of this parish, to Eleanor Rigby, spinster. FHL Fim#1526140.
2. Burial Record, St. Wilfrid, Standish, Lancashire, Burial Registers 1772-1812 p 63, 2 Apr 1791, William Turner, Shevington, LDS Film 1526140.
3. Burial Record, St Wilfrid, Standish, Lancashire, Burial Registers 1772-1812, p19, 6 Jan 1778, Elnor Turner, Shevington. Cit. Date: 8 Dec 2015.
4. Christening records (accessed 9 Dec 2015), St Wilfrid, Standish, Lancashire, Baptismal Registers 1733-1771 p120, William Turner 16 Jul 1761, Son of William and Eleanor Turner, Shevington, LDS Film 1526140.
5. Marriage Record, St Wilfrid, Standish, Lancashire, Marriage Registers 1754-1792, p202, 15 Jul 1782, William Turner to Elizabeth Kitchen, banns read 30 Jun 1782, 2nd Jul 1782, 3rd 14 Jul 1782, witness: William Turner, John Smith. LDS Film 1526140.
6. Christening records (accessed 9 Dec 2015), St Wilfrid, Standish, Lancashire, Baptismal Registers 1733-1771 p155, 1 May 1768, John Turner, son of William & Eleanor Turner, Shevington, LDS Film 1526140.
7. Burial Record, St. Wilfrid, Standish, Lancashire, Burial Registers 1772-1812 p 63, 16 Oct 1791, John Turner, Shevington, LDS Film 1526140.