Three generations, a “curse” – and a question about who chooses who goes where. Betty Hirst has appeared in some of our stories before – her daughter Ann became Ann Livsey, we learned about her husband John Lord’s career via the story of her mother in law Martha, and probably there are countless other Lords …
Read more “37.2 and 40.11 – Betty, John, Priscilla, John and Annie Lord”
This post isn’t a story so much as it’s an example of how we can try to use available records to identify mysterious burials, like plot markers – and how as more research gets carried out, previous assumptions need to be revisited and revised. A colleague of mine [researcher Sarah] asked me if I knew …
A father, a son, and a daughter in law – and a telling gap in the engraving that raises a question…where’s Sarah? Abram, or Abraham, Stansfield was born in Todmorden in 1811 to parents whose names we can’t be certain of. There are only 14 Abraham Stansfields on a census return in 1841, and thanks …
Read more “41.7 and 33.20 – Charles, Abram, Betty and Sarah Stansfield”
Here are some more members of the Lord family of Canal Street Works fame, but from a slightly lesser known Lord brother: Abraham. The story here starts with his first wife, Emm. It also covers the lives of two of her sons…one to be proud of (or at least not disappointed by), and one to …
Read more “41.12 – Andrew, Emm, Mary Ellen, Sam, Willie and John Lord”
Two people who lived a quiet life – not a lot of story to tell here – and two of their three infants who now have their names back. Sutcliffe Greenwood was born at Rodwell End in 1810 to William and Ginney Greenwood. He was baptised at Cross Stone where the register notes William’s occupation …
Read more “41.27 – Hannah, Sutcliffe, Samuel and Sutcliffe Greenwood”
Sisters in law and a tiny son – these women hailed from afar and their husbands didn’t stay long…but this grave is linked to one of Todmorden’s greatest railway landmarks via one husband, and it’s a shame that the story of these women will be light on details when there’s so much to tell about …
Mary Ormerod, in this triple-sized grave, gets a story page all of her own. Why? Because Mary is a unicorn in the graveyard, and because she is the quintessential “lost woman” in her family’s story. Mary was born Mary Stansfield, in 1815, to corn miller William Greenwood of Scaitcliffe Mill and…well. This is why she’s …
The three Wilson children in this grave are another example of children whose families moved on and never came back – and also a reminder that access to medicine or medical knowledge wasn’t enough to save you back then. It’s also a mystery all of its own for other reasons… Matthew Wilson was born in …
Here’s one of those tricky graves where the most popular surname in Todmorden’s past runs into two of the most popular forenames; we did our best, and we can’t be certain of every detail, but this is – hopefully – the true and accurate story of a mother and son. Mary Jackson, as she was …
These Congregationalists are just a small fragment of a large, blended, and ultimately rather mysteriously tragic family. The tragedy of this family is a fairly standard one for its time, if an exaggerated version of it. Medicine wasn’t all people wanted it to be back then. But even so… To start at the beginning we …