Five on Friday

It's Friday again and time to join in with Amy at Love Made my Home for the Five on Friday gathering.

I've been doing bits and pieces of family history again over the last few weeks and I've also been looking back at things I've found out over the years and places I have visited since I started researching my family tree.  I've usually managed to photograph the churches and churchyards we have visited that have connections with ancestors so I thought I'd share five of them with you.

1.  All Saints church, Aston on Trent is a pretty church and we were lucky that there was a key holder on hand to show us around the interior.  In the churchyard we found a memorial inscription to both John (d.1830) and Keturah Webb (d 1826) who were the parents of my 3x great grandfather Francis Webb.   Francis moved to Nottingham for work and there, in 1816, married Mary Palmer.  Francis's occupation on the 1841 census was lace maker and the family address was Park Square in the St Nicholas District of Nottingham.  Francis and Mary's daughter Rebecca was my 2 x great grandmother.  She married Alexander Young whose father John Young moved from Kirkaldy in Fife to Loughborough in the 1820s, both father and son were tailors.  Alexander and Rebecca's daughter Celia Palmer Young was my great grandmother.

 2.  St Peter's Church, Awsworth. My great great grandparents on my Mum's side of the family tree, Joseph and Alice Limb were buried here although there isn't a memorial stone.  This couple moved around quite a bit for work and can be found on census returns living in Shipley Wood in Derbyshire, Awsworth in Nottinghmashire, Staveley in Derbyshire and Shirebrook in Derbyshire.  Alice died in Shirebrook in 1903 but was brought back to her birthplace to be buried.  Joseph died in 1914 on Lace Street in Nottingham at the home of one of his daughters and was brought to Awsworth to be buried with Alice.  He was born in Shipley near Heanor in Derbyshire in 1837 and baptised at the Shipley Wood Primitive Methodist Chapel.

3.   All Saints, Dilhorne, Staffordshire.  My 3x great grandmother Mary Chell was born here in 1794, the daughter of Joseph and Mary Chell.  At some point she moved from Staffordshire to South Derbyshire.  For ages I didn't know where she was born but on one census return she gave her birthplace as Dillon, Staffordshire.  Dilhorne isn't very far away from where we live now and it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps her accent or way of saying Dilhorne sounded like Dillon to the Census Enumerator for Newhall, who wouldn't have been familiar with either place or accent.  Equally it could have just been a misspelling.  We went to look at the church and found many Chells in the churchyard but not any that related to my direct line.

4.  St Peter's Church, Stapenhill.  Lots of my ancestors have associations with this church.  My 5 x great grandfather Thomas Gough was married to Sarah Boddis here in 1789 and my other 5x great grandparents were married here too. Robert Bridge and Mary Shaw were married two years earlier in 1787.  Robert and Mary's daughter Hannah married my 4 times great grandfather Benjamin Gough, son of Thomas and Sarah at the church in 1813.  Thomas Gough died in 1812 and was buried in the churchyard of St Peter's Church.  There are no Goughs recorded in the church records before his marriage to Sarah Boddis and the family always said that he came with a gang of men from the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire prospecting for coal.  Although others think he may have originally come from Shropshire. He worked with the Gresley family digging out bell pits to test for coal seams.  The records for this church were the first I ever looked at whilst researching my family tree.  I remember visiting the Archives at Matlock and looking at the actual register which was leather bound and presented on a soft cushion.  I had to wear cotton gloves and write only in pencil in my note book. I remember extracting anything I found useful at the time.  On later visits everything had been transferred to Microfilm and then later still to Microfiche.

5.  St John's Church, Newhall, Derbyshire.   Scene of the christenings, weddings and funerals of many of my ancestors on my father's side of the family tree. My 2, 3 and 4 x great grandparents are all buried in the churchyard as are some of their siblings.  Many of them were married and christened here too.


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Don't forget that after the 24th March there will be a new host, Tricky and Carly at Fast Blog, for Five on Friday see the link below to find out more