I and some of my siblings recently had a match with Brian. That match suggested a common ancestor of Mary Fielding Born 1739. I thought that it would be interesting to try to figure out if this connection seems likely or not. Herre is the connection:
This is the connectioin with my sister Lori. She matches Brian at 9 cM. I match him at 8 cM, so these matches are quite small. Brian’s main tree is private, but he has this tree on the Hargreaves side:
This tree is consistent with the Ancestry connected genealogy above except that Brian’s tree stops with John Hargreaves. I do see this tree at Ancestry:
However, I see many other trees with different parents for John Hargreaves.
Slogging Through Some Hargreaves Genealogy
Brian’s genealogy is quite thorough. He has the wedding certificate for Elizabeth Hargreaves:
She was married in a Methodist Church in Nottingham. Her father was Alfred Hargreaves. Here is Alfred’s baptismala record from Burnley in 1880:
Alfred’s father was a mason.
I’ll move on quickly to Richard Hargreaves. The 1881 Census indicates that Richard was born in Brierfield, Lancashire.
In 1871, we see Richard is in Bacup:
Here is Brierfield:
This seems to be a good guess for a baptismal record for Richard Hargreaves:
A Collier is a coal miner. It appears that the younger Richard was a Miner in 1861:
This appears to be a likely marriage record for the elder Richard Hargreaves:
The elder Richard is listed as being from Roughlee in the 1861 Census. In the 1861 Census, he is from Pendle Forest:
Here is Roughlee and Newchurch in Pendle:
I believe that Pendle Forest or the Forest of Pendle would be to the North of Newchurch-in-Pendle. This marriage differs a little from Brian’s as he has Richard marrying Ann Isherwood:
The problem with this is that this marriage takes place in Bolton and both parties are shown as being from Bolton which I feel is less likely than the Forest of Pendle scenario above. Also Ann would have been on the older side – about 31 at the time of her marriage – which may have been unusual.
Here are Richard and Ann in 1841:
They apparently have a son, John who was 12. That would mean that John was born in about 1829 – before the 1833 wedding of Anne Isherwood.
It is beginning to seem possible that the connection may be more from Colne than from Bacup:
The Hargreaves, from what I can tell were from the area of Brierfield which is closer to Colne than Bacup. I have ancstors from both the Bacup and Colne area.
Who Was the Younger Richard’s Wife?
I never established this:
The 1871 Census says she was from Sabden:
In 1871:
Ann has a daughter who is 4, so they may have married 1867 or before:
Here, Richard is a mason and his father a collier. This agrees with Brian’s tree.
Genealogy Before 1800 is Difficult – A Different Hargreaves Connection
Beforeee 1841, we don’t have the advantage of the Census. I have another ThruLines connection here:
I match Anne and Louise whose ancestry goes back to George Hargreaves.
My ancestry James Howorth married a Mary and had several children. Their first known child was Betty:
If we back up 9 months, that brings us into the end of April 1788 for a marriage:
Based on spelling of Howorth and date, James appears to have married either Mary Holt or Mary Eastwood. In a previous Blog, I favored Mary Holt as the mother.
Summary and Conclusions
- I didn’t follow the genealogy as far as I could, but it seemed like neither line was leading me to the same common ancestor the way Ancestry showed it
- It seemed like Brian’s ancestry may have been closer to my Colne ancestry than to my Bacup ancestry
- I would like to check out other ThruLine ancestors for ancestry
- The small the DNA match and the further away the common ancestor, the less likely it is of being accurate.
- Even though these ThruLines may be innacurrate, there is still the effect of ‘where there’s smoke there may be fire’. That means that there may be another meaningful connection.