Hartley ThruLines

By Hartley ThruLines, I mean that I want to look at ThruLines on my Hartley side. I notice this interesting one:

My ThruLine with Paul is worth taking a look at. If this is right, it would help cement my connection to James Hartley born 1763.

A Tree for Paul

The way I check these is to create my own private tree for my match. Paul has posted a pretty good tree at Ancestry leading back to Ann Hartley:

This Ann Hartley was married to a Hartley Blackburn. However, he has this Ann being from Yorkshire:

Here is a conversation I had with Paul:

This appears to be Paul’s paternal grandmother:

Confusingly, Irene is transcribed at Ancestry as June in the 1911 Census:

The 1881 Census for Nelson is interesting:

It shows that William and Hartley Pilling were Ann Blackburn’s children, born in Colne and Winewall and that Maggie Blackburn was born in Nelson. This suggests to me that Ann Blackburn may have married a Pilling in Colne. Here are two marriages of an Ann Hartley to a Pilling:

Ann would be too young for the first marriage, but there was a Blackburn witness in that marriage.

Here is a entry for Ann Hartley from a tree I found at Ancestry:

This makes sense to me. The same tree has Hartley Blackburn from Trawden:

I also found that a possibility for Ann Hartley was this 1841 Census for Trawden, Lancashire:

In the 1881 Census, Ann was said to be from Marton, Yorkshire. All of this family at least shows as being from Lancashire. Another issue is that I can’t figure out where Marton is.

Another question: if Ann Hartley married as here:

then why would her father be Samuel Bell? Time to look at another Hartley ThruLine and perhaps come back to this later.

Joyce and Ainsworth

Joyce is my father’s 1st cousin:

Here is another connection through a William Hartley. Ruth should not be on this list as she descends from Mary Pilling. Mary had an illegitimate child before she married Robert. Ruth is desended from that child.

Looking at the Ainsworth Tree

The Ainsworth Tree is private, but the ThruLines has a suggested path based on other trees. One tree I found has a photo for John Hartley Ainsworth:

Three Ancestry Trees have John as the father of Olwyn:

Here is the 1911 Census showing a young John Hartley Ainsworth and his family – all born in Nelson:

James and Martha were married in 1901. They apparently lived with the wife’s family that year:

Next, I am trying to verify Martha’s mother:

Ancestry is suggesting Jane Hartley. The 1891 Census for Nelson has Jane being born in Trawden:

I found three trees for Jane Hartley at Ancestry and they all have Mary Hartley as her mother and they do not show a father:

That seems to be consistant with the original ThruLines which shows Jane’s mother as Mary Ann Hartley. This seems to be a good candidate for Jane in the 1851 Census:

Here we have a William Hartley, a Mary Hartley unmarried and a Jane Hartley granddaughter. So far, this is going more smoothly than the previous tree. This family which was all associated with Trawden moved within 8 months to Little Marsden (the time of the birth of Jane Hartley).  My question would be: why is Jane the daughter the Mary. She could have been the daughter of Betty or Alice. Here is the 1861 Census:

There is now a Sarah Hartley listed as daughter, but probably not from 64 year old Jane Hartley. Mary Ann is out of the house – either married or died or otherwise just moved out. It would make sense for the mother of the children to stay and take care of them. Regardless, William and Jane Hartley appear to be the grandparents of Jane and Sarah.

The truth comes out in 1871:

Here we have three generations of Hartleys: William, Alice and then Jane and Sarah. And they are living next door to the Widdup family!

The Census really helped out and is still informative in 1881:

I already had this before, but now I see that Sarah is a sister to Jane and not an Aunt. With what I see so far, I would choose Alice as the mother to Jane and Sarah, but there may be other information out there which would have Mary as the mother. However, to get back to William Hartley, I need to enter one Hartley sister and will enter Mary for now.

Mary Hartley and Her Sisters

We know that Mary Hartley was 23 in 1851. That would put her birth at around 1828 in Trawden. Going from the known to the unknown:

It is clear that this is the family in 1851 in Little Marsden which is just to the West of Trawden. This family had William and Jane as parents. Their children were Mary, Betty, Alice, Jonathan? and granddaughter Jane. Let’s compare the 1841 Census in Trawden where they were all born:

The family goes on to the next page:

This is clearly the same family, so that is good news. Unfortunately, the 1841 Census does not give family relations, but they are usually implied. Ancestry suggests William Hartley and Sarah Pickles as the parents which seems like a good choice to me:

If I decide that Pickles is not the right name later, I can change it.

Who Were the Parents of This William Hartley?

When I look at 3 Ancestry Trees, two have his parents as John and Mary Hartley and one Tree has his parents as James Hartley and Betty Baldwin. However, the one tree is a person I know and may have been influenced by my research? My old Hartley Web Site has this information:

My best guess for the parents of my ancestor Robert Hartley were James Hartley and Betty Baldwin. I also had that couple with a son William born in 1805 which would fit this William. If that is the case, then the DNA match would be my first DNA evidence that My ancestors were indeed James Hartley and Betty Baldwin.

I do note that there was a William Hartley who married a Jane Pickles in 1825:

However, this William was a widower. If William was born in 1805, that would make him a very young widower of 19. Possible but not likely. The other 2 trees had this William:

He would also have been a young widower at 20. We get William’s birth date from his Census records.

• In 1841, he is listed as 35. However, note:

Please note, when searching the 1841 census, ages up to 15 are listed exactly as reported/recorded but ages over 15 were rounded to the nearest 5 years (i.e. a person aged 53 would be listed on the census as age 50 years).

• In 1851, William was listed as 46, which is why we think he may have been born in 1804  or 1805.
• In 1861 William was listed as 57, so he would be born in 1804 or possibly 1803
• In 1871, William was listed as 58, so it is difficult to nail down a birth year. Now it could be 1803 or 1802.
• In 1881, he is listed as 76 which puts his birth back to 1804 or 1805.

According to the Death Registration Index, there was a William who died in the Burnley area in 1885 at the age of 80:

This further suggests that William was born in 1804 or 1805. Assuming that this information is correct, I would lean toward William being born in 1804 as this record is for early 1885. Based on this analysis and assuming that William was baptized in Colne, I come up with these candidates:

I don’t know where Newlaith is, but there is a Little Laith listed in Trawden in 1841 Census.

This Wililam appears to be a good choice based on both date of birth and location.

This William who I thought previously could be the brother of my ancestor seems to be born a little too late.

Jane Pickles

Next, I would like to know if the Jane who married William was Jane Pickles. The fact that there was a 20 year old Sarah Pickles living with the William Hartley family seems to add to the evidence that Jane could be Jane Pickles.

Jane Pickles is mentionted in the Non-Conformist records. It appears that there was a Weslyan revival going on in Trawden at some point and many were baptized, including my third great-grandmother Mary Pilling Hartley. Here are the first three entries:

Here are the next two:

Here is a map of where my ancestors lived in 1837 according to the same Weslyan records:

I assume that Trawden means the village of Trawden and Slack Booth was outside the village to the South.

From the Weslyan records, we know that Jane’s father was Henry Pickles and her mother was Mary:

There are two choices for this couple’s marriage:

Molly was a nickname for Mary.

I am leaning toward Mary as the right spouse as opposed to Molly. Here is a birth to Molly:

I have not heard of Whilly End which would not rule her out. Also her maiden name is Pilling, so the DNA match could be on that side if this was the correct ancestor.

More on Wililam Hartley and His Possible Parents

I had as my best guess that William’s parents were John and Mary Hartley. One place to look is the 1841 Census:

I see that there was a John and Mary living next to the James Hartley Family. And the James Hartley Family is listed after the William Hartley Family. Now assuming that this John was the father of William and perhaps James, he would have been born in about 1776. Remember ages over 15 were rounded down to the nearest 5 years. So John could have been born as early as about 1771 – assuming that he was the father.

Next Steps

I’ll keep looking at ThruLines and comparing them. The ThruLines as partially based on the information we put in the trees, so it may be necessary to try other potential ancestors. The goal would be to find a common ancestor with one of the DNA matches that does not have a clear connection on another line such as Pilling which is also a Trawden ancestor.

Summary and Conclusions

• I first looked at Paul’s Tree. He is a DNA match with me. I got confused going back into the genealogy and had a lot of questions, so I went on to the next ThruLine
• The next ThruLine was between my father’s 1st cousin Joyce and Ainsworth. The Ainsworth Tree was more straightforward and I got back to a Hartley Family in Trawden, not too far from where my Hartleys were from. This genealogy also bogged down around and before the year 1800. That seems to be a sticky area.
• The goal is to find common ancestors between a DNA match. The genealogies of the DNA matches, if on the Harltey side, should inform me of the direction to go in my own genealogy.