Gill Shaw
DIGGING DEEPER
I’ve got that kid in a sweet shop feeling. There are so many possibilities now I know Agnes and Henry Wrigley are my 4x great-grandparents. But for once, I’m going to be sensible and stick with the censuses. How many of Agnes and Henry’s children can I trace, and what little nuggets might I have missed when I thought they were just a side shoot of my tree?
First, let’s quickly recheck the 1841 Census with Agnes Wrigley and co living in Woodward Street, Manchester – and right next door, Mary Ann Whitham, née Maffin, with her husband and young son. Ah, of course! Now I know what I know, this makes even more sense. These two women already have a family connection, don’t they? It’s not just that in five years’ time Agnes’s son William will walk down the aisle with his next-door neighbour’s sister Sarah Maffin. It’s that 10 years earlier, Agnes’s eldest son Joseph, my 3x greatgrandfather, had married Sarah and Mary Ann’s big sister Richmon. Love it when things tie together!
According to the 1841, Agnes and all the children listed were born in Lancashire, so it looks as if it’s just Joseph and his sister Martha, whose baptisms I found last issue, who are from Rastrick, near Huddersfield. And Martha, I now notice, is conspicuous by her absence. Has she died or, like Joseph, just left home?