I’m fl oundering. I thought it would be a simple job to join the dots between my 7x great-grandfather Alexander Walkden in Unsworth, Lancashire, and ‘Old Alexander Walkden, pauper’ of nearby Whitefi eld, who must, surely, be his dad. But it’s turning out to be a tall order.
We’re after a baptism in the 1670s most likely for Alex junior, given that he married in 1697 and was buried in 1749. But date-wise, the nearest the Lancashire Online Parish Clerk site (LOPC) has is an Alexander baptised in 1662 in Blackrod (a good few miles away) with a father named Peter.