Twiglets
Diarist Gill Shaw charts the rollercoaster ride of researching her family history
Diarist Gill
DIGGING DEEPER
Ever come across something in your tree that you’ve so wanted to be right you’ve had to guard against twisting the facts to make it fit? Well, I worry I might have reached that point with my 5x great-grandmother Sarah Holdsworth, who I desperately want to be the 74-year-old Sarah Holdsworth I found last issue, buried at Emmanuel, Holcombe, in 1822. But hey, at least I’m aware of the dangers, so let’s crack on and see what’s out there…
The main reason I’d love this to work (apart from the fact I grew up only a couple of miles away), is that it would solve one of my tree’s little mysteries: why my 3x great-grandmother Richmael Maffin was baptised in 1809 at Holcombe, near Ramsbottom, when all her siblings were baptised 12 miles away in Manchester. Till now, I’d put it down to her father’s job – the parish registers say James Maffin was a stonemason, so I figured he’d gone to Ramsbottom for work, and Richmael just happened to be born while they were there.