Twiglets
Diarist Gill Shaw charts the rollercoaster ride of researching her family history
DIGGING DEEPER
Gill Shaw
Family names! Good old family names! How many times have they come to the rescue when I’ve been floundering?
I think I must have sleepwalking last issue when I started trying to solve my Wrigley riddle. When I found Henry Wrigley and Agnes Walkden’s marriage, why didn’t I clock the significance of those names? Henry and Agnes crop up left, right and centre on this side of my tree – right up until just a generation or two ago in fact, with Dad’s late uncle, my lovely great-uncle Harry Leah (christened Henry), and his mother Agnes Ann Wrigley, my great-grandmother.
Both names appear in the family of my 3x great-grandparents, Richmon Maffin and Joseph Wrigley. Agnes was Joseph and Richmon’s eldest surviving daughter, but I’d practically forgotten they had a Henry too, as he only appears on one census, the 1851. Could the pair have been named after their paternal grandparents?