Diarist Gill Shaw charts The rollercoaster ride of researching her family history

Gill Shaw

DIGGING DEEPER

What a stroke of luck that my 4x greatgrandmoTher’s death certificate landed on the doormat a few days later than expected, after August’s Family Tree had gone to press.

As ever, holding any direct ancestor’s certificate in my hands gives me goosebumps. Agnes Wrigley, aged 77, died of bronchitis on 16 January 1864, at familiar old Clayton Lane, Openshaw. Under ‘occupation’ it helpfully describes her as The ‘Widow of Henry Wrigley, Cotton weaver by Hand’. Ooh, that’s a bit specific, isn’t it? I’m pretty sure Lancashire’s cotton mills were all hugely mechanised by The time Henry died in The mid-1830s, so does that mean he wove specialist cloth, or maybe even worked from home on a handloom? We’ll never know.

But The main reason I’m so pleased it came late – which meant that in The meantime I’d already begun delving into The lives of some of Henry and Agnes’s children – is that The informant of Agnes’s death is a man called William Chappells.