Hi Ruth, Many thanks for the ideas. I will follow those up. Thanks again Christine

<<snipped>> My gggg-grandmother Sarah ALMOND was born c 1780 (1861 census), 1782 (1851 census) or 1791 (1841 census) in Disley. She married James HUDSON (b c 1776) in 1804 at North Rode and they lived in North Rode. I cannot find a baptism for her. <<snipped>> Have you looked in Derbyshire, given that Disley is close to the border? Adrian

Hi Christine As Sarah ALMOND is consistently registered as being born in Disley in the Censuses and her baptism can’t be found on FMP’s website during the inconsistent dates given (FMP supposedly have fairly complete baptismal registers for that area – but of course you can’t be 100% sure of that fact) it would appear highly likely that she was not baptised in a CofE church. Methodism and other non-conformist branches were ‘hot’ in that area at the time. An enquiry to Chester RO where original documents are held might clarify exactly what non-conformist registers they hold for the Disley/Stockport area and they might be willing to do a look-up if some have been donated later to the RO and after the LDS filming. I did note that on Sarah’s marriage certificate it says she is from Siddington to the west of Macclesfield – presumably where she was working at the time. I found this reference ** to a James HUDSON on the A2A website. James has been variously described in other documents as a Husbandman and as an Ag Lab. As your James was born in Rainow, near Macclesfield, this document may well refer to him – it depends on how many other James HUDSONs there were in the area at that time. Again you could enquire of Lancaster RO about it. It may tell you nothing - or it may tell you much more about his working conditions, employer, type of work in which he was involved, rates of pay, etc. Sometimes this kind of document is brilliant for showing context and background to ancestor’s lives. Worth a punt anyway IMO. **  Parties Names: Mr. Wright on behalf of Lord Derby. Messrs. Jas. Hudson and Jos. Barlow.  DDK/470/19/1  1799: 15th Nov These documents are held at Lancashire Record Office Conditions of access: Record(s) not held at Lancashire Record Office Contents: Agreement for walling on Macclesfield Common. HTH Ruth

I can't help you with your baptism but can confirm the Worthenbury Almonds seem to be a different lot. I am working on them and am ending up doing a 'one name' study as they are spread all round this area (Wrexham). Tony > Today's Topics: > > 1. Sarah ALMOND (Christine Benson) > > > Hi All, > > My gggg-grandmother Sarah ALMOND was born c 1780 (1861 census), 1782 (1851 > census) or 1791 (1841 census) in Disley. She married James HUDSON (b c 1776) > in 1804 at North Rode and they lived in North Rode. > > I cannot find a baptism for her. There are some remote possibilities in > Middlewich and Acton, which is quite a way from Disley although not too far > from North Rode. Also some nearer in date from Northenbury and Worthenbury, > but they, as far as I can tell, are near Wrexham. Of course it is possible > she wasn't baptised, or that the baptism is not online. > > Any suggestions on tracking down the origins of Sarah greatly appreciated. > > Christine > > PS Her children were John, Elizabeth, Anne, Catharine and James. The boys > are named after the father and paternal grandfather but it is quite possible > the girls' names are from the maternal side. >

The following update has just been announced for CheshireBMD --------------- Message from Ian Hartas, Cheshire. Hi, Cheshire BMD has been updated as follows to add: Marriages: 1,632 for Stockport Civil Marriage, registers at Stockport (2007-2010) 127 for Ashton-under-Lyne, Albion United Reformed Church (Stamford Street), registers at Tameside (2009-2013) Many thanks to Peter Greenwood, Bob Kirk and their respective colleagues for these. --------------- Forwarded by Bob Kirk Web address: http://kirksoft.co.uk/ Sent from my iPad

Hi All, My gggg-grandmother Sarah ALMOND was born c 1780 (1861 census), 1782 (1851 census) or 1791 (1841 census) in Disley. She married James HUDSON (b c 1776) in 1804 at North Rode and they lived in North Rode. I cannot find a baptism for her. There are some remote possibilities in Middlewich and Acton, which is quite a way from Disley although not too far from North Rode. Also some nearer in date from Northenbury and Worthenbury, but they, as far as I can tell, are near Wrexham. Of course it is possible she wasn't baptised, or that the baptism is not online. Any suggestions on tracking down the origins of Sarah greatly appreciated. Christine PS Her children were John, Elizabeth, Anne, Catharine and James. The boys are named after the father and paternal grandfather but it is quite possible the girls' names are from the maternal side.

Researching the BYTHELL family. Period 1800 to present day. Members of the family moved to Australia after the 1881 U K census and later generations may have a New Zealand connection. Many thanks in advance, John Manning,

Hi All, I thought some of you might be interested in some of the events going on in Macclesfield to commemorate WW1 and those from the area who lost their lives. It's a blog page, but there are links to details of various events and stories: http://greatwarcheshire.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/macclesfield-reflects-on-first-world-war.html Regards Lesley Baxendale Colwyn Bay

Hannah Griffies born about 1763 possible Cheshire

Hi Avril It's still there, but a little more complicated now. Go to the A-Z of Record Sets in the upper right hand corner and click on 1851 Census of England Scotland and Wales. Scroll down the bottom of the page to Address. Hope this helps. Cheers Grhaam Melbourne Oz

Many thanks to Adrian for all his advice on how to find things on the new FMP. I have printed some of them and will take them to FHSC Research Centre at Mobberley. We use FMP there and as I occasionally stand in for a volunteer I need to know how to use FMP. I am no longer a member at home so I can't 'play' and find out that way. I'm pleased to hear that FMP are listening to our moans and I look forward to the day when Cheshire records are to be found indexed under C' as well as after Derbyshire etc! I understand the background and why they are where they are but we have to get the message over to FMP that 'improvements' mean 'finding things more easily'! Any more hints on how to navigate around FMP would be welcome. Thanks again, Lyn.

 I am researching the ancestors of my maternal grandparents, whom I have traced back only to my great-grandparents John Midwood (b. 23 Oct 1831 Stalybridge, Cheshire) and his wife Ellen Avison ([Evenson?] b. about 1842 Stalybridge, Tameside, or Stalybridge, Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire). I am a little uncertain as to whether these two towns are one and the same. In  the 1861 U.K. Census John is listed as a "Beer-Seller"; and in the 1871 baptism record of his daughter Elizabeth Ann, he is listed as a "Beer-House Keeper". (A man after my own heart!) I have no information about their marriage, but it may have been as late as 1868, as it appears that their third child, Elizabeth Ann, was born in 1871. It appears that they emigrated to Massachusetts (MA), USA sometime between 1872 and 1875, because my information reflects that their fourth child Charley was born in Stalybridge 12 May 1872 and their next known child Melior was born about 1875 in Massachusetts.  John and Ellen appear to have emigrated to Bristol, Rhode Island (RI) and then moved to Tiverton, RI, where he owned a poultry farm on Fish Road, then Fall River, MA. In 1880 the US Census lists him living at 86 Alden Street, Fall River, as a cotton mill worker. Ellen worked in the mills, too. He eventually bought a farm on Wood Street in Swansea, MA. His sons James and George bought the farm from their mother after their father passed away. James was my grandfather. As best I can determine, John and Ellen Midwood's children were:     Amelia     Harriet     Elizabeth Ann (Stalybridge, c. 16 Mar 1871)     Charley (Stalybridge, c. 12 May 1872)     Melior (Massachusetts, abt 1875)     Harriet (Fall River, MA, abt 1876)     James (my grandfather) (b. Fall River, MA 10 Jun 1878)     George (b. Tiverton, RI abt 1881) John's parents may have been Joseph Midwood (b. abt 1811 Lepton, Yorkshire), and Mary Ann (no maiden surname, b. abt 1808) but that identification is not conclusive. He is said to have raised prize gladiolas and whippet dogs. John and Mary Ann's other children were:     Charles (Dunkinfield, Cheshire abt 1835)     Amelia (Dunkinfield, Cheshire abt 1841)     James (Dunkinfield, Cheshire abt 1843)     Hannah (Stalybridge, abt 1846)   If anyone an offer any further information on my Midwood or Avison (Evenson?) ancestors, I would greatly appreciate the help. Best regards, Robert Lee Wood, Jr. San Mateo (near San Francisco), CA, USA P.S. I have traced the Wood line back to Ipswich, MA when in 1666 the weaver Anthony Wood married Mary Grover of Beverly, MA. I have not traced Anthony back to England, but that is a parallel line of inquiry.

<<snipped>> It's still there, but a little more complicated now. Go to the A-Z of Record Sets in the upper right hand corner and click on 1851 Census of England Scotland and Wales. Scroll down the bottom of the page to Address. <<snipped>> As Graham says - it's still there, just not obvious to find. It may - or may not - help to know that FMP have a general census search form for all censuses *and* a specific census search form for each census-year. Nothing wrong with that, it's what Ancestry do and FMP can build census search forms looking for stuff that only appears on one census. In this case the address is only to be found on the specific census search form for each census-year. (Last time I looked!) The problem comes in finding the specific census search form. You might think that menu option Search / Census would get to it eventually. That's how you get to the general census search form after all, so surely the specific ones are just a step further. Oh no.... The only ways to get to the specific forms are either from the A-Z list or from the menu option Search / Search ALL records, then choose Census link. Logical, it is not... Adrian B

For all those who are lamenting the probable demise of FMP, you might be interested in this letter that I recently wrote to the Cheshire Record Office about difficulties with their Cheshire records on FMP, and this is the reply I received.... Thank you for your email of 29 May. I can easily understand your frustration as we share it here. As our records are on Findmypast we have free access to the collections here and across Cheshire Libraries. We too were unaware of the modification made to the site until they happened, and although we have brought a whole list of issues up with Findmypast, as yet these have not been rectified. This situation is most unsatisfactory from our point of view as the site, and the Cheshire Collection, have been in continual use by staff and searchers here at the Record Office since its launch, but we have made our concerns known to Findmypast and will continue to do so on our own, and users’ behalf. If you do not renew your subscription in July you can still access the indexes to the Cheshire Collection at www.familysearch.org as the indexes in use at Findmypast were compiled by the Mormons and are available at their site. Copies of any entries which you find at familysearch can be ordered through our eshop at our website. I realise that this may not be as convenient as being able to view images and download them but it may go some way towards lessening the inconvenience until Findmypast address the issues arising from their upgrade. Thank you for bringing this to our attention and I will make sure your email is passed on to the Archives and Local Studies Manager. Yours sincerely Liz Green *Archivist* Cheshire Archives and Local Studies If more owners of the record collections were to write and voice their displeasure to FMP maybe they would take more notice than they do of us mere mortals who pay them to view these records. On 6 June 2014 02:40, Beverly Alexander <alexbev@comcast.net> wrote: > >From the USA, I found FMP to be very valuable in my search for Cheshire > ancestors. Past tense! > > It is mostly useless now, can't find anything but the census'. But that > doesn't bother me as much as the fact that FMP does not care that they have > destroyed its usefulness. I have written them 3 times on the subject, and > all inquiries have been ignored. I have a full-up worldwide Ancestry > account, but they can't hold a candle to FMP, that is the old FMP. > > It makes me so sad. > > Beverly > Culpeper, VA > > -----Original Message----- > From: cheshire-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:cheshire-bounces@rootsweb.com] > On Behalf Of Adrian Bruce > Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2014 12:13 PM > To: cheshire@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [CHS] FMP > > <<snipped>> > I keep reading that it has got better but I have seen no difference. > <<snipped>> > > Depends where you're looking. They have reintroduced the ability to > download > pages of newspapers, for instance. > > <<snipped>> > None of the main family history sites seem to be working well at the > moment, > Ancestry and FamilySearch are having trouble too. Looks as though they are > all busy updating their websites to fit in with the current fashion for > doing everything from an iPad or tablet <<snipped>> > > Working on tablets and smartphones has to be a given. It's perfectly > possible to do it - you just need to design layouts that respond > differently > to being on different sizes of glass. > > Re Ancestry - Yes, New Search anyone? And I suspect the impractical > mechanism to choose birthplace in the FMP censuses had its inspiration in > Ancestry restricting people to birthplaces in a drop-down list. And where > did Ancestry get its inspiration from? The programmers? I suspect not - I > think they got the idea from American *genealogists*. You don't have to go > far before you find American genealogists going on about placename > authority > tables, i.e. a full and complete list of *all* placenames. > > (Honesty compels me to point out that when American genealogists refer to > placenames they mean jurisdictions - and it might be possible to produce > such a list for the UK - I think http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk has > just > that. But the Norwegian genealogists seem to be producing a database of all > farm-names!!! Maybe "farm" means something different to them...) > > Adrian > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > CHESHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes > in the subject and the body of the message > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > CHESHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Me again... This link might be useful for people trying to find their way round the somewhat idiosyncratic FMP navigation http://www.findmypast.co.uk/articles/world-records/search-all-uk-records/spe cial-collections/the-cheshire-collection That will probably break in most people's mail so this is a shortened version of the same thing: http://goo.gl/gKsvBN Basically, that's a front page for (almost) all the Cheshire Collection. The only omission is the Land Tax records that went up a few days ago. But the PRs and the BTs of the (ahem) Diocese of Chester are all there on that page. (I have it in my head that those weren't there before - but I may be wrong). Land Tax records are on... http://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-Records/cheshire-land-tax-assess ments-1786-1832 http://goo.gl/iKyJH1 Adrian B

<<snipped>> There are no other datasets on FMP which are called 'Diocese of .' <<snipped>> Interestingly if you look at the Shropshire PRs, they are referred to as "Shropshire Baptisms" - I guess because they are. Looking at the England & Wales Jurisdictions map of 1851 on http://maps.familysearch.org/#layer at that time the (very roughly) northern part of the county was in the Diocese of Lichfield and the rest in the Diocese of Hereford. What you get on FMP are the two halves of Shropshire, lumped together. Hence Shropshire is the only appropriate name. I presume that the records in FMP have all come from originals at Shropshire Record Office. Adrian B PS - if you really want to be confused, try researching Lancashire Wills without reading up on *their* origins.

A few years ago FMP offered a census search by street name. It was invaluable. I re-subscribed hoping to be able to search 1851 census Cross Street, Birkenhead. That option doesn't appear now. This was the ONLY advantage FMP had over Ancestry. Does anyone know if/how I can do a search for an address, to see who lived at a particular house #? Thanks, Avril

I'm unsure as to why the records are labelled under 'Diocese of Chester' rather than plain old 'Cheshire'. There are no other datasets on FMP which are called 'Diocese of .' It may be that this title, Diocese of Chester, came from Family Search who did the original copying. We've been complaining for goodness how long about the origin of documents not being shown. One set often 'bleeds' into another and you could be looking at anywhere. Whether you find info from the Family Search website or FMP it's the same story. It's impossible to tell at times exactly which document you are looking at. Chester RO take no responsibility for the confusion at all - I complained and got nowhere. I check with the CPR project as far as is possible. I just hope they get to the Prestbury registers soon. I rely heavily on the Cheshire parish records for my work and FMP is the only website on which I can see the actual image. I don't know whether FMP has other counties' images in the same way and how they are listed. Perhaps if FMP were to give a starter 'County' Search box which gave us a menu of all the datasets connected with that County before we choose our Record Set it would help. Just nosing around now I found more Cheshire sets under N for North Cheshire! Perhaps I need to try S, E and W!! There is nothing set in stone in this game. As county borders change, diocese merge and CofE Peculiars loom out of the mists not to mention Catholics, Protestants and all other divisions of faith it's a wonder we find anything at times. [While I've been writing this Adrian has come up with the answer to the Cheshire v Diocese of Chester problem - thank you Adrian.] Ruth

<<snipped>> I keep reading that it has got better but I have seen no difference. <<snipped>> Depends where you're looking. They have reintroduced the ability to download pages of newspapers, for instance. <<snipped>> None of the main family history sites seem to be working well at the moment, Ancestry and FamilySearch are having trouble too. Looks as though they are all busy updating their websites to fit in with the current fashion for doing everything from an iPad or tablet <<snipped>> Working on tablets and smartphones has to be a given. It's perfectly possible to do it - you just need to design layouts that respond differently to being on different sizes of glass. Re Ancestry - Yes, New Search anyone? And I suspect the impractical mechanism to choose birthplace in the FMP censuses had its inspiration in Ancestry restricting people to birthplaces in a drop-down list. And where did Ancestry get its inspiration from? The programmers? I suspect not - I think they got the idea from American *genealogists*. You don't have to go far before you find American genealogists going on about placename authority tables, i.e. a full and complete list of *all* placenames. (Honesty compels me to point out that when American genealogists refer to placenames they mean jurisdictions - and it might be possible to produce such a list for the UK - I think http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk has just that. But the Norwegian genealogists seem to be producing a database of all farm-names!!! Maybe "farm" means something different to them...) Adrian

Hi Martin, Just tried a census household print from the 1851 census. No problem - prints in order on one side of A4 - title at the top, household in order of age after the head & spouse - just what you would expect. My only beef with the printing process at the moment, is that it doesn't show the logo at the top, nor the information you would usually get at the bottom - just the URL address and place markers for the logo. I think that's probably got something to do with how the information is embedded into the page. The margins on the left are a bit skimpy too. Even so, it's much better than it was a few weeks ago, so they are obviously doing something. As for inputting place of birth. I could never get it to do that correctly on the old site, so it's no surprise that it still doesn't work. I think if you restrict the results to 'census' using the drop down list at the top & select a particular census year, you might have more luck, but it seems to depend on how the original database was indexed. If you put the place of birth in the keyword field, that works quite well. Just doing a general search on the census years won't work as 1841 didn't give that sort of information, so it stops everything else from working. Overall, I would say FMP is 'improving slowly'. Don't forget, it had lots of little foibles before, it's just that we are all now looking at the old site through rose tinted glasses. Regards Lesley On 05/06/2014 16:39, Martin Briscoe wrote: > I am not convinced of that, they do not seem to have recognised what a mess > they have made of the site and are more interested in PR telling everyone > that it is only a minor problem. > > They still have not managed to produce a nice simple, tidy summary of a > household census entry that can be printed on less side of a sheet of paper > as was possible before the 'improvements'. > > My standard test is to enter my family name in one of the censuses with just > place of birth 'Bolton', I get no matches even though there are a dozen or > so. > > It is over two months since they screwed up the site, I keep reading that it > has got better but I have seen no difference. > > Martin Briscoe > Fort William > martin@mbriscoe.me.uk > > -----Original Message----- > From: cheshire-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:cheshire-bounces@rootsweb.com] > On Behalf Of Lesley Baxendale > Sent: 05 June 2014 16:01 > To: cheshire@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [CHS] FMP > > All very well if you don't happen to have lots of Cheshire ancestors. > Neither site is fully comprehensive, but FMP is by far the best for > Cheshire. > > It's having a few struggles at the moment, which I'm sure will get ironed > out eventually. > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to CHESHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >