Hi Carolyn, and welcome back to the Bolton List. You wrote < He left a will which was proved at Chester. (Was that the usual place for wills to be "proved")?> Yes. Anyone living south of the River Ribble (north Lancashire)had their wills proved at Chester. <Where could I possibly go to find his parents? Are there records of Turton and Quarlton that early?> Bolton Archives hold records of baptisms for St. Anne's from 1720, and St. Peter's dating from 1573. I will try and do a check for you, but it may not be for a while, as the Archives are closed from Monday, 28th August for 3 weeks for stocktaking. <In Scotland they had naming patterns: did England have anything similar?> If, by this, you mean repeating the same names from one generation to the next, then this also was very common in England. Hope this helps. Valerie