Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

Hi there

I currently have a trial subscription to Find My Past (FMP), though I'm finding it far easier to enter its database via familysearch.org - you seem to get far more results. Does anyone else have experience of this? Also, do people prefer Ancestry or FMP? My wife and I are seasoned researchers who are back to 1851 on all lines, so we're looking at 1841 and parish records.

On the second issue, we're looking for Gibraltar St/Row/Place, Liverpool, in the FMP 1841 census, but the street doesn't show up. We know there was a Thomas Bramhill (or variant) living there at that time, but cannot find him in a straight search. Has anyone had any luck with finding 1841 street information like this?

Will

Hello Will,
I use Findmypast and have done ever since it started as 1837Online. I find its search engine superb. It is fast and extremely flexible, even allowing you to search a census on first names only and it has 'another resident in the same household' feature.

Re your street problem, not all streets are indexed yet in the 1841 and other censuses, but you will find Gibraltar Row running from Old Hall Street to Bath Street immediately above Princes Dock. You can navigate to it from here: http://www.liverpoolhistoryprojects.co. ... eets.htm#G

However, spelling errors by enumerators can creep in and in this case a search for Gib* Row - Liverpool - Lancashire gave a result for GibraltEr!

Just done a 'walk' down Gibraltar Row and didn't see Thomas Bramhill though. What was his occupation?

Re Thomas Bramhill..

I found only five such named [with variations] resident in Liverpool in 1841:
BRAM, Thomas - bn 1832
BRAMFIELD, Thos - bn 1821
BRAMHILL, Thomas bn 1821
BRAMMEL, Thomas - bn 1829 [West Derby]
BROMHALL, Thomas - bn 1816

Do you have an age for Thomas and any other info on him, and what leads you to believe he was in Gibraltar Row?

Remember ages in the 1841 above 15 years were supposed to be rounded down to the nearest 0 or 5. So 29 would be 25 and 34 would be 30, etc. Some enumerators didn't ensure the rule was followed and transcribed YoBs, which are calculated from the given age, can be out by up to 4 years.

Hi - this is the snag! I believe Thomas is the father of John BRAMILL b1819. John appears in the 1851 census in the Gibraltar Street/Denison Street area, and the family stay in or near that location until the 1910s (John and children recorded from 1851). The most likely marriage for John BRAMILL (m Elizabeth) is July 16 1845, where their fathers are given as Thomas BRAMILL and William CHEETHAM, and a witness is a Margaret Bramhill.

I'd been stuck there for years, then on Lan-Opc I came across a Nov 24 1816 birth record of a Margaret Bramall, daughter of a Thomas and Elizabeth Bramall of Gibraltar Street, which could mean the family had been in the area for longer than thought. I still can't find a baptism for John, son of Thomas.

There are various Thomas Bramhills: one is a coffee shop owner and another a blacksmith.

I'm also working at a distance. I live in Essex, so rarely get to Merseyside now my Liverpool aunts have all gone.

Regards

Will

Margaret was b 1816 and John c1819, which would put Thomas's birth as anywhere between 1760 to 1795. There is a Thomas BRAMALL b 1784, and a marriage at St Peter's in 1805; there is also a Thomas BRAMWELL married in 1815.

I have a list of various Bramhill births in Huyton/Childwall back to the early 1600s but, of course, you can't start there and work forwards!

I've found that Bramhall can be Bramhall, Bramall, Bremell, Bremill and there is even one record of a Bramill later being called a Bromilow, but Bramwells tend to be distinct. My DNA test has turned up distant Brimhall relatives in the US.

Will

Hi,
Re:

The most likely marriage for John BRAMILL (m Elizabeth) is July 16 1845, where their fathers are given as Thomas BRAMILL and William CHEETHAM, and a witness is a Margaret Bramhill.

Are you assuming Thomas Bramhill was still alive in 1845 because it doesn't say 'Deceased' on the marriage cert? I ask because it isn't a reliable indicator that the father was still alive. Could mean the registrar didn't ask the question. What was given as Thomas' occupation?

There's so little information, I've tried not to make assumptions, though I can't find a Thomas in Liverpool in 1851. There are, however, two deaths recorded - Thomas Bramwell in Liverpool in 1851 and Thomas Brammell in Liverpool in 1853.

Even now, little nuggets come to light. On Lan-opc in the last few minutes I've found the burial of a Mary Jane Brammell age 4 months, Gibraltar Street, Aug 21 1848. I would presume she is one of John's children; John and his wife had a son John, b1849, a daughter Elizabeth b1852, and a son William (my gt grandfather) b1855.

Thanks for your help!

Will

And there's this ..

Death: BRAMHILL, Thomas
Registration district: West Derby, Lancashire
Year of registration: 1840; Quarter of registration: Oct-Nov-Dec
Volume no: 20; Page no: 767

Thanks! Another one to consider. My trouble is that the name can be spelt so many ways that you never know whether search engines on sites like FMP and Lan-OPC are picking up all the variants.

All the best

Will

Hi Will,

Do you have any Catholic Bramhills? If you look at the end column of this Bramill burial record it says Roman Catholic:-






Blue

Hi
Not much help, 1853 Directory has Gibraltar St & Row as off Gt Howard St.

Hi both - thanks for chipping in. As far as I know, the family wasn't Catholic ... but I'm sure that people did switch religions. The 1880s/90s baptisms were at St Matthias, which was C of E.

BTW Henry PROSSOR, my gt grandfather who was a Liverpool solicitor/accountant, toyed with Catholicism before he died in 1928, perhaps because he was aware of having Irish ancestry (the family immigrated to England in the 1830s). My research, though, shows that all of his Irish ancestors were protestants.

Will