Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

I've managed to trace one of my relatives back to the mid-1700s [Thomas Hampson], he married Mary Spencer in 1788 at St. James, Toxteth. They had thirteen children, all of them were baptised at the Parochial Chapel of Kirkby, Walton, Lancashire.

Thomas is recorded as a gardener/labourer. I would imagine that Kirkby was mostly rural at that time? It's too early for census records but are there any other ways to locate a possible residence for the family? Thanks.

It's difficult to establish the exact location of homes in rural communities that far back. Habitation is usually just recorded as in a particular township, village, hamlet or parish. You have people working the land living in primitive cottages or living temporarily in buildings where they are working. No address system. Later on in the census records you get a road name that is of a bit more use in determining their whereabouts.


Blue

Would there have been a name of a house or farm they were living in? One thing about Kirkby is that they often named the new streets after previous residents.

The recording of Catholics in Kirkby in 1767 for example gives no information whatsoever about where each Catholic household lived. Liverpool, an expanding town at the time, has lists by street or clusters of streets.


Blue

Thanks, Blue & Mary, I knew it was a 'long shot' but I thought I'd ask anyway.

From 1781 there would be Land Tax, I think. It mightn't give any address, but you could estimate the size of the cottage / smallholding / farm from the amount of tax paid. Some years the tax lists do mention a place name.
And then if you trace the holding forward to subsequent tenants, and if the tithe map and survey aren't too late, you might find that subsequent tenant and see where HE lived. Or you might find him on the 1841 census. It's not a certain method, but I have been lucky with it a couple of times in the Goosnargh / Whittingham area.
Barbara

Thanks Barbara.