Re-visiting old censuses

[BarbaraW]

I'm at Liverpool RO right now and Mary you were right though the lady I asked didn't seem to know why there was no marriage index before 1851 I think it was though baptisms go back to 1795........

[BarbaraW]

I just realised I looked at the records for St Michael's Scotland Road and had dismissed the church in Hall Street as being wrong for the marriage when the lady here said Hall Street was near the Anglican Cathedral near to St. James - I will now go and look at the one you gave a link to.......though it doesn't say Hall Street........

[BarbaraW]

A date to narrow the search,

Liverpool Mercury, 1857,

I shouldn't think these are mine Bertie as for one this is later than I am looking at and another is that my family are far too poor to have notices in the paper especially calling themselves Miss.

[Bertieone]

Who are we looking for?

[Blue70]

Have you looked at St Michael CE Pitt Street Liverpool?

Blue

[Blue70]

Are we sure records for St Michael's Liverpool are at LRO? Genuki says Lancs Record Office has some bishop's transcripts no mention of registers could they have been destroyed when the church was bombed in WW2?

http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/LAN/Li ... hael.shtml


Blue

[MaryA]

Are we sure records for St Michael's Liverpool are at LRO? Genuki says Lancs Record Office has some bishop's transcripts no mention of registers could they have been destroyed when the church was bombed in WW2?

http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/LAN/Li ... hael.shtml


Blue

That is what I posted and the possibility that there are no records existing because of bomb damage.

It IS St Michaels Pitt Street we are interested in and the entry for the newspaper for 1857 Bert posted IS the right one.

[Bertieone]

It IS St Michaels Pitt Street we are interested in and the entry for the newspaper for 1857 Bert posted IS the right one.

Thanks Mary, that saves me enrolling on Confused.com

[Hilary]

Having eventually found the the Liverpool Archives catalogue on the internet last night I put in Pitt Street and found St Michael Pitt street the reference number appears to be 283/MIC and the relevant records do appear to be on film at the Central Library. The information given is basic so there could be years missing.

The catalogue was really difficult to find so I hope the above is correct.

[MaryA]

I got used to it, scroll down this page a little to the "Search the Liverpool Archive Catalogue" button
https://liverpool.gov.uk/libraries/arch ... y-history/

[BarbaraW]

Sorry for my confusion yesterday, I was trying to juggle too many balls at once and dropped a few lol. I have just ordered the marriage certificate from the GRO you will all be glad to know.

It was cheaper and quicker than me going to the LRO again.

[BarbaraW]

I've been trying to get my head around marriages and baptisms in a big city like Liverpool with so many churches, especially with the very common names my lot have.

So we have:

The IGI - not complete for Liverpool

Lancs OPC - ditto

FMP - one (??) church St Annes, Richmond, transcribed by this very society.

The Genealogist - none for Liverpool as far as I can see.

Ancestry - lots of Liverpool parish registers but not all.

So how do you know if you have the right person or family as they may have not all been transcribed just yet and you could take it as gospel that this is your person when in fact he or she might not be yours at all. I can see that would be OK with unusual names but not so much the common ones.

It is so much easier dealing with a village when you only have a few options than a big city with so many different churches.

At the LRO I bought a parish map from 1900 superimposed over a 1920's street map with C of E churches shown and the boundaries which should come in useful, and of course I'd have to check out the church dates etc.

[MaryA]

I suppose we are used to Liverpool with its many churches and burial places which are sometimes worse so if we find the family that fits but is in the wrong area - ie Toxteth Park when it should be north end of Liverpool, we either try again or work backwards to see if the family might have been living in the south end earlier on.

If we get enough baptisms matching a few censuses, as we did with yours, and particularly if they are RC and so give the surname, then that's a bonus.

Try searching London if you think Liverpool is difficult, although the London Metropolitan Archives are available on Ancestry, they aren't complete and I usually have to ask relatives to identify the areas I should be checking there.

[BarbaraW]

I suppose we are used to Liverpool with its many churches and burial places which are sometimes worse so if we find the family that fits but is in the wrong area - ie Toxteth Park when it should be north end of Liverpool, we either try again or work backwards to see if the family might have been living in the south end earlier on.

If we get enough baptisms matching a few censuses, as we did with yours, and particularly if they are RC and so give the surname, then that's a bonus.

Try searching London if you think Liverpool is difficult, although the London Metropolitan Archives are available on Ancestry, they aren't complete and I usually have to ask relatives to identify the areas I should be checking there.

Thank you Mary some good points you've made there re the area, I wasn't just thinking of the RC lot you found (I haven't really looked into that yet TBH) but also of other common names I have ie Pritchard, Williams and Brown (on both sides which can get very confusing)......

I suppose a bonus is that I do usually know the area of a Liverpool church, though not necessarily in depth but with an understanding of where say Toxteth vs Vauxhall vs Woolton are for instance.

[BarbaraW]

Well that was quick service from the GRO, my marriage certificate is here

William Brown, Mariner, 22, BACHELOR, father Samuel Brown, clergyman
Mary Ann Rice, Spinster, 20, father Joseph Rice, joiner.

So that must be an error on the census as he doesn't say Widower.

So would the Irish son of a clergyman get married in a C of E church and have his children christened in the Catholic faith?

[yappie]

Hi
Congratulations on getting the marriage certificate. To my knowledge it was common practice for RCs to marry in a C of E church as to marry in an RC church you had to have a Registrar in attendance. This meant you had to pay twice - one payment to the Church and one to the Registrar. My maternal family was very confusing - they were Irish Catholics and 7 of 9 siblings married in the C of E or later the Register Office. All children were baptised Catholic with the exception of my mothers siblings. Of eleven children I have found three baptised Catholic, four C of E and I am still searching the others. Who knows yappie

[MaryA]

I think the more you ask the more example you may get of just that sort of example.

Just out of curiosity did the clergyman father perform the ceremony? Because of this religion in his family will presumably be why they married in a C of E church, but perhaps Mary Ann was the RC and it's often the mother who will decide where the children are baptised, possibly even - and I do know this happened - taking the child along on her own without the presence of the father.

[BarbaraW]

Sorry Bertie , yes you were correct that is the newspaper clipping for the same marriage, my apologies, seems we may have moved up a notch in the world.

Thank you Yappie that makes sense.

Hi Mary, no the marriage was performed by Henry Carpenter as per Bertie's newspaper clipping. Can I please ask how you knew which church they married in? I've joined Ancestry thinking that's how you knew plus of course they have a lot of Liverpool parish registers, but the vast amount of information it throws out doesn't give me the name of the church like you did. I get really lost on there TBH, do you know if there is a tutorial to narrow down searches so I don't get 5 million records? If I narrow it down by making all fields "exact" it invariably gives me zero matches.

[MaryA]

I believe it was listed on lancashirebmd.org.uk one of my favourite sites as it gives the church if C of E, but you must remember that when it says "Register Office or Registrar Attended", there is more than a 50% chance of the marriage taking place in an RC church, could also mean a non-conformist.

When it comes to Ancestry I never use the global search but try to go to the databases that may have the results I'm after - ie UK Censuses and even try each year individually.

For marriages and baptisms try to find the County at least that you want - for the large amount of Liverpool records go to SEARCH> CARD CATALOGUE> and then in the Keyword box type LIVERPOOL. This will produce a list of all databases that Ancestry hold relating to Liverpool. You can then choose whether to search the Marriages/Baptisms/Burials and RC records of the same.

Putting Lancashire in the keyword box will produce a more varied list but should give you some options for earlier dates than those for Liverpool.

[BarbaraW]

Thank you Mary that is very helpful as on Ancestry I seem to get a feeling of doom being swamped with too much information.