Help wanted - new street?

[mike1962]

Hi all. This is my first post, and my very first week starting out researching my family!

I am trying to trace the name and details of my grandparents, in particular my grandmother on my mother's side and I'm stumped already!

I know the street that my grandmother was born in (she was born in 1905) so the first thing I did was to do a search of the street in the 1905 census.

Unfortunately, it appears that the street did not come into existence until after 1901 as there is no record of it. Is there any other way to get the names and details of the occupants of the street after 1901. Obviously, 1905 details would be perfect.

The street name is Blenheim Street in Tyldesley, Greater Manchester (M29).

Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated.

[Peter Goodey]

Welcome and I hope you find the hobby as fascinating and rewarding as most of us do. Unfortunately it is not without its frustrations.

I'm not too clear how big Tyldesley was in 1901 but if it was just a small village or town - even if there was a colliery there - there is no guarantee that the census enumerator bothered to write down street names (if indeed there were many street names).

I think you might have better luck searching the 1901 census by name BUT censuses are just one source of information and they are only informative in certain areas. Your first job really ought to be to get a copy of your grandmother's birth certificate. This will give you her parents' names and then you're away!

[Di&Trev]

First thing I would do would be to find grandparents marriage cert and grandmothers birth cert. That would give you your grandma's maiden name and fathers names. Unless you already have it of course.
Try searching free bmd at
http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl.
Bit of a busy site so try at odd hours. There is also a link on the site to bmd at ancestry if its always busy when you try.
Next is the 1901 census on-line at
http://www.1901census.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.html
search using fathers name (and his wife if you know it).
Next port of call would be the family history library in Wythenshawe. Phone number is 0161 9029279. they're open Mon through to Weds in the afternoons and Tuesday Evenings for non-members. If the families' from Manchester or vicinity they have extensive resources on site which you can trawl through to your hearts content. Also very knowledgable people there searching for their own families and staff who are usually prepared to help.
(I should know, I'm there most tuesdays!)
Good luck

[John]

Hi all. This is my first post, and my very first week starting out researching my family!


The street name is Blenheim Street in Tyldesley, Greater Manchester (M29).

Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated.
Mike, welcome to the begining of the end of your sanity:D

The first question to ask, you know your grandmother was born at Blenheim Street but do you know that it was known as Blenheim Street when she was born? Many streets in and around Manchester were subject to name changes in the early 20th cent.
I rather suspect that you don't have your grandmothers birth certificate, if you get this, it should clarify the place of birth and give you her parents names, you should have more success searching for her parents (assuming they were married in 1901) using names rather than addresses.

John

[mike1962]

Thanks for the welcome! I can see that this may get very addictive :) I have already got quite a lot of information on my father's side of the family, but my mother's side is proving to be very difficult as there are hardly any family members left to question. My mother's mother (who is the one I'm interested in) died when my own mother was only 4 years old, so my mother knows VERY little about her, in fact, she isn't even certain of her first name as she was known as Kate AND Mary Blears (nee Burke), although the name on the Death Certificate is Kate Blears (formerly Burke) died March 19th 1945 in Atherton, Gtr. Manchester. This lack of information is the big problem. I have no clue as to what the names of my Grandparents were.

The only solid information I have about my grandmother is a copy of her death certificate, which gives her married address and age at death (40), which makes her year of birth to be 1905. She was definitely living in Blenheim Street here in Tyldesley, Gtr Manchester just before she married my grandfather, and even the marriage date eludes me! I know her oldest child was born in c 1922, so this is probably a good indication of the year of her marriage. This has been verified by three family members. I can only assume that Blenheim street (which is here today and is only about 500 yards away from where I live now) came into existence some years after the 1901 census.

Thank you for your advice so far.

[Di&Trev]

Sorry if this sounds silly but do you have your mothers birth cert? It should give her fathers name & occupation & mothers maiden name, which might at least give a starting point.

[mike1962]

Sorry if this sounds silly but do you have your mothers birth cert? It should give her fathers name & occupation & mothers maiden name, which might at least give a starting point.


Yes, I do have my mother's Birth Certificate, but there's no information there that I haven't already mentioned, other than her parent's address at the time. Of course, being a newbie I have probably missed something!

I have uploaded a copy of my grandmother's Death Certificate here: http://freespace.virgin.net/binary.babble/kate_blears.jpg

And there is a copy of my mother's Birth Certificate here: http://freespace.virgin.net/binary.babble/patricia_blears.jpg

Thanks again for all your help.

[Peter Goodey]

If I were you, what I'd do next is to search for the Burke-Blears marriage. With luck this will help to confirm ages and names (Kate? Mary?) and provide the names of the fathers.Then you can search for her birth. A quick scan through FreeBMD shows some Mary Kathleens born about the right time and in the right general area and also some Mary Catherines. Burke may be Irish so Mary Catherine is the likelier. But don't chase that until you've got some more confirmation from the marriage certificate.

[Phil]

Have you thought about the electoral roll?

Regards

Phil

[mike1962]

Peter & Phil; thanks for the help. You have both given me something to work on, and tomorrow I will make an attempt to get some extra information - I'll report back if I find anything.

[Di&Trev]

Aug quarter 1921. Leigh. Volume 8c page 581.
Kathleen Burke marries Thomas Blears.

Now you're away!

[mike1962]

Diane, that's brilliant, thank you very much!

Tell me, where did you search? I looked on FreeBMD but could not find anything - unless I was using the search facility incorrectly.

I'll order up a full marriage certificate in the morning.

Thanks again for being so helpful.

[Di&Trev]

http://www.1837online.com/Trace2web/

Had 2 credits left and thought "what the heck", believe it or not it was on the first page I looked at.
It's a pay per view site but is (I think) about £5 to view about 50 pages of original docs.

Glad it was found.

[mike1962]

Thanks again Diane! I don't know, I went to 1837 and tried a search but could find no record of a Thomas Blears and Kathleen Burke - I must be doing something very wrong :)

[Di&Trev]

I went onto the site. Selected marriage search. Picked 1920 - 1922 as likely dates. Used Blears as surname, just picked at random for Aug quarter 1921 and there he was noted down the vol & page no.. Then went to Burke for same quarter to double check and there she was! Are you getting the images up cos 1837 can be a bit difficult to get the pictures if you haven't downloaded something from them (can't remember what it is now).
Another night owl I see:)

[mike1962]

I can't seem to get the results you're having Diane!

Here's a screenshot of the search example I'm trying: http://freespace.virgin.net/binary.babble/search.gif

And here's a screenshot of the results from that search: http://freespace.virgin.net/binary.babble/results.gif

As you can see, there is no Thomas Blears appearing.

Sorry if I'm sounding clueless, but that's because I am!


EDIT: D'oh! Sorry Diane. I think I've just spotted where I'm being so stupid!

[Di&Trev]

On the second one of the pics. The one that had all the names. You then click on the image, where it says view, of the relevant year/quarter. (Those names are the start of a page and the end of a page. Sometimes there are more than one page and you have to use up 2 credits doing both pages) Having clicked another page appears. Re-size it to 100% or it can be unreadable. With 1837 you have to search for first name . note down the details and then search using 2nd name and check details match. Either that or take a chance its the right entry.:)

[mike1962]

Thanks Diane. I got it working now :)

Yes, I am always up late. I am self employed so arrange my hours so I can waste away the early hours on the net in piece and quiet away from the usual family background noise!

[Di&Trev]

Anything to oblige :)
Me - I'm just a night owl. Off to bed now though.
Anything else I can help with just shout.

[mike1962]

Thanks to Diane I now have my grandparent's marriage certificate, however, I seem to have hit another stumbling block. I now want to try to locate my Grandmother's (Kathleen Burke) birth certificate.

According to the family, Kathleen was born in Ireland, so I will have to apply to the Irish authorities for her birth certificate, however, not knowing which part of Ireland she came from I don't know where to ask for it.

I have uploaded a scan of my grandmother's marriage certificate here: http://freespace.virgin.net/binary.babble/marriage.jpg

Details are as follows:

Date of marriage: 1921
Age at date of marriage: 20 (which makes Kathleen's birth year 1901)

FATHER'S name: MICHAEL BURKE
MOTHER'S name: CELIA BURKE (nee FITZGIBBONS)

I'm not aware of any online facilities for searching Irish birth records, other than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints site ( http://www.familysearch.org/ ) but I can't seem to find anything there.

One other interesting thing I have found is a discrepancy between Kathleen's birth date when comparing her Death Certificate with the above Marriage Certificate. Kathleen's Death Certificate is here: http://freespace.virgin.net/binary.babble/kate_blears.jpg As you can see, the Death Cert puts Kathleen's birth date at 1905, whilst the marriage certificate puts her birth date at 1901.

Mike.

[Ladkyis]

Please don't take anything your ancestors say as gospel truth, they all wanted to get married and to avoid family rows so - well, they lied. I was so shocked to discover that the upright and truthful lady I knew as my granny had actually lied about her age when she married grandpop! it really shook me but they were still together more than 50 years later so keep in mind that they could lie when they married. OH and also remember that someone else gives the age on the death certificate so they could get it wrong too. All this is just to make things easy for us you see. They also lie about where they were born and who they marry - and in some cases who they are! I have a great uncle who pretended to be his own brother to get married for the second time - he hadn't finished the first marriage before starting the second.
so question everything and enjoy the chase
Ann :D

[mike1962]

Thanks for your reply Ann, and I hear what you're saying!

I forgot to upload my grandmother Kathleen's brothers BIRTH certificate yesterday. This confirms his mother's maiden (and therefore obviously Kathleens mother) name as FITZGIBBONS, which I believe is an Irish name.

http://freespace.virgin.net/binary.babble/brother.jpg

Try as I might (and I have searched MANY places!) I cannot find any record of my grandmother Kathleen being born in the UK. I think the odds are definitely in favour of Kathleen being born in Ireland, but as to where is anyone's guess!

Mike.

[Di&Trev]

Found this. POSSIBLY your Michael Burke on the 1901 census. At 18 Bridgewater Close. Occupation Drawer Coal Miner Underground. Which fits with his later occupation of Coal Hewer. IF its him he is single as at census night.
Michael Burke
Age in 1901: 23
Estimated birth year: 1878
Relation: Boarder
Gender: Male
Where born: Ireland
Civil parish: Leigh
Ecclesiatical parish: Pennington Christchurch
Town: Leigh
County/Island: Lancashire
Country: England
Source information: RG13/3594
Registration district: Leigh
Sub-registration district: Leigh
ED, institution, or vessel: 23
Folio: 193
Page: 13
On the same page and at the same address are 2 more Burkes. John aged 24 & Martin aged 21 also from Ireland. Might be worth seeing if they are brothers.
IF this is your Michael it narrows the marriage down to 1901. Unless he told the census taker he was single when he had a wife already in Ireland.;)
Thought it might be something worth following up anyway.
I've searched high and low on ancestry and can't find an unmarried Celia Fitzgibbons or a married (to a Michael) Celia Burke in 1901 census or on BMD. Its possible Celia was her middle name and she prefered to use it.
Sorry I couldn't be more help but i'll keep my eyes peeled.

[Clive Blackaby]

Hi Mike,

Have you tried looking for Blenhiem Street on old maps. I'm not familiar with the collection at the central library in Manchester, but I know they have a fairly good set here at Sale, and it's probably nearer for you.

The local LDS family history centre at Wythenshawe also has a lot of local history information, and also a full set of indexes to the Irish Civil Registration, plus some very helpful and knowledgeable people - staff and patrons.

[mike1962]

Hi Clive.

Blenheim Street is actually only about 500 yards away from where I live, so I did actually pay a vast there yesterday to question the present occupants. Of course, they had no idea about the previous occupants as they had only been living there a couple of years. I know there is quite a good local history group in my area and I have contacted them via email, but I haven't had a reply yet.


Diane:

Yet again, thank you for your help. That's a few more clues to work on!

[Di&Trev]

Sorry Mike.
It was Bridgewater Street. Not Close. My mistake.
Just checked again. The census entry from ancestry has the following streets in this order.
Ince House Farm, Buck Street, Bridgewater Street, Lots of farms & cottages, Then St Helens Road (A572) at the Bridge Inn. Then a whole list of what appear to be individually named houses Then Double Cop Farm & Cottage, Gilded Hollins Farm & Cottage then circles back to St Helens Road again at the Bridge Inn.
Buck Street is off St Helens Road, still there, at grid ref 365250,399750.

Hope that helps you find it. If your e-mail or message thingummy is "on" I can e-mail you the image if you like.

[mike1962]

Nice work Diane! My email address is michaeljb(AT)ntlworld.com Please do send the info so that I can check it against what I've just found :)

Mike.

[Clive Blackaby]

Thanks to Diane I now have my grandparent's marriage certificate, however, I seem to have hit another stumbling block. I now want to try to locate my Grandmother's (Kathleen Burke) birth certificate.

According to the family, Kathleen was born in Ireland, so I will have to apply to the Irish authorities for her birth certificate, however, not knowing which part of Ireland she came from I don't know where to ask for it.
Mike,

Don't know if you've made any progress on this one, but the LDS library at Wythenshawe has the indexes to Irish BMD on film / fiche, which would possibly be a starting point if you know approx what year.

They're open daytime Mon Tues and Weds, and Tuesday Eve 7 - 9 p.m., which is when you are quite likely to bump into me there.

Phone 0161 902 9279 to book a reader

Clive