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After a break from genealogical research, it looks like I may have fallen into the old trap of jumping to conclusions. My interest is in Joseph Stanworth, husband of Jennet Nicholl. Having looked at your website this morning and finding a Joseph Stanworth, son of Benjamin Stanworth (born c 1765), I assumed this one was mine and that therefore I am descended from Henry Stanworth (born c 1734) and William Stanworth (born c. 1692).

However, I have now just looked up Stanworth Families in Burnley on http://www.thornber.net. It seems that the picture is more complicated than I thought. On page 1, under Starting Point, this website states:

"Joan Read and I were both interested in Joseph Stanworth born about 1799 or 1800 for whom we have good evidence from census records, together with his marriage. He was readily identified as Joseph son of Henry & Mary Stanworth of Extwistle, baptised on 14 Sept 1800 at Burnley St Peter's. The problem was to identify his parents. There are two marriages for Henry and Mary that could fit at St Peter's in Burnley"

This is followed by a long and complicated attempt to get to the bottom of the problem - which has left me totally at sea!

On page 5 there is further reference to Joseph, son of Henry and Mary Stanworth, his marriage to Jennet Nicholl, and their daughter, my ancestor, Margaret.

I would be grateful for any insight you can provide me with!

Ruth

Hi Ruth,

Craig Thornber has done a lot of work on the Stanworth families, and I worked with him, from here in Toronto, a few years ago, to try to identify the parents of Joseph Stanworth who married Jennet Nicholl. As Craig says, there are many Stanworth people with the same first names, which leads to complications, and it was difficult to sort them out. We did this by eliminating people who were most likely not parents of Joseph, based on the information we had. For my part, it was a matter of examining parish registers and monumental inscriptions on film at the local LDS Family History Centre here, as this was before the days of Lancashire Online Parish Clerks, or online much of anything. Craig also had access to several wills.

Did you read down as far as The Family Tree So Far? We decided, by a process of elimination, and looking at M.I.s and wills, that the parents of Joseph must be Henry who married Mary Duerden, and Craig set out the findings. I think it's just a matter of reading through it and sorting it out. I'm descended from Henry and Mary through two of their children: Martha who married Henry Todd, and Joseph who married Jennet Nicholl. There seemed to be a lot of intermarrying.

Without looking back at Gloria's tree, I don't know where her line fits in. There may be more information available now, but we looked into it pretty thoroughly at the time.

I'll still send you a private message about the Nicholl family.

I hope this helps a little.

Joan

Hi Joan, it is ages since I looked at this line and I know we are related somewhere along it.
Briefly going back to
William Stanworth and Alice Parker their son
Henry (1734) and Ellen Butterworth their son
Benjamin (1765) and Mally Stansfield their son
James (1808) and Elizabeth Smith their son
Joseph (1829) and Ann Robinson their daughter
Betty (Betsy)(1853) and William Brierley their daughter
Martha Ann (1875) and James Kippax-----my gt grandparents

Gloria

_________________
Gloria

I'd be dangerous with a brain.

It's a long time since I worked on this as well, but I've just re-read part of Craig Thornber's Stanworth site, and looked at my own notes. At the time I extracted all the Stanworth names from the parish register film. It is possible that the Henry who married Mary Duerden, my ancestor, was the brother of your Benjamin, Gloria, making them both sons of Henry who married Ellen Butterworth.

There are several baptisms of children born to a Henry Stanworth in that time frame:
1 Sep 1754 Grace
27 June 1756 William
8 Jan 1758 Henry (most likely my ancestor)
2 Sep 1759 Stephen
18? Aug 1761 John
24 July 1763 James
11 Jan 1767 Joseph (your ancestor)
4 Sep 1767? Betty
9 Sep 1770 Thomas
21 June 1772 Simeon
28 Aug 1774 Levi

It's too bad the mother wasn't thought important enough to be named.

It will take time to get my head around this again, but I don't see a marriage of another Henry Stanworth whose wife would have children in this period. So I think Gloria, we could be related from Henry who married Ellen Butterworth.

Joan

Hi Joan and Gloria

Many thanks for your additional input. I am now reminded why I abandoned researching most of my lines only one generation back from 1837. What a lot of painstaking work and mental effort is needed to try to confirm that one really has found the correct line when going back into the 18th century and beyond - especially when the same forenames turn up over and over again. I feel very fortunate to have linked into your studies.

Having looked again at the information found via this forum and also at Joan and Craig's work on the Stanworth family on thornber.net, I appear to agree with Joan that the following seems a very plausible line for Joseph Stanworth, husband of Jennet Nicholl:

William Stanworth (born c 1692) and Alice Parker (bapt 1697) married in 1721.their son
Henry Stanworth (bapt 1714) and Ellen Butterworth (born c. 1739) married in 1754
their son (link not proven, see caveats on thornber.net)
Henry Stanworth (bapt BSP 1758) and Mary Duerden (?) married 1783
their son
Joseph Stanworth (bapt 14 Sept 1800 BSP)

Information from rootsweb (from a link to another member's research) sent to me by Gloria raised the possibility of alternative parents (but the same grandparents) for Joseph, husband of Jennet:

Henry Stanworth (bapt 1714) and Ellen Butterworth (born c. 1739) married in 1754
their son
Benjamin Stanworth (bapt 1765 Extwistle) and Mally Stansfield married 1789 in Heptonstall WRY
their son
Joseph Stanworth (bapt 25 Dec 1798 in Eastwood by Todmorden - note according to this source, Joseph is the 4th child of Benjamin and Mally baptised in Eastwood, followed by another Benjamin and 3 further children born in Holden, Extwistle).

Census ages for Joseph in 1841 (42 years), 1851 (52) and 1861 (62) are a better match for Joseph being the son of Henry Stanworth and Mary Duerden (baptised 14 Sept 1800). (I too never checked the 1871 census for him, presumably because it became available too late for your and my first research efforts). Additionally, I have a copy of Joseph's death certificate giving the following age and other details:

Joseph Stanworth, died 11 March 1879, at Mustyhalgh Briercliffe, 80 years, farmer, pneumonia, notified by Catherine Stanworth, grand daughter.

I notice now that I obtained this death certificate in 1992, when I used to spend my lunch hours combing through the big volumes of births, marriages and deaths then stored in a building on the corner of Aldwych and the Strand in London.

I'd be interested in any comments.

Best wishes,
Ruth

Hi Ruth and Gloria,

I've checked my notes again in light of your further information, Ruth. When I was working on the Stanworth family I extracted all the Stanworth records from Burnley St. Peter and I have no record of a Benjamin Stanworth, son of Henry, baptised Extwistle in 1765. As far as I know, there wasn't a church in Extwistle at that time. St. James Briercliffe and St. John's Worsthorne were built in the 1830s. Of course I could have missed someone. Do either of you have documentation for Benjamin's baptism, the church and a specific date, and if it was St. Peter's I could look it up again because I have access to the film.

Gloria, in my last post, I placed your ancestor as Joseph, son of Henry Stanworth and Ellen Butterworth, but I think that wasn't correct.

Joan

I checked the St. Peter's parish register film when I was at the Family History Centre last night and found the baptism of Benjamin Stanworth, son of Henry, on 21 April, 1765. I obviously missed it the first time around.

Joan

Easy to miss things Joan, in my case it comes with age

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Gloria

I'd be dangerous with a brain.

I am putting up several posts today to keep records straight for all interested parties. I am not after all descended from the Extwistle Stanworths through the Extwistle Whitakers. I am in fact descended from Colne and Trawden Whitakers.