Kelsall Village Family Stories

John Cook is named on the Kelsall War Memorial but unlike the others’ named John was not a casualty of war but died of a condition now seemed of minor significance.   John was not from a Kelsall family but was born in Bradley, Staffordshire in 1868.   He was the second child and eldest son of William Cook and Emma Hodson who had married at St. Giles Church, Haughton on 10 th September 1864. Emma died in 1878, possibly following the birth of her third daughter Jemima.   With a young family to raise William remarried on 13 th December 1879 to Frances Howard at Castle Church, Staffordshire.   Although William was 37 at the time Frances, known as Fanny, was only 19 years old.   Fanny bore William a further 12 children though 3 did not survive to maturity.   After leaving school John did not follow his father but took to a life looking after horses.   In 1891 he was working as the ostler at the Malt Shovel Hotel in Litchfield.   Later in the deca...

My mother used to tell me I came from the angels.   I used to think, what is  she talking about? Then, years later when I began to research my family tree, it all became clear.   I knew Mum’s Mum, my grandmother, Harriet, was born in Pembroke Dock, Wales in 1893. Digging deeper I discovered Harriet’s maternal grandmother, Mary Ann, had been born in Plymouth, Devon but moved to Pembroke Dock with William, her seafaring father, and family in the early 1800’s.   Researching William’s line revealed that his mother was called Ann Angell, so Mum had been right about our “angels” connection. What I didn’t discover until later was that this line had links to royalty! Many hours tracing this Angell line further revealed an amazing account of this Angell family. I was to discover that in the 1600s a John Angell held several privileged positions including that of Acatery at Windsor Castle being responsible for purchase and storage of perishable goods such as meat, cheese, ve...

James Ainslie tops the list of names on the Kelsall War memorial, and he was also the first fatality among the Kelsall men who went to serve in the Great War. James was not a scion of a Kelsall family, his father (also James) hailed from Harborne, Smethwick in Staffordshire who was working in Chester when he met Sarah Lloyd from Mouldsworth, then in service in the household of Henry Jones, a banker’s clerk, of 11 Grosvenor Park Road, Hoole .   James and Sarah married on 26 th June 1882 at All Saints Church, Plemstall.   They set up home at 46 Philips Street, Hoole where James was born.   He was baptized on 4 th March 1883 at All Saints Church, Hoole. The family moved back to Harborne. After he left school James was apprenticed to James Bryden, a tailor in Kings Norton.   After 7 ½ years James grew restless and for either adventure or better prospects he joined the Army on 21 st January 1904, signing on in Gosport, Hampshire into the Kings Royal Rifle Corps. ...

  A prominent feature of Kelsall village is the roadside graveyard on Chester Road, close by, but mainly hidden, is the Methodist Church graveyard and further away is the Delamere St Peters graveyard – drive past, blink and you’ll miss it. Before these existed, the burial grounds for this area were at Tarvin St Andrews. The Kelsall Family History Group – not Kelsall the surname, but people of Kelsall interested in family history - started photographing the Methodist Church headstones a while back and then began adding them to the "Find A Grave" website (FAG)  Find a Grave - Millions of Cemetery Records   The aim for this project is not to just list every burial near Kelsall but to link each grave to family members, parents, children and siblings. Additionally, we add photographs, biographies and locations to complete the story. No living person can be added. Where no gravestone can be found the burial details are taken from the original parish records dating back to 1...

Whilst researching a local family living in Ashton Hayes, as part of my son’s partner’s family tree, I learned that historically Ashton Hayes had boasted two public houses back in the 1800s and two family members I was studying had run one of them. I had been studying a child called Richard, who had been baptised by his parents Edwin and Sarah in Weaverham in 1834. Strangely, Richard wasn’t listed with his parents in the first census in 1841, although he would have been only seven.  I eventually found him living on a farm in Ashton with a couple called Jim and Emma. Why, I wondered? Had his parents died?  But no, Richard’s parents were still living in Ashton with three very small children in 1841.  Some deeper delving into records showed that Emma was Edwin’s sister, so in fact Richard was living with his aunt and uncle, presumably to lend a hand around the farm.  Maybe his mother was struggling to feed and look after three pre-school age children? By 1851 Richar...

I found my four times Great Grandfather in a gaol in Richmond, Yorkshire in the 1851 census! I was horrified! What was his crime? Were we descended from the criminal class?  Our family was based in Salford, Lancashire and we had never heard stories about criminality. Then I noticed that his family were there too. That was strange! What was going on here? Peter, wife Mary, children Elizabeth, Ellen, Robert, John and Christopher, all there plus “Amos, prisoner”.  Did I have the right family? Yes, that was definitely them.   Took a deep breath and zoomed into the image on Ancestry.com for a closer look at that pencil-written entry, and what followed was a realisation, a moment of clarity – he was the Gaoler, his wife was the Matron, his children just children. Phew! Normal service was resumed, we were innocent!  We had a family visit to Richmond in 2007 and visited the gaol, a tiny place. We took photographs of the building and the front door. We felt connected to them,...