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I am trying to find out about the family of Sarah Haworth born in Oldham, Lancashire, around 1842.
I have VERY limited information as I do not know her parents names. Her death certficate had both parents as HAWORTH's , so I assume a Haworth married a Haworth.
The other piece of information is that Sarah's father was a minister. Sarah's religion was Presbyterian (I have to assume this was her families religion, which may narrow down things).

Any help?

Did she marry

There were numerous Sarah Howarths born in that region around that time. Claire, you need to at least give us some exact details from the death certificate - when and where she died and her marital status (if known).

Sarah was married at age 19 (so around 1862) in Oldham to William Jackson (of County Down, N. Ireland).
She definately had a daughter Sarah Ann in 1872 in Bradford, W. Yorkshire. I do not know why they moved there, although I have found them in the 1871 census living in separate houses...I think Sarah Jackson (nee Haworth) is living with relatives, maybe a brother and William is elsewhere. William was a bricklayer by trade and in the 1871 census he is living in the house of another bricklayer, so I assume he has moved where the work is.

William and Sarah with 2-3 chidren moved to New Zealand around 1876, so there will be no records after this time. I am trying to find Sarah Haworth before this time. Its possible I found her in the 1851 census living with her grandfather (an Abraham) and aunt, but there are no parents!
I do not know of any siblings, but if the Sarah I found, is the right one then she had a brother. The other problem is there is not trace of Abraham before this time (there is another one who pops up but its a different one) so I can't conifrm or link it any further.
I hope this information helps further

You need this marriage cert to see if a father is named.

The spelling of her name is also different.


Marriages Dec 1861 (>99%)

Howarth Sarah Oldham 8d 958
Jackson William Oldham 8d 958

Same marriage from Lancs BMD
Lancashire Marriage indexes for the years: 1861

HOWARTH Sarah JACKSON William Oldham Register Office or Registrar Attended Oldham RM/6/162

Christine

Thank you for helping! I didn't see the marriage (due to the spelling of Haworth to Howarth!, so at least I have made some progress there.

I am guessing the marriage certificate is gonna cost me! I will have to look into getting it, as I want to solve the mystery of that family!!
Thanks
Claire

The marriage cert will cost £9.25 from the site below, postage included.

You will need to give the ref no 8d 958.

http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/

Some sites charge a lot more than this so it's much better to use this one.

Christine

Yes I saw it was 9GBP, unfortunately I have to multiply by 3 and add another $25 for getting the money in the correct way to send it, so it will be about $50!! I would prefer to get a couple certificates while I am at it! I just have to get the right ones, and from the same area.

Claire - I've no idea what dollars you're talking about that have a rate of 1GBP=$3 - certainly none I know of, but leaving that aside, just pay by credit card. That way you can order online, and your credit card company will just charge you say $29 on your monthly bill (i.e., a bit more than the $3 per that you expect as they don't give you too nice an exchange rate).

well actually the exchange rate is actually the best I have ever seen which is $2.13 to a pound! Thats better.
I can't see how to do it online as I was looking at the lancashirebdm which as far as I can see you have to physically send the money by using some kind of bank draft (can't remember the exact name) which costs.
If I could do it online somewhere that would be great! but where?

Hi Claire,

You can order online from the website I gave earlier and you pay by Credit or debit card.

The exchage rate should just be calculated on your card.

Christine

Thank you for all your help. I have now ordered it. But have to wait a month! (NZ is a bit quicker at a week...but alas I must wait!)

You're welcome.

If you need any more help when the cert arrives you can continue with this thread.

Christine

Re local vs GRO certs.

A B or D is rego'ed at the local level - the informant goes into the local subdistrict rego office and signs the register. When a local rego gets full (500 entries at 5 per page) it's forwarded to the superintendent at the local district head office where it's kept. (With redistricting, it might get moved - e.g., Oldham started off in Ashton-under-Lyne RD, but as it grew, a seperate Oldham RD was set up.) At the end of every quarter, the subdistrict would send a copy of their registers (at 10 per page) to the superintendent, who forwarded them all to the GRO, initially in London but now in Southport. At the GRO, these copies were bound into volumes, typically covering all the RDs in one or two counties. Not surprisingly, how they went about this is they took all the copied regos from one subdistrict, followed them with the next subdistrict, etc thru the whole RD, then onto the next RD etc, thru the volume.

The GRO now sends out images of its copies - most local rego offices don't have this ability, so make hand-written copies to order now. (Birmingham RD does image their original registers.)

Marriages are a bit different. In the 19th cent, the C of E, jews and quakers (plus the registrar) were trusted to keep registers. A marr by one of their "churches" would be recorded in their registers. I don't know whose responsibility, nor the timing, but these were reported to the loval RD and the GRO by the end of every quarter. When their registers got full, they were deposited in some archive, usually the county records office. Before 1898, a non-conformist marr needed a registrar to attend so that, after the religous part of the marr happened, the couple could conclude the civil part of the marr by signing his register. In 1898, all sorts of non-conformists (except RCs) could be approved to keep marr registers (RCs too, but 1980-ish for them).


There's a portal to online local indices at:
http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/index.php?form_action=local

What you see varies from index to index.
A local B/D index must know the subdistrict, but they might not tell you what it is directly.

E.g., Newcastle-upon-Tyne gives:
Register No./Entry No.
BYK1/97
and leaves it up to you to guess BYK is Byker.

Similarly, a marr must know the "church" register
E.g., South Tyneside gives
Register: C F2 Entry: 359
Date: 08/02/1842
But has a special web page that tells you St Hilda, South Shields = C F

E.g., Durham marr
Register No. - Entry No. - District
C7/1 - 22 - Durham Western (1839)
But they leave it up to you to gues what church has register C7 (my guess is St Andrews, Aycliffe)

Lancs BMD has one hidden difference from the GRO. The GRO dates things by the quarter of registration. It's clear LancsBMD uses years, not quarters, but they actually index year of birth, not of registration.

LancsBMD are currently retro-fitting the mum's MS.

This can clarify things, but also pose a problem (Using names just picked out of a hat). I might know from a census, say, that I needed one of these b.certs:

Births Jun 1846 (98%)
HOWARTH Elizabeth Ashton under Lyne 20 218

Births Dec 1846 (>99%)
Howarth Elizabeth Ashton 20 164

But now they've added the mum's MS
Lancashire Birth indexes for the years: 1846
Surname Forename(s) Sub-District Registers At Mother's Maiden Name Reference
HOWARTH Elizabeth Oldham Below Town Oldham BARLOW OBT/16/74
HOWARTH Elizabeth Royton Oldham WHITAKER ROY/5/260

I now know I want the Barlow one (OBT/16/74).
So which GRO ref is this?

Well, what you do at FreeBMD is click on the page link, and look up the other 9 names on the page:

Births Dec 1846 (>99%)
Chadderton Eliza Ashton & 20 164 OBT/16/78
Dignan Eliza Ashton & 20 164 OBT/16/82
Howarth Elizabeth Ashton 20 164
LOWE Louisa Ashton &c 20 164 OBT/16/79
Mills Betsy Ann Ashton &c 20 164 OBT/16/75
Taylor Eliza Gulietma Ashton & 20 164 OBT/16/83
Wolfenden Robert Ashton & 20 164 OBT/16/77
Wolstencroft Betty Ashton & 20 164 OBT/16/76
Wolstencroft Female Ashton & 20 164 OBT/16/80

I've added the local ref to each line - it's clear this Elizabeth is OBT/16/74, not ROY/5/260.

I noticed a minor problem - there's no line for:

DENTON Hannah Oldham Below Town Oldham SCHOFIELD OBT/16/81

When I look her up, I find:

Births Dec 1846 (>99%)
Denton Hannah Ashton & 20 169

When you look at these things in enough detail, it's easy to spot potential mistranscriptions. I checked the image, and the page is 164, not 169, so I submitted a correction to FreeBMD. If the GRO index were in error, and it really did say 169, you shouldn't submit a correction (it would have been transcribed correctly), but instead add a postem note (via the info button) saying what you think the page should be.

It's clear that here the index ref uses entry # - sometimes they just use the local page #, but it doesn't alter things that much.

Just to correct a mistake, it seems the Haworth's were Wesleyan and not presbyterian (sorry)
...Sarah even named her son Herbert Wesley and she was buried in the Wesleyan section of the cemetery, apart from her husband, so she seemed pretty entrenched (perhaps because her father was a minister and it was a major part of her life).

I still have not managed to get the names of her parents yet, but a marriage certificate is on the way in a few weeks. Fingers crossed on that one!

I have just recieved my marriage certificate of Sarah Haworth and William Jackson.

New information is that apparently John Jackson was a town missionary (and not Haworth like was put on the death certificate) and Sarah's father was listed as WILLIAM Haworth (or Howarth) and his occupation was listed as a cotton Weaver.
William and Sarah both lived on Lees Road, Oldham.
I am still trying to find Sarah's mother.
I am also trying to figure out the Jackson's now, as they may have lived in County Down as part of the missionary work and they might have been from somewhere else!