Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Thomas BOSTOCK, 1789-1848, Weaverham, Cheshire, England

This week, I'm back to my favourite son-in-law's family lines. [he's the only one!]  Here we have his 4th great-grandfather (his children's 5th great-grandfather), Thomas BOSTOCK, the second one in the line that I'm relatively confident about. This Thomas' parents were Thomas and Mary, and so far I've found four possible ones in Cheshire, England! Genealogy research is never done.

Thomas BOSTOCK, born June 6th, 1789 in Weaverham, Cheshire, England, and baptised on July 5th, 1789, the following month. The parish church, St Mary's Church for over 1000 years, was known at the time of the Norman invasion, and many details are found in the link, including photographs. The photo of the church is above on the right. [© Copyright Sue Adair and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence]

Weaverham is a small village beside the Weaver River, scarcely 10km to the west of the Mersey River and the west coast. Thomas and his wife Mary appear to have lived in the Weaverham Parish for the majority of their lives. Nearby was the Forest of Delamere, a "forest by the lake" [Latin phrase: foresta de la mera]. The link for the forest has interesting stories and facts about the forest and lakes.


In the Parish Church on April 29th, 1811, Thomas married Mary, possibly Mary Birtwisel although this is not yet confirmed definitively. Children of this couple appear to be the following, although it is possible there are more not yet found and confirmed:

  1.  Elizabeth, b. 7 Jan 1812, bap. 9 Feb 1812; nothing further researched to date.
  2.  Thomas, b. 1815, d. 9 Apr 1819 aged 4 yrs of age
  3.  George [ancestor], bap 19 Feb 1817, d. bef 1871; m. 29 Dec 1841 to Hannah "Ann" PICKTON, 8 known children
  
As far as I have been able to find out, Thomas seems to have been a farm worker, or "Ag Lab" worker [agriculture labourer]. There was a mill in Weaverham which was used until late in the 19th century, and there was much farming in the region. At the time Thomas and his family lived there in the early 1800s the population was not much over 1000 people, although after WWII the post-war boom brought the population up to about 7500.  

On September 24th, 1848, Thomas Bostock died, and was buried the same day, according to the Burial Records for the Parish.  I have no information about his wife, Mary, whether she was still alive or not. The lack of children's birth records for this couple might indicate she died at some point after son George's birth in 1817.


More research in the Weaverham parish needs to be done to tease out more details of the several Thomas Bostock individuals and their respective families.  Although I have found there are several families of Thomas and Mary in the region on the 1841 Census for Weaverham and surrounding hamlets, the names and ages of their children are very confusing, when looking at ages of the parents. 


If you have any information on this particular Thomas and Mary or corrections to offer, please do contact me at the address at the bottom of the page. I'm happy to share whatever I have found to date, as well.  


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Welcome!

Family, friends, and others - I hope you enjoy these pages about our ancestors and their lives. Genealogy has become somewhat of an obsession, more than a hobby, and definitely a wonderful mystery to dig into and discover. Enjoy my writing, and contact me at celia.winky at gmail dot com if you have anything to add to the stories. ... Celia Lewis