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Aug
23
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AS well as expanding the Sharples family tree forward (with Jack & Lilly) I have also been expanding it the other way too. This has been a fairly lame endeavor until recently I was approached by a 85 year old lady from Lancashire (via GenesReunited) who had been researching a different branch of the same tree. She had managed to dig up some really good data from various sources and had pieced together a key generation (one that had 11 children). So I decided to do my bit of research too. Not being able to physically visit Churches, Graveyards and record offices in Lancashire easily (living in California as I do), I was limited to things that are accessible on the web – which I found out is actually quite a lot.
The main sources I found were the online census for 1901 (a very cool site, free searches but paid downloads) as well as some fragments of the 1891 census (there is a effort underway to transcribe the whole 1891 census here) – what I really need to fill in the gaps are the 1841 and 1861 census – these are only partially transcribed today. Additionally there are many site dedicated to genealogy and these forums provide a great opportunity to link up with others who may have already done the work for you.
So what did I learn from my brief foray into genealogy ? Well, I actually didn't manage to go that far back (only to James Sharples, born sometime around 1815) to go further back I would have to rely on physical parish records, gravestones, etc.) The Sharples' family were heavily involved in the 'cotton revolution' and stayed in and around Bury and Oldham for about 4 generations; my great, great grand parents has 11 children (over 26 years) and for at least 10 years lived with all 11 in a very small tenement style house in Oldham (22 Howard Street to be precise).
The next phase of my research will be to extend the breadth of the tree hoping to find someone who has already researched the depth.
