X00188 Solved! Part 4

I've posted about X00188 previously. In Part 2 of the post, I mentioned how there were additional names listed in the burial record for Henry Rothwell. In Part 3 I had a look at the Mary Slate name to see how she could be related to the family. In this part, I look at the Martha Bass name to see if she is related to the family.

I first went and found the original burial record:

Which gives a burial date of 24 June 1885 and an age at of six months. It lists her as the daughter of John and Mary Alice Bass.

So the next step was to find a marriage record for John Bass and Mary Alice to see if there is any more evidence there. Sure enough, I was able to find a marriage record between a John Bass and a Mary Alice Rawcliffe Rothwell in 1882:

The name of Rothwell, does suggest that I'm on to the right marriage, although there is no information given for the father. The birth year of about 1862 would likely be too late to be a child of Henry and Alice Rothwell. So I had a look at some of Henry and Alice's children

Sure enough, I managed to find a marriage between Martha Rothwell and Samuel Rawcliffe in 1864:

This marriage record lists a Henry Rothwell as a father and a James Rothwell as a witness. As well, the birth year of Martha Rothwell matches the birth year of a known daughter of Henry Rothwell named Martha. So I'm willing to conclude that the Martha Bass in the burial record is connected to the Henry Rothwell from my family. With the evidence here and of the Mary Slater connection, I am also willing to conclude that the Henry Rothwell who died in Blackpool is the correct one.

One interesting thing to note is that the Rawcliffe-Rothwell marriage took place after Mary Alice was born, which might explain why her surname was Rothwell and not Rawcliffe and that the father is not listed on her marriage certificate. More to investigate on that later.

X00188 Solved! Part 3

For the next step, I first looked at the burial record for Mary Slater to see if there was any connection there. I first found the burial record:

Mary Slater died in 1903 at an age of 63. She was married to a George Slater and was living in a workhouse at the time of her death. That would suggest a birth year of about 1840. She could have been Henry Rothwell's daughter, Mary who was born about 1836, but not exactly, so I did some further investigation.

First thing that I found was her death certificate:

Unfortunately, the death certificate doesn't give much in the way of information that I didn't already have. It confirms that her husband's name was George and she died at age 63 in a workhouse. Additional information found was that she died of senile decay and that husband was deceased and was a cotton weaver. No maiden name however, or any definite proof to link her to Henry Rothwell. So, the next step was to find a marriage record between George Slater and Mary. I managed to find this one:

The marriage is between a George Slater and a Mary Rothwell on 13 December 1854. Her father is listed as Henry Rothwell, a carter, which is a good sign. Her age is give as 19, which would coincide with a birth year of about 1835, which also fits. One of the witnesses was James H.R. Rothwell, which also fits. So, the marriage record definitely fits with it being Mary Rothwell, daughter of Henry Rothwell.

Next step - to investigate the record for Martha Bass.

X00188 Solved! Part 2

Continuing on the story of X00188, I had a look at the burial record for Henry Rothwell, who died in 1875. I had a look to see who else was buried in the same plot. There were four names

It lists four individuals, including Henry and Alice Rothwell. There is also a Mary Slater, who was buried in 1903 and a Martha Bass who died in 1885. Neither of those names are familiar to me, but I had a look at Alice Rothwell's burial record:

And from that I found the death record:

Unfortunately, neither the burial record, nor the death record gave any clear indication, other than that she was married to a Henry Rothwell. Next step...to see if I can find out more about Mary Slater or Martha Bass.

X00188 Solved! Part 1

I've been researching quite a bit lately about the Rothwell family, making new discoveries and finding new mysteries. But it was X00188 that started it all off - finding death information for Henry Rothwell. And I have solved the mystery.

Henry Rothwell is my four times great-grandfather and was born about 1812 in Haslingden, Lancashire, England. His wife was named Alice. I found the family in the 1871 census, but Henry does not appear in the 1881 census, which implies that he likely died between 1871 and 1881.

I checked the death records and there were a few possibilities for a Henry Rothwell of the right age in the area (more on that soon), but the most likely one was a Henry Rothwell who died in Blackpool, rather than Blackburn.

This Henry Rothwell died 25th July 1875 in Blackpool at an age of 64 years, so the age matches. The occupation of general labourer also matches, but that is a very common occupation, so not entirely conclusive. The location of Blackpool doesn't match, but it appears that the death occurred in a hotel, so he could have been travelling.

Another consideration is a Henry Rothwell who died in Haslingden at age 70 in January, 1882.

The age matches, and Henry Rothwell was born in Haslingden so, it's not oout of the question, but not as likely as Blackburn. Unfortunately, the year of death is 1882, which then doesn't explain why he doesn't appear on the 1881 census.

Another Henry Rothwell who died in Haslingden, died in 1875. But the year of birth would be about 1810.

But I had a look further at the first Henry Rothwell, who died in Blackpool. I found a burial record for a Henry Rothwell buried in Blackburn on 28 July 1875, age 64. This would match the death date of the Henry Rothwell who died in Blackpool, but buried in Blackburn. As well, his wife's name is given as Alice, so this is very promising.

More on this to follow!