Rob Varley has sent me further information on his ancestor Betsy Longley nee Warburton of the Markham clan. It paints an interesting picture of life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This Post tells the story. It is an edited, and slightly expanded version of the email Rob sent me. Betsy Warburton was born in Liverpool in 1858……

I’ve just updated the Markham clan with corrections and further inputs from Rob Varley who is descended from Betsy, the only daughter of John Warburton (b.1829) and Betsy Woodcock. John had a rather tragic life…

I have uploaded a number of clan updates that I have collected over recent months. These include:…

I now have a new website. Hopefully it looks very similar to the old one.

The old website is still sitting on the old Guild of One-Name Studies server, though I took it back to how it looked on August 5th to remove all the experimentation since than. However I am expecting the Guild will implement a redirect shortly which will redirect anyone accessing the old site to the new one.

Nevertheless I would recommend you update any Bookmarks to take you directly to the new site, The url is warburtonwebsite.net.

I have changed for 2 reasons….

I had meant to publish Issue 29 of the Newsletter late last year, having already collected material that wouldn’t fit in Issue 28. However distractions intervened I now have enough material for two Newsletters. Therefore I have just published Issue 29 and Issue 30.

On a recent trip to visit my sister-in-law in France, a friend of hers offered me an opportunity to use her account on Filae.com, a site of French genealogical records. I have been using the opportunity to document records of Warburtons in France. I have now placed that document in the Parishes section of the website. Most of the records related to short term visitors, and a number of these were known to me already. Where possible I have included information about these links, and also updated my trees where required. These updates will be put on the website in my next batch update. Some families were long term immigrants…

I recently had an email from Max Harris. He is descended from Mary Warburton who married William Evans at Norton-le-Moors, Staffordshire in 1815. He had been unable to find a baptism for Mary, and although she appears in a number of Public Trees on Ancestry, the details are variable and confusing. Her date of birth was variously given as 1791 or 1796 Her place of birth was Hanley, Staffordshire, and her parents were identified as James Warburton and Mary Bagnall who married at St. John, Burslem in 1795….

In 2014 I added the story They crossed the Plains with a Handcart to the Papers page of the Website. It was the story of a party of Mormons travelling from Iowa to Utah in 1856. I announced it in this Post. Recently Ian Sanderson sent me a link to a story in the Lincolnshire Family History Society Journal, Volume 29, Number 3, entitled My Ancestor was a Saint. I have added it to the Papers page as Warburton Mormon Trek 1849. The story describes a party of Mormon converts from Louth in Lincolnshire who sailed to the USA in 1849…

A recent BigY-700 result from FTDNA has provided me with a new genetic cousin. Indeed according to FTDNA he is my closest match. His name is Alan Norbury. Our most recent common SNP is R-FGC17096, and this is not shared by any of my BigY matches.

However I do have 2 other close matches who have not done a BigY test and I have now managed to prove they are also positive for R-FGC17096. As a result I have updated my Cheshire Group Haplotree. I have also updated the Cheshire Group section of the SNP Ages from Discover Tool document, and The Cheshire Group document.

This haplotree shows ….

I was sent the following newspaper cutting by Wendy Collin. It relates to a tragedy that befell her great aunts.

The story was carried by most newspapers in the land. The story presented was as follows:

The accident occurred on July 3rd 1903 at Cleveleys, a resort midway between Blackpool and Fleetwood on the Lancashire coast.

The family of Mr Frederick Warburton, a prominent manufacturer of Chorlton-cum-Hardy had been staying for the past week at Seabeach House. The party consisted of Mrs Warburton, her four daughters, and a son-in-law, Mr Lord, the husband of the oldest daughter. The party, with the exception of Mrs Warburton, were very fond of the water, and bathed every day.

About four o’clock on Saturday afternoon, though warned that the sea was rather rough, they all went off in a very happy mood for another dip. The tide was running very rapidly. Powerless to help, the horror stricken mother saw them carried away and appealed for aid. This was promptly forthcoming, and her son-in-law and one daughter were rescued by Mr John Croft.

The other three, Miss Ethel Warburton, Miss Minnie Warburton and Mrs Lord had by this time been swept a considerable distance out, and though gallant efforts were made to reach them, they were swept away by the strong tide. and drowned before their mother’s eyes.

The ladies, who were all of very prepossessing appearance, were great favourites at Cleveleys where they had made hosts of friends.

I was recently contacted by Dave Robinson who is a volunteer at the Whitaker Museum at Rawtenstall in Lancashire. The museum was recently gifted a collection of over 100 photographs relating to William Percy Rudolph Warburton, and his wife Alderman Gertrude Mary Warburton nee Howarth. The collection was gifted by a descendant of a friend of Gertrude’s sister Amy, who would like the collection to pass to a relative of the couple. It appears that William and Gertrude had no children, and Gertrude’s siblings didn’t either. Dave was hoping I could help him with the Warburton side….

This time last year I was sent a GEDCOM of a clan that originated in Scotland by Jerome Shih. The earliest event was the birth of Charles Warburton son of Charles Warburton and Katherine Strachan. in Edinburgh in 1777. I promised to try and get the clan published in the New Year. The year is now very old but I have now published the clan….

Following an exchange of emails with Rupert Battersby I can clarify certain details such as the date the factory was acquired, and subsequently sold. I have therefore update my original Post, I’ve also added a link to a short video about making felt hats in Battersby’s Stockport factory, and a letter from Madame Rousseau, then owner of the Conty factory to Walter Battersby dated 1948.

As well as the updates to 6 clans affected by research into the Thiepval 12, I have also updated the Hale Barns and Garryhinch clans. The updates are:

On my recent visit to Amiens I visited the Thiepval Memorial which records the names of 72,000 soldiers who died in the Somme region, but whose bodies were never found. Binders containing all the names in alphabetical order, were lodged in an alcove in one of the pillars, These contained the names of 12 Warburtons. I photographed the two pages containing the names.

Updated November 14th 2025: Following an exchange of emails with Rupert Battersby I can clarify certain details such as the date the factory was acquired, and subsequently sold. I’ve also added a link to a short video about making felt hats in Battersby’s Stockport factory, and a letter from Madame Rousseau, then owner of the Conty factory to Walter Battersby dated 1948. In May, under Hale Barns Clan Update I posted about my new French cousin, who is descended from a Leonard Warburton, a distant cousin of mine who moved to Picardy in the early 1900s to work in a… Continue Reading

I previously posted about Bishop Charles Warburton’s mourning ring, which came up for sale in Australia in 2024, and was subsequently bought by a descendant of the Bishop’s brother, whose son emigrated to Australia. I have just received the following email and photo from Elaine Hopper. Elaine says: ” It is my second cousin who bought [the ring] this year, and we had a nice meal together and she showed me the ring. It is believed to have come on the market via descendants of Charles Warburton Carr but [my cousin] is still pursuing the provenance. It was made in 1824… Continue Reading

In 2016 I wrote a Post on Warburton Meyer Pike, an explorer in British Colombia. I was particularly interested in where the Warburton name came from. It was from his grandmother Anne Warburton, who married William Pike. I received a couple of interesting comments.

I was recently contacted by Yvonne Dod whose grandmother Ada Mary Warburton was one of 12 children of Edward and Jane nee Allen. I had Edward, Jane and 11 of their children in my tree but hadn’t added details. Also I had missed Ada Mary because ….