My tree of the family of Warburtons the Bakers was taken from a tree they have published in one of their booklets, though I embellished it a bit with information from censuses etc. I starts with Henry born in 1805.
A number of Public Trees on Ancestry show this Henry as the son of Thomas and Sarah nee Wolstenholme, and Thomas in turn as the son of Henry and Alice Thredfield of Haslingden who are included in the Haslingden and Radcliffe clan.
Is this correct? Strictly speaking the dates don’t match. Henry was 46 in the 1851 census and 48 when he was buried on May 22nd 1853. If these ages are correct he was born between about May 20th 1804 and March 30th 1805. The son of Thomas and Sarah was born on June 26th 1805 and baptised on August 11th.
The growth in nonconformist churches means that not all baptisms are in the parish records, or those nonconformist records that are available, Nevertheless I have found no record of a Henry whose birth or baptism dates fit exactly.
Henry’s place of birth in the 1851 census can be interpreted as Walmersely, whereas Thomas and Sarah’s abode on their Henry’s baptism is Edenfield. Again these two places are close, but not the same being 4 miles apart on opposite sides of the town of Ramsbottom.
On the other hand there is no other death of a Henry that fits the details of Thomas and Sarah’s son, leaving Henry of the baker’s clan as the closest match. Also there were four children of Thomas and Sarah born in Walmersley between 1800 and 1803 who might be siblings if the family then moved to Edenfield. Henry might well have been born in Walmersley and not baptised until the family reached Edenfield, or he may simply have been confused because his older siblings were born there. Therefore equating Henry with the son of Thomas and Sarah is probably acceptable.
Linking the Thomas who married Sarah to the son of Henry and Alice of Haslingden is more problematic. Perhaps the only clue to support the link is that Henry is a name frequently used in Haslingden, though it isn’t absent from Bury either.
The supposed marriage of Thomas and Sarah is at St Mary the Virgin, Bury on June 2nd 1803. Ignoring the fact that this excludes the Walmersley children who were born earlier this introduces many other candidates for this marriage from the Bury itself. For example no fewer than 9 Thomas’s were baptised in the Bury and Haslingden area between 1774 and 1777. Four of these would fit the supposed burial of Thomas at St John, Bury on December 8th 1842 aged 67.
In all 18 children of Thomas and Sarah (or Sally) were baptised between 1800 and 1815 with 7 different abodes quoted and 3 different chapels used. These include 4 born at Walmersley between 1800 and 1803, 4 born at Edenfield between 1805 and 1809, and 3 born at Ramsbottom between 1811 and 1815.These could be one family though Thomas has 3 different occupations at Edenfield (spinner, carder, and engineer), and a fourth (dyer) at Ramsbottom.
The only other Thomas and Sarah marriages in Lancashire were in 1795 and 1810. Clearly at least one family was moving around, but even so there seems to be a shortage of marriages.
Sorting out these families, and identifying the correct Thomas as the father of each one is not straightforward. It is highly uncertain who Thomas was, and even if Sarah was the Sarah Wolstemholme married in 1803.
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