hi , ellen callen and William grimshaws sons James and William were born in Glasgow in 1854 and 1856 . I think they may have had another child in Scotland . As I seem to recall visiting who my mother called aunt in Glasgow in the 50s and 60s , and my father would take us up sometimes to visit , but I have no recollection if it was Lanarkshire or not . They seem to move back to live in skelmersdale as they appear on the 1861 census . Thanks

Thanks to all of you for the much needed help , I'm afraid I don't look out of the box sometimes and stick rigidly to dates names etc ,and then I become unstuck . So thanks for all your pointers with regards to names changing etc .

Ciceley was a widow in 1861, so we only have William's place of birth from the 1851 census to go on. He said he was 55 and born in Ashton. There are several Ashtons in Lancashire: Ashton in Makerfield, Ashton on Ribble and Ashton under Lyne.

The best fit I could find is this one:


William Calland born 31 Dec 1795 bap 24 Jan 1796 Wigan, Lancashire, second son of William Calland of Haigh, weaver and Ann, dau of Thomas and Betty Lea.

Wigan is about 4 miles from Ashton in Makerfield.

However, my knowledge of the geography off Lancashire is around zero, so I'll leave this for others to take a look before looking for further entries for this family, in case anyone else thinks another entry might be more likely.

Yes, the 1861 census you mention shows three children were born in Scotland. (Copied from one of the old threads):

The 1871 census shows two further children, Mary 8 and Peter 5 both born in Ince, Lancs They were living at Upholland, Lancs at that date.

Surely you wouldn't have been visiting the same people 100 years later though?!!

There are a few other Ashtons in Lancashire as well as these, but I haven't found a more likely baptism yet. But Haigh is the other side of Wigan from Ashton in Makerfield.

There are some ancestry trees which have the William born 31 Dec 1795 down as marrying an Esther and dying in 1843 in Ince, but they all seem to be in a complete muddle and copied from each other, so they could well be wrong. There was a child called William Calland who died in Ince in 1843.

...plus William is on the 1851 census.

Yes, but we don't know whether the William on the 1851 census is the one born 31 Dec 1795 in Haigh - that's what we're trying to prove or disprove.

I had a bad feeling that might be the case!

It was an observation on the trees which had bumped him off prematurely!