Hi. Yes I have found quite a few births in Chorley ,with mothers maiden name Grimshaw ,I will have to look at them to make sure who the parents are , so far I've seen a Peter , George Joseph James Thomas and Jane . They may not be the correct parents but I'll check . I think the marriage of Eliza is good as I did see that .

Hi , just Been contacted by Lavinia' s great great granddaughter , who as said they moved to Canada , I don't know where she resides , but I think she has more info on another site , so it will be interesting to see them . So it's great stuff

I've checked a few of the names on family search for births for Alfred and Ellen , and so far have found Joseph 1886 James 1885 Thomas 1883 jane 1882 , just wondering if they had moved to Chorley from skelmersdale , will check the census .

I've checked the 1891 census , with the children of Alfred and Ellen hough , Jane Henry Eliza Thomas and George , the only problem ,Alfred says birthplace Chorley or so it says on the census on family search . So that's thrown me . Is it the correct person . And it says Ellen Grimshaw born Scotland . Have you any ideas ?

Ellen definely fits

Peter's death was registered in Q1 1889.
Joseph's death was registered in Q3 1886
James' death was registered in Q3 1885
The others are on the 1891 census as you say in this next post below.

Where did you think Alfred was born?

I thought skelmersdale but maybe he was from Chorley

What a shame ,they lost a lot of children in those days it's so sad .

The 1881 census says Chorley, so both censuses say the same!

I agree it is so sad to see how many children some families lost. Alfred and Ellen had more children after 1891 and not all those survived either. (they had three more, but only two of those are on the 1901 census.)

Alfred died in 1903 and Ellen remarried to William Blackledge in 1906. No children from that marriage (1911 census). On the 1911 census after William and Ellen recorded the people in their household, there is a line which reads:

First married (and then in the children's births section) 11, 7, 4

It then looks like a second person was going to write something similar as they wrote "2 ditto" under the "First married" but no numbers for children.

I think maybe 11,7,4 relate to Ellen's first family as up to 1891 you have five living children and three dec'd children. If 1891 to 1901 brings two more living children and one more dec'd child, then the numbers tie up. Looking back very briefly at William Blackledge - he didn't have a large family before marrying Ellen.

Thanks merry your a genius