Christopher Eccles (MFFFFF)

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Originally Posted by kiterunner

I have some low matches like that on ThruLines where I know the connection shown by Ancestry is completely wrong.

Yes, I have some others as well. But at 18 and 13 cM, the match is surely not a false positive like the smaller ones can be. Now, all the ThruLines have been removed, but matches remain.

Over the last several weeks, I have been collecting all the references I can from Ancestry, familysearch and the Lancashire Parish Records, for all Christopher Eccles.

I have not found many baptisms between 1787 and 1794, so I spread the net a little wider, thinking that the person who registered his death may not have known his real age.

Christopher as a name seems especially prevalent around Darwen (Over and Lower) and Blackburn, so I concentrated there first.

I found six baptisms from 1783 to 1790 but also 4 burials of infants/children. So that left two - Christopher baptised to John and Catherine in 1783, and Christopher baptised to Margaret in 1786. The age is a little out to the death cert and even the census but both old enough to marry in 1826.

Then there were two Peggy Eccles baptised in 1761, and but only one John (in that generation) and he was the brother of one of the Peggys!. John and Peggy were the children of Christopher and Esther, so either could have named their son after their father. Or was Christopher (Margaret's illegit son) named after his father, who was not an Eccles? The other Peggy was baptised to John and Ann.

I looked at the naming patterns in my family - throughout the 19th century, they seem to have followed the traditional pattern of 1st son named after maternal grandfather, 2nd son named after paternal grandfather. Right up down to my grandfather. Not that that really helps.

Now I have started on trying to put together all the different Eccles families in Darwen and Blackburn - it's going to take a while.

[Olde Crone]

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I've looked on my Darwen tree for your Christopher, but oddly, I have very few Eccles and no Christopher. I wish I could remember what Jeremy Hunt said about the name Christopher but so far have failed. It started with one family, he says.

In the meantime, this might help sort out your Darwen families although it doesn't go much further back than about 1800.

www.nightingaletree.tribalpages.com

My tree is mostly confined to Darwen families although there are plenty of strays. Let me know if I can help with specifics,lol.

OC

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Thanks OC

I had a look at the Darwen Nightingale link, but as you say, it does not have much before 1800.

Not sure if you can do anything to help. I have no idea if Christopher Eccles who married in 1827 in Manchester or the one who married in Manchester in 1794 were born in Manchester, Darwen, or somewhere else.

And what happened to Christopher and Alice after 1794 - perhaps they just came into Manchester to get married, but where did they go? As Alice was a widow, were they too old to have children of their own?

The lack of accurate age data is a drawback. All I can do is try to eliminate as many Christophers as possible, and hope for someone with a good family tree shows up to compare with.

[Olde Crone]

Just a quick thought! If you can work out how to search Lancashire County Records Office (I can't!) for Bastardy Orders, you might find Sarah Eccles in order to eliminate her. I have found Bastardy Orders a great source of info (oh, the shame) for my lot. They name the natural father. They used to be freely available on the old A2A site, long since gone, sadly.

OC

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Thanks OC, I will have a look for them.
I have not had many occasions to look for Bastardy Orders, we are a mostly conventional lot.

Maybe a visit to the Lancashire Records Office, one day when I can go to England again