Added and Updated FamilySearch Record Collections - Week of 16 to 22 May 2026

 Each week, I try to keep track of the number of Full-Text Search collections (indexed, searchable) and the Images collections (browsable but not searchable) -- see Sections 1) and 2) below. In addition, I list the genealogy historical record collections (often name-indexed) that are added, removed, and/or updated on FamilySearch and listed on the Historical Record Collection list  --  See Section 3.

1)  As of 22 May 2026, there are now 6,666 searchable and full-text transcribed image collections on FamilySearch Full-Text Search this week, an increase of 0 from last week. There are over   1.98 BILLION "results" in the collections.  It is not possible to see which collections are new.

 

 2)  As of 22 May 2026, there are now 24,684 browsable (some indexed, none transcribed) image collections on FamilySearch Images this week, a decrease of 2 from last week. There are over 6.031 BILLION images in these collections.  There are 2,101 collections from the United States, 6,917 from Europe and 219 from Canada.  It is not possible to see which collections are new.

  

3)  As of 22 May 2026, there are 3,436 Historical Record Collections (many indexed, browsable) on FamilySearch (an increase of 1 from last week) on the Signed In screen.

The Deleted, Added and Updated Historical Record Collections this week include:

--- Collections Deleted ---

Indiana, World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1940-1947 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2852766); 899,405 indexed records with 898,302 record images, DELETED
Kentucky, World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1940-1947 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2857274); 735,551 indexed records with 733,388 record images, DELETED
Rhode Island, World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1940-1947 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/3047821); 184,603 indexed records with 184,465 record images, DELETED

--- Collections Added ---

Philippines, Calabarzon, Church Records 1710-1983 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000323); 1,478,024 indexed records with 236,829 record images, ADDED 12-Mar-2026
Philippines, Central Luzon, Church Records, 1682-1972 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000340); 1,817,769 indexed records with 215,480 record images, ADDED 12-Mar-2026
Philippines, Metro Manila, Church Records, 1723-1982 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000337); 362,559 indexed records with 167,613 record images, ADDED 12-Mar-2026
Philippines, Mimaropa, Church Records, 1821-1937
(https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000339); 69,724 indexed records with 31,989 record images, ADDED 11-Mar-2026

--- Collections Updated ---

Alaska Naturalization Records, 1884-1992 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2513103); 81,596 indexed records with 71,944 record images (was 81,550 records with 71,937 images), UPDATED 19-May-2026
Belgium, West Flanders, Civil Registration, 1582-1950 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2139860); 596,937 indexed records with 2,612,466 record images (was 596,932 records with 2,612,466 images), UPDATED 18-May-2026
California, Honor Roll of Californians who served in WWI, 1914-1918 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/3029261); 9,280 indexed records with 9,231 record images (was 9,256 records with 9,229 images), UPDATED 19-May-2026
Colombia, Migration Records, 1885-2014 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000159); 6,739,551 indexed records with 6,511,777 record images (was 6,739,469 records with 6,507,487 images), UPDATED 21-May-2026
Honduras, Civil Registration, 1841-1968 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2135627); 12,403,202 indexed records with 337,976 record images (was 12,424,489 records with 337,976 images), UPDATED 22-May-2026

Indiana, Naturalization Records and Indexes, 1848-1993 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2137708); 145,747 indexed records with 102,461 record images (was 144,805 records with 102,461 images), UPDATED 18-May-2026
Mexico, Aguascalientes, Catholic Church Records, 1601-1962 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1502404); 954,902 indexed records with 618,532 record images (was 950,575 records with 618,532 images), UPDATED 15-May-2026
Mexico, Chiapas, Catholic Church Records, 1557-1978 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1616412); 1,442,313 indexed records with 968,865 record images (was 1,394,705 records with 968,865 images), UPDATED 15-May-2026
Mexico, Chihuahua, Catholic Church Records, 1632-2005 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1521780); 1,134,092 indexed records with 378,612 record images (was 1,095,155 records with 378,612 images), UPDATED 15-May-2026
Mexico, Colima, Catholic Church Records, 1707-1969 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1508604); 361,275 indexed records with 228,566 record images (was 360,894 records with 228,566 images), UPDATED 15-May-2026

Mexico, Durango, Catholic Church Records, 1604-1985 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1554576); 1,554,977 indexed records with 504,812 record images (was 1,517,303 records with 504,812 images), UPDATED 15-May-2026
Mexico, Guanajuato, Catholic Church Records, 1519-1984 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1860831); 12,301,590 indexed records with 4,584,983 record images (was 10,992,905 records with 4,584,983 images), UPDATED 17-May-2026
Mexico, Guerrero, Catholic Church Records, 1576-1979 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1823323); 2,559,828 indexed records with 1,584,621 record images (was 2,402,102 records with 1,584,621 images), UPDATED 16-May-2026
Mexico, Hidalgo, Catholic Church Records, 1546-1971 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1804358); 5,088,537 indexed records with 1,750,627 record images (was 4,882,088 records with 1,750,627 images), UPDATED 16-May-2026
Mexico, Jalisco, Catholic Church Records, 1590-2022 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1874591); 9,682,007 indexed records with 5,797,486 record images (was 8,526,576 records with 5,797,486 images), UPDATED 17-May-2026

Mexico, Morelos, Catholic Church Records, 1598-1994 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1837907); 916,379 indexed records with 531,787 record images (was 916,379 records with 531,787 images), UPDATED 16-May-2026
Mexico, México, Catholic Church Records, 1567-1970 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1837908); 9,260,695 indexed records with 4,823,124 record images (was 8,662,920 records with 4,823,124 images), UPDATED 17-May-2026
Mexico, Nayarit, Catholic Church Records, 1596-1967 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1883377); 805,878 indexed records with 499,694 record images (was 737,848 records with 499,694 images), UPDATED 17-May-2026
Mexico, Oaxaca, Catholic Church Records, 1559-2022 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1909191); 6,850,610 indexed records with 3,458,764 record images (was 6,036,813 records with 3,458,764 images), UPDATED 18-May-2026
Mexico, Puebla, Catholic Church Records, 1545-2009 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1837906); 7,113,969 indexed records with 6,124,553 record images (was 6,419,452 records with 6,124,553 images), UPDATED 16-May-2026

Mexico, Querétaro, Catholic Church Records, 1590-1970 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1881200); 2,731,619 indexed records with 1,380,077 record images (was 2,531,105 records with 1,380,077 images), UPDATED 17-May-2026
Mexico, San Luis Potosí, Catholic Church Records, 1586-1977 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1860864); 4,941,900 indexed records with 2,162,812 record images (was 4,555,586 records with 2,162,812 images), UPDATED 17-May-2026
Mexico, Sinaloa, Catholic Church Records, 1671-1968 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1473206); 906,504 indexed records with 521,512 record images (was 906,141 records with 521,512 images), UPDATED 15-May-2026
Mexico, Tabasco, Catholic Church Records, 1803-1970 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1909106); 121,251 indexed records with 121,509 record images (was 116,767 records with 121,509 images), UPDATED 18-May-2026
Mexico, Tamaulipas, Catholic Church Records, 1703-1964 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1790934); 808,916 indexed records with 199,328 record images (was 805,637 records with 199,328 images), UPDATED 15-May-2026

Mexico, Tlaxcala, Catholic Church Records, 1576-1994 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1837905); 1,810,128 indexed records with 1,012,693 record images (was 1,719,101 records with 1,012,693 images), UPDATED 16-May-2026
Mexico, Veracruz, Catholic Church Records, 1590-1978 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1883382); 4,008,971 indexed records with 2,563,917 record images (was 3,844,032 records with 2,563,917 images), UPDATED 18-May-2026
Mexico, Yucatán, Catholic Church Records, 1543-1977 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1909116); 3,048,878 indexed records with 1,234,534 record images (was 2,956,281 records with 1,234,534 images), UPDATED 18-May-2026
Mexico, Zacatecas, Catholic Church Records, 1605-1980 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1804458); 3,118,149 indexed records with 1,663,800 record images (was 2,868,998 records with 1,663,800 images), UPDATED 16-May-2026
New Zealand, Civil Records Indexes, 1800-1966 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2697870); 2,276,966 indexed records with 2 record images (was 1,758,729 records with 1,737,473 images), UPDATED 21-May-2026

Philippines, Bicol, Church Records, 1738-1989 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000336); 575,888 indexed records with 156,090 record images (was 543,963 records with 151,112 images), UPDATED 19-May-2026
Philippines, Bicol, Civil Registration, 1783-2008 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000343); 20,169 indexed records with 816,539 record images (was 20,169 records with 699,601 images), UPDATED 20-May-2026
Philippines, Catholic Church Records, 1520-2014 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2861657); 12,300,078 indexed records with 3,051,289 record images (was 12,300,078 records with 3,050,822 images), UPDATED 19-May-2026
Philippines, Central Luzon, Civil Registration, 1852-2010 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000349); 126,942 indexed records with 856,617 record images (was 126,942 records with 797,469 images), UPDATED 20-May-2026
Philippines, Central Visayas, Civil Registration, 1914-1996 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000194); 125,825 indexed records with 663,770 record images (was 125,825 records with 580,569 images), UPDATED 19-May-2026

Philippines, Western Visayas, Church Records, 1712-2006 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000338); 681,180 indexed records with 348,784 record images (was 673,700 records with 347,364 images), UPDATED 21-May-2026
Texas, Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Membership Applications, 1892-2010 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1918480); Browse 386,880 Images only, no index (was 0 records with 386,880 images), UPDATED 18-May-2026

--- Collections with new images ---

Argentina, Buenos Aires, Civil Registration, 1861-2018 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000041); 1 indexed records with 111,710 record images (was 1 records with 111,708 images), last updated 07-Jun-2024
Argentina, Military Records, 1911-1936 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000280); 2,929,239 indexed records with 2,929,262 record images (was 2,929,239 records with 2,929,261 images), last updated 03-Apr-2026
Brazil, Alagoas, Civil Registration, 1876-2023 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/4469403); 1 indexed records with 454,219 record images (was 1 records with 454,205 images), last updated 07-Jun-2024
Brazil, Maranhão, Civil Registration, 1827-2022 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/4469402); 1 indexed records with 906,190 record images (was 1 records with 906,167 images), last updated 07-Jun-2024

--- Collections with images removed ---

England Marriages, 1538–1973 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1473015); 10,303,917 indexed records with 12,511,919 record images (was 10,303,917 records with 12,554,364 images), last updated 06-Feb-2026
Philippines, Eastern Visayas, Church Records, 1716-2014 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000329); 737,166 indexed records with 398,278 record images (was 737,166 records with 423,658 images), last updated 11-Mar-2026
Philippines, Ilocos, Church Records, 1718-2007 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000330); 2,021,539 indexed records with 448,585 record images (was 2,021,539 records with 459,316 images), last updated 12-Mar-2026

--- Collections with new records ---

Mexico, Nuevo León, Catholic Church Records, 1544-1982 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1473204); 1,149,728 indexed records with 447,381 record images (was 1,149,073 records with 447,381 images), last updated 15-May-2026

--- Collections with records removed ---
United States, Public Records, 1970-2009 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2199956); Index only (875,600,615 records), no images (was 875,600,617 records with 0 images), last updated 23-Dec-2025
United States, Residence Database, 1970-2024 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000290); Index only (413,858,331 records), no images (was 413,858,332 records with 0 images), last updated 22-Jun-2024

===================================

My friend and SDGS colleague, Marshall, has come up with a way to determine which collections are ADDED, DELETED or UPDATED, and to alphabetize the entries in each category. Thanks to Marshall for helping me out here!

Marshall notes that there are:

• 3,436 Historical Record Collection entries
• 3 removed entries
• 4  added entries 
• 39 updated entries
• 7 entries with more or fewer images 
• 3 entries with more or fewer records

Marshsll's list shows 3,436 Historical Record Collections this week, an increase of 1 collections. The image above shows 3,436 collections, so the Image number is in sync with Marshall's list number.

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See previous FamilySearch-related blog posts in        https://www.geneamusings.com/search/label/FamilySearch

The URL for this post is:  

Copyright (c) 2026, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Share it on X, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below. Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.  Note that all comments are moderated, so they may not be posted immediately.

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Added and Updated Ancestry.com Record Collections - Week of 16 to 22 May 2026

 The following genealogy record collections were added to the Ancestry.com Card Catalog page by "Date Updated" during the period from 16 to 22 May 2026:  

The ADDED and Updated collections include:

• Virginia, U.S., Death Records, 1912-2014; 11,182,317 indexed records with record images, Updated 5/21/2026. Get the story on your ancestor’s demise in this index of details extracted from Virginia death records.
• Edinburgh, Scotland, WWI Roll of Honour, 1914-1919; 11,064 indexed records with record images, ADDED 5/21/2026. This collection contains a roll of honour for people associated with the University of Edinburgh in Scotland who served in the British armed forces during the First World War.
• Virginia, U.S., Marriage Records, 1936-2014; 19,425,489 indexed records with record images, Updated 5/21/2026. These Virginia marriage records include parents’ names along with bride and groom.
• Carmarthenshire, Wales, Crew Lists, 1863-1914; 61,374 indexed records with record images, ADDED 5/21/2026. This collection contains crew lists filed at the port of Carmarthenshire, Wales, between 1863 and 1914. The crew lists contain personal information about sailors and their records on the ships.
• U.S., Korean War Era Draft Cards, 1948-1959; 10,110,498 indexed records without record images, Updated 5/19/2026. This collection contains military draft cards submitted to the Selective Service System between 1948 and 1959. Young men were required to submit a draft card when they became eligible for military service.
• Netherlands, Baptism Index, 1557-1903; 25,430,843 indexed records without record images, Updated 5/19/2026. This collection contains baptismal records from the Netherlands between 1557 and 1902.
• Netherlands, Birth Index, 1784-1923; 44,093.502 indexed records without record images, Updated 5/19/2026. This collection contains birth records from the Netherlands between 1784-1921. All records are transcribed in Dutch, but some original records may have been written in Latin. 
• Netherlands, Population Registers Index, 1720-1945; 35,313,192 indexed records without record images, Updated 5/19/2026. This collection consists of an index to population registers (censuses) from the Netherlands between 1720 and 1944.
• Netherlands, Burial Index, 1540-1969; 2,395,808 indexed records without record images, Updated 5/19/2026. This collection is an index of burial records from the Netherlands dated from 1540 to 1967.
• Netherlands, Death Index, 1796-1973; 44,170,767 indexed records with record images, Updated 5/19/2026. This collection consists of an index to death records held at various archives throughout the Netherlands.
• Netherlands, Civil Marriage Index, 1795-1949; 29,975,014 indexed records without record images, Updated 5/19/2026. This collection contains church records for individuals who were married between 1795 and 1949 in the Netherlands.
• Netherlands, Marriage Index, 1524-1899; 4,817,183 indexed records without record images, Updated 5/19/2026. This collection contains an index of marriages that were recorded in church records in the Netherlands from 1524-1899.
• Worcestershire, England, Militia Records, 1604-1914; 8,385 indexed records with record images, ADDED  5/18/2026. This collection contains militia records from Worcestershire dated between 1750 and 1824. Record types vary and include militia quarter sessions, order books, and payroll ledgers. 
  

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The complete Ancestry.com Card Catalog is at https://search.ancestry.com/search/CardCatalog.aspx.

By my count, there are 3 NEW record collections ADDED this past week, per the list above. There are now 33,937 collections available as of 22 May, an INCREASE of  3 from last week.

==============================================

Disclosure: I pay for an All-Access subscription from Ancestry.com. In past years, Ancestry.com provided a complimentary All Access subscription, an autosomal DNA test, material considerations for travel expenses to meetings, and hosted events and meals that I attended in Salt Lake City.

The URL for this post is:  https://www.geneamusings.com/2026/05/added-and-updated-ancestrycom-record_0836859199.html

 Copyright (c) 2026, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Share it on Facebook, X, or Pinterest using the icons below. Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com. Please note that all Comments are moderated so they may not appear immediately.

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Ask AI: "Describe The Courtship and Marriage of James and Hannah (Rich) Richman of Hilperton, Wiltshire in 1845"

I wondered if my AI Assistant Anthropic Claude could provide me with information about the courtship of my  2nd great-grandparents, James and Hannah (Rich) Richman in Wiltshire in the 1840s. The biography of  James Richman is in ABC Biography of #20 James Richman/Richmond (1821-1912) of Wiltshire and New England annd for Hannah is in ABC Biography of #21 Hannah (Rich) Richman/Richmond (1824-1911) of Wiltshire and New England.

(AI NotebookLM Infographic -- James and Hannah (Rich) Richman Courtship and Marriage in  Wiltshire)

I asked Claude to describe James and Hannah (Rich) Richman'scourtship and early marriage years in the 1840s, based on the biography and social history. 

The second part of the Claude Sonnet 4.6 response was:

The Weaver's Daughter: A Story of James Richman and Hannah Rich

Part One: The Village

Hilperton, Wiltshire — Spring, 1843

The morning mist still clung to the water meadows along the Avon when James Richman set out from Marsh Lane with his father's old haversack over one shoulder and the smell of bread his mother had pressed into his hands still warm against his palm. He was twenty-two years old, lean and broad-shouldered from years of agricultural labor, with hands that were already roughened well beyond his age. The road to the fields took him past the row of weavers' cottages on the south side of the lane, and he had learned, in recent months, to slow his pace just slightly as he drew level with the third cottage from the end.

He was not entirely sure when he had begun to notice Hannah Rich. She had been part of the village his whole life, the way the church tower was part of the village, or the sound of the canal barges moving through the early morning quiet. She was three years his junior, the daughter of John Rich the weaver, a quiet and capable man whose loom could be heard clicking steadily through the open window of the cottage from first light until the shadows grew long in the afternoon. Hannah had grown up at her mother Rebecca's side, learning to card and spin before she was tall enough to reach the loom comfortably, and by the time she was eighteen she was considered one of the most accomplished weavers among the younger women of Hilperton.

It was at the Sunday School that James first spoke to her properly. He had been attending for several years by then, not because anyone required it of him at his age, but because the Sunday School represented something rare and precious in his life — the chance to learn. He had come to his letters late, borrowing a hand-copied alphabet from his friend Will Saunders, tracing the shapes by firelight in the evenings after his father and brothers were asleep. By twenty he could read well enough to make his way through a newspaper, and he was hungry for more. The Sunday School's small lending shelf of religious texts and improving pamphlets was not much, but it was something.

Hannah came with her younger sister on the first Sunday of April, and they took seats near the window where the light fell cleanly across the pages. James noticed that she read without moving her lips, which he had come to understand was the mark of a truly practiced reader — and then caught himself staring and looked quickly back at his own page.

Afterward, in the yard, he summoned the courage to speak.

"You're John Rich's daughter," he said, which was not the most inspired opening, but it was honest.

She looked at him with grey eyes that were entirely calm. "I am. And you're one of the Richmans from further up the lane."

"James," he said. "The second son."

"I know," she said simply, and went to find her sister.

---

Summer, 1843

The village of Hilperton was small enough that two young people who wished to encounter one another could arrange it without great difficulty, provided they were willing to be patient and observe the proprieties. James was patient by nature — a quality his mother attributed to his temperament and his father attributed to stubbornness — and he was scrupulous about proprieties because he understood that Hannah's reputation was worth more than any fleeting satisfaction he might gain by being careless with it.

He found occasions to speak with her at church, where the congregation mingled briefly in the yard before and after services. He helped her father carry a heavy bolt of finished cloth to the canal wharf one afternoon when he happened to be passing and John Rich was struggling with the weight of it. He took pains to be courteous to her mother Rebecca, who watched him with the careful assessment of a woman who had raised a daughter she intended to see well settled.

Hannah, for her part, gave nothing away easily. She was not cold — there was warmth in her, James could see it in the way she was with the younger children of the village, and in the quiet humor that occasionally surfaced when she spoke — but she was measured, as though she had decided early in life that her words and her feelings were her own to give or withhold as she saw fit, and she would not be hurried.

What drew James to her most deeply, he thought, was not her face, though her face was pleasant enough, nor her skill at her work, though that was evident. It was something harder to name — a quality of steadiness, of being fully present in whatever she was doing, that made him feel, when she turned her attention on him, that he was being genuinely seen.

By harvest time, he had determined that he wished to marry her. The question was whether she would have him, and whether her father would consider him a suitable prospect.

---

Autumn, 1843 — Winter, 1844

James spent the autumn thinking carefully about his position. He was a laborer — honest work, steady enough, but not distinguished. His father John was working doing coal hauling along the canal, which paid a little better than general farm work but was brutally hard on a man's body, and James was able to find work there. His older brother John Junior had married and was already struggling to keep his young family fed. The prospects for a man of James's class were not, objectively speaking, impressive.

What he had, he told himself, was his willingness to work, his ability to read, his determination to improve himself, and whatever Hannah Rich might see in him that he could not entirely see himself. It would have to be enough.

He spoke first to his mother, Ann Richman, who listened without interrupting — a quality he deeply valued in her — and then said: "She's a sensible girl from a decent family. Her mother's people are steady. If you mean to have her, you'd best speak to her father before someone else has the same idea."

He spoke to John Rich on a Thursday evening in November, sitting in the front room of the weaver's cottage with the smell of lanolin and wool dust in the air and the cold pressing at the small window. John Rich heard him out, asked him three or four direct questions about his earnings and his intentions, and said he would speak with his daughter.

James walked home in the dark not knowing what to hope.

A week later, Hannah's mother stopped him in the lane and said that her husband had no objection, and that Hannah had said she would be willing to hear what James had to say for himself. The formality of it might have been comic, but James understood that it was the form through which serious things were accomplished, and he was grateful for it.

He and Hannah walked together along the towpath of the Avon and Kennett Canal on a Sunday afternoon in late November, the water grey and cold beside them and the bare willows trailing their fingers in the current. He told her honestly what he could offer and what he could not. He told her about his determination to better himself, though he admitted he was not entirely sure yet what that meant. He told her that he would not waste what she brought to a marriage, which he could already see was considerable.

She was quiet for a long moment, looking at the water.

"My mother can't read," she said finally. "She never learned. My father reads a little, for business." She paused. "I can read. I taught myself, mostly, from my father's order books. I don't intend to forget how."

"I wouldn't ask you to," James said.

She looked at him then, the full weight of her grey eyes steady on his face. "All right," she said. "I'll marry you, James Richman."

---

Part Two: The Banns and the Wedding

Summer and Early Autumn, 1845

The intervening months between that conversation on the towpath and their wedding day were occupied with the practical business of making a marriage possible. By the spring of 1845 James had been saving steadily for two years — going without small comforts, declining the ale at the inn on market days, setting aside a shilling here and sixpence there with the dogged arithmetic of a man who knew exactly what he was working toward.

Hannah's mother and her Aunt Lucia began assembling the household linens that would form the basis of their new home: two sets of bed sheets, rough but sound; a pair of wool blankets that Rebecca Rich had been adding to over several winters; a set of earthenware dishes; an iron pot that had been her own grandmother's. These were the bones of a household, and they were given with the seriousness appropriate to the transfer of practical wealth between women.

James, with the help of his brother John Junior and a neighbor who owed him a favor, acquired a table and two chairs, a wooden bedstead, and a narrow chest for storing clothes. He found a cottage available on Marsh Lane — two small rooms up, one down, with a kitchen lean-to added onto the back — and negotiated a weekly rent that was tight but manageable against his wages.

The banns were read in church on three consecutive Sundays in August, the curate announcing in his carrying voice that James Richman and Hannah Rich intended to marry, and that any person knowing of an impediment to this union should declare it. The congregation of Hilperton listened, as they always did, with the attentive interest of people who knew everyone involved personally, and no impediment was declared.

---

September 7, 1845

The wedding day arrived on a Sunday in early September, when the harvest was largely in and the village had the slightly relaxed quality of a community that had completed its most urgent work. The morning was cool and bright, with the particular clarity of early autumn light in Wiltshire, the kind of light that makes the limestone of the old buildings glow gold and throws long shadows across the churchyard grass.

Hannah dressed at her parents' cottage with her mother and her sisters Ann and Elizabeth in attendance. There was no elaborate wedding gown — such things were for people of quite different circumstances — but she had a good dress of dark blue wool that she had woven herself over the preceding winter, cut and sewn with care. Rebecca Rich pinned a small spray of late-summer flowers to her daughter's collar, the closest thing available to a bridal decoration. The women did not speak very much. There was a quality to the morning that seemed to discourage unnecessary words.

James arrived at the church with his father and his mother, his brother\s John, and his sisters Elizabeth and Sarah, who had pressed his coat the night before and made him sit still while she cut his hair. He stood at the front of the small church and watched the door, and when Hannah came through it with her father he felt something settle in his chest — some long-held anxiety releasing — as though the sight of her simply confirmed something he had already known.

William Talman, the officiating clergyman, read the service in the measured tones of a man who had performed it many times and understood its gravity. James's mother Ann served as one of the witnesses, standing with her back straight and her best cap on, watching her son with an expression that James could not quite read but which he thought was composed of equal parts pride and the particular sorrow that mothers seem to feel at the happiness of their children.

When James was required to sign the register he did so carefully, his letters clear and deliberate. When it was Hannah's turn, she took the pen, and then set it down, and made her mark — the cross that served in place of a signature. James did not look away, and she did not look down. It was simply what it was, a fact about the world they had both been born into, and they had already agreed between themselves that it would not remain true of their children.

After the ceremony the two families gathered in the yard, and Hannah's mother produced a pie and some cold meat and a quantity of cider that John Rich had been keeping for the occasion, and they ate together in the September sunshine with the sound of the church bells still in the air above them.

---

Part Three: Marsh Lane

Autumn, 1845

The cottage on Marsh Lane was twelve feet wide and not much longer, with walls of the local limestone that kept the interior cool in summer and held the damp in winter. The downstairs room served as kitchen and parlor both, anchored by a stone fireplace that burned coal — James could get it at a discount through his contacts along the canal — and heated poorly but adequately when the fire was well built. The upstairs had two chambers divided by a plank partition, and the lean-to kitchen at the back housed the water pump, which required persuasion on cold mornings.

Hannah set up their domestic life with the same methodical competence she brought to everything. The earthenware dishes went on the shelf above the fireplace. The iron pot was hung on the crane over the fire. The table and two chairs were positioned to catch the light from the front window during the day, and the tallow candle on its stick was placed where it would illuminate the table in the evenings. She arranged their small household with the precision of someone who understood that when you have little, the organization of what you have is not a luxury but a necessity.

In the evenings, after supper, they sat at the table together. James read when there was something to read — a newspaper borrowed from the pub, a pamphlet from the Sunday School, occasionally a letter from his brother John who had taken to the sea. Hannah listened when he read aloud, and he could see her absorbing it, filing it away in the organized interior of her mind. Sometimes she asked questions that showed she had understood more than he had expected.

He had found, in the months since their wedding, that Hannah's intelligence was of a kind that didn't announce itself. She arrived at conclusions quietly and then acted on them with a decisiveness that still occasionally surprised him. She kept their accounts in her head with perfect accuracy, tracking every penny against every need, and when she identified a way to save she implemented it without fanfare. She was not a woman who needed to be told she was clever.

James, for his part, was discovering that marriage was a more complex education than he had anticipated — not unpleasant, but demanding. He had lived all his life in a household run by his mother, and he had certain assumptions about how things were done that turned out to be assumptions about how Ann Richman specifically did things. Hannah had her own ways, learned from Rebecca Rich, and the first months of their life together involved a great deal of quiet negotiation between two people who were each accustomed to considering themselves competent.

---

Winter, 1845 — Spring, 1846

The first winter was cold. Coal was expensive despite James's connections, and they kept the fire banked low during the hours when they were both out — James at his work along the canal, Hannah taking in weaving that she completed at home on a small hand loom she had brought from her parents' house. The money she earned was modest but real, and she was insistent that it be entered into their household accounts as her contribution rather than his.

"It's ours," James said once, meaning to be generous.

"It's mine, that I'm putting toward ours," Hannah said, with the particular patience she reserved for moments when she thought he was being well-intentioned but imprecise. "The distinction matters."

He thought about that for several days and concluded she was right.

They attended church on Sundays, sitting in the pew that the Richmans had occupied for as long as anyone could remember, Hannah now part of the family arrangement where before she had sat with the Riches on the other side of the aisle. They called on both sets of parents regularly. James's mother had taken a quiet liking to Hannah that expressed itself in practical gifts — a jar of preserved plums, a piece of good soap, a cutting from her herb garden — and Hannah received these with the warmth they deserved.

The village turned through its seasons around them. The canal brought its traffic of barges loaded with coal and cloth and raw wool. The fields were ploughed and planted and harvested. The church recorded its baptisms and marriages and burials in the careful hand of successive curates. Hilperton was a small world, but it was a complete one, and James and Hannah were woven into it as thoroughly as the wool that passed through Hannah's loom.

---

June, 1848

When their first child arrived, he came in the early hours of the morning on the tenth of June, 1848, in the upstairs chamber of the Marsh Lane cottage, attended by a midwife from the village and by Hannah's mother, who had come to stay for the final weeks of the pregnancy. James was not present at the birth itself — men of his time and class were not — but he was downstairs by the fire, unable to sleep, listening to the sounds from above with a focused anxiety that he had no framework for managing.

When Rebecca Rich came down the stairs and told him he had a son, he sat very still for a moment before he trusted himself to speak.

They named the boy Thomas, after James's brother who had died just one year earlier at the age of twenty-one. It was an act of remembrance and of hope — the name given to a loss now bestowed on a new beginning.

James held his son for the first time with the careful grip of a man who has spent his life handling heavy and breakable things and understands the importance of knowing which category he is dealing with. Thomas was small and red-faced and entirely astonishing. Hannah, exhausted and composed in equal measure, watched James hold their son and said nothing, which was how James had come to understand she expressed her deepest feelings.

---

The Growing Family

James Junior followed in November of the following year, and with two young sons filling the Marsh Lane cottage with noise and appetite, James and Hannah settled into the rhythms of a working family. James's wages as a coal merchant laborer were sufficient but not comfortable, and Hannah continued her weaving around the demands of two small children, sometimes working at the loom with the baby asleep in a basket at her feet and Thomas playing quietly on the floor beside her with a wooden bobbin she had given him for a toy.

The cottage that had seemed adequate for two people was becoming genuinely cramped. The boys shared the smaller upstairs chamber, and James and Hannah had taken to sitting downstairs by the fire long after the children were asleep, not always talking, but finding comfort in each other's company in the brief quiet of the evening. It was in these hours that James most clearly felt what their marriage had become — not the careful negotiation of its beginning, but something more settled and more trusting, built from the shared labor of years.

He had not forgotten his ambitions for self-improvement. He still read whenever he could find material, still attended the Sunday School discussions when his work permitted, still turned things over in his mind during the long physical hours of canal work. But he was increasingly aware that the improvement he had once imagined as a personal project was now inseparable from something larger — the question of what kind of life he could make for Hannah and for Thomas and for young James and for whatever children came after.

England offered a partial answer. America, he was beginning to think, might offer a better one.

But that thought was still only a seed in the autumn of 1848, small and barely formed, waiting for the particular pressures that would eventually cause it to take root and grow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The story of what happened next — the false accusation, the legal ordeal, and the momentous decision to cross the Atlantic — is told in the full biography of James Richman, from Wiltshire weaver's village to Connecticut farm, from Richman to Richmond, from the old world to the new.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is a work of historical fiction based on documented genealogical records. All dialogue and interior scenes are imagined, but the key facts of dates, names, occupations, and events are drawn from parish records, census data, and family history research.

================================

The AI Google NotebookLM Video Overview of this story is in:  

This is historical fiction based on known events in the lives of my wife's ancestors -- it might have been this way. The persons mentioned are my 2nd great-grandparents, and I have significant information about her life from the available records, but I know nothing about her day-to-day life.

As always, I am amazed at what life was like in any place over 170 years ago. This description of the family life in Wiltshire is interesting and so different from our current daily activities.

After I read these types of social history summaries, I wish that I could be a time traveler for one day to visit this Richman family in 1840s England and witness their daily lives.  I'm glad that the general lifestyles and occupations are known from historical records and witness accounts.

==============================================

Links to my blog posts about using Artificial Intelligence are on my Randy's AI and Genealogy page.  Links to AI information and articles about Artificial Intelligence in Genealogy by other genealogists are on my AI and Genealogy Compendium page.

Copyright (c) 2026, Randall J. Seaver

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Findmypast Friday: The 1926 Irish Census Has Arrived

 I received this information from Findmypast today:

============================

Fill in the gaps in your Irish research with this exciting new resource.

Now available to search on Findmypast, the Ireland Census of 1926 may transform your family history research. This valuable collection of 2.9 million records offers a complete snapshot of the Irish Free State a century ago.

While patchy record availability can make Irish genealogy trickier, this complete census will help you to understand 20th century Irish ancestors like never before.

Ireland Census 1926

As per Ireland's 100-year privacy rule, the 1926 Irish Census has just been made available to the public. We're delighted to announce that we've made transcriptions of the 2,972,363 census returns available to explore on Findmypast.

From language to workplaces, these records reveal key details about the lives of our Irish ancestors, helping us to piece together a vivid picture of their experiences.

New pages from Berwick to Birkenhead

371,400 pages joined our archive this week, with six brand new titles and 36 updated publications from across the British Isles.

New titles:

• Bennett’s Register of Penny Advertisements, 1892-1893
• Irish Templar, 1877-1896
• Knaresborough Times, 1864, 1879, 1889
• Leicester Pioneer, 1905-1921
• Phono Trader and Recorder, 1904-1913
• Wimbledon Herald, 1901-1905, 1907-1909, 1911-1921

Updated titles:

• Alloa Advertiser, 1912–1919
• Bath Herald, 1870, 1879
• Berwick Warder, 1838–1839
• Birkenhead News, 2000–2005
• Burton Daily Mail, 2002–2003
• Caithness Courier, 1986, 1991, 1993
• Carlisle Journal, 1806
• Colchester Mercury and North Essex Express, 1869–1870, 1874–1875, 1877–1878, 1881–1882, 1884–1885, 1887–1888, 1891–1892, 1895
• Dartmouth & South Hams Chronicle, 1884, 1892–1894
• Derby Daily Telegraph, 1983
• East Somerset Telegraph, 1886
• Glasgow Evening Post, 1882
• Glasgow Times, 1868
• Greenock Elector, 1884
• Hawick Telegraph and Border Times, 1884–1890
• Homeward Mail from India, China and the East, 1914
• Huddersfield Daily Examiner, 2001–2003
• Kilkenny Journal and Leinster Commercial and Literary
• Advertiser, 1873–1882, 1888–1893, 1895–1900
• Kinematograph Weekly, 1966
• Lancashire Evening Post, 1994, 1996–2001, 2003–2004
• Lincolnshire Free Press, 1855, 1857, 1894, 1908–1910, 1912–1914, 1919–1920, 1930–1933
• Lloyd’s List, 1911
• Matrimonial Post and Fashionable Marriage Advertiser, 1912
• Newry Telegraph, 1928, 1934, 1966
• North Cheshire Herald, 1883–1888
• North West Evening Mail, 1913–1914, 1916–1918
• North Wilts Guardian, 1897–1900, 1903–1910, 1912
• Pall Mall Gazette, 1903–1904, 1909, 1911
• Pateley Bridge & Nidderdale Herald, 1878, 1911, 1930–1937, 1939, 1986, 2005
• Reformer (Edinburgh), 1868–1869
• Royal Devonport Telegraph and Plymouth Chronicle, 1856, 1860–1861
• Salford Chronicle, 1880, 1887
• Scottish Banner, 1862
• Shoreditch Observer, 1868–1869
• Silurian, 1849
• Staffordshire Newsletter, 1990

A Family History of... The General Strike

In the wake of defeat, Will Lawther does what he’s always done: he keeps going. Join Jen and historian Jonathan Kindleysides from the Beamish Museum to unpack the aftermath of the General Strike, as hardship continued and the struggle evolved into new frontiers.  

Watch this video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fkuGeOeXy8.

Everyday Histories, brought to you by Findmypast

We're honoured to be sponsoring Heritage Open Days' 2026 theme, Everyday Histories. We’re helping event organisers all over England delve into the day-to-day lives of local people from the past, bringing their stories to life at events during the festival in September..

Explore Everyday Histories

More on this topic:                   census records  

=========================================

See all of my posts about Findmypast at   https://www.geneamusings.com/search/label/FindMyPast

Disclosure: I have a complimentary subscription to Findmypast, and have accepted meals and services from Findmypast, as a Findmypast Ambassador. This has not affected my objectivity relative to Findmypast and its products.

The URL for this post is:  https://www.geneamusings.com/2026/05/findmypast-friday-1926-irish-census-has.html

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Share it on X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads or Pinterest using the icons below. Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com. Note that all comments are moderated, and may not appear immediately.

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Added and Updated MyHeritage Record Collections - Week of 15 to 21 May 2026

  The following Record Collections were ADDED or Updated in the MyHeritage Collections Catalog during the week of  15 to 21 May 2026:

• Illinois, Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916-1948 (Death, Burial, Cemetery & Obituaries), ADDED May 18 2026, 8,974,865 records

The number of collections at the top of the list shows 1,686 collections (an increase of 2?) with 40,036,031,638 records (an increase of over 330 million records). Last week, the "Last Updated" list showed 7,550 collections.  What happened to over 5,800 collections that are not on any collection list? 

Something is very wrong with the collection lists!!!  

The family tree collections are not on the "Last Updated" list at all.  I collected the latest numbers for the Family Trees from the "Number of Records" list which does have the Tree collections.

• MyHeritage Family Sites (Family Trees), Updated May 20 2026, 99,795,128 entries
• MyHeritage members (Family Trees), Updated May 20 2026, 77,442,160 entries
• MyHeritage photos & docs (Images), Updated May 20 2026, 479,402,924 entries
• Search Connect™ - Searches by MyHeritage Members (Family Trees), Updated May 20 2026, 579,308,442 entries
• FamilySearch Family Tree (Family Trees), Updated May 20 2026, 1,228,286,389    entries
• Filae Family Trees (Family Trees), Updated May 20 2026, 320,888,093 entries
• MyHeritage Family Trees (Family Trees), Updated May 20 2026, 6,909,470,215 entries 
• Geni World Family Tree (Family Trees), Updated May 20 2026, 373,837,563 entries.

                                       =========================== 

The number of entries in the family tree collections were last updated this week. 

See previous Genea-Musings posts about MyHeritage record collections and features in https://www.geneamusings.com/search/label/MyHeritage.com.

                          =========================================

Disclosure: I receive a complimentary PremiumPlus subscription to MyHeritage, and have received other material consideration in past years. I uploaded my autosomal DNA raw data to their DNA product. This does not affect my objective analysis of MyHeritage products. I am a paid subscriber to Family Tree Webinars and love it.

The URL for this post is:  https://www.geneamusings.com/2026/05/added-and-updated-myheritage-record_01002421818.html

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Share it on X, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below. Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.  Note that all comments are moderated, so they may not appear immediately.

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Ask AI: "Describe the Courtship of Alexander and Rachel (Morley) Whittle in Lancashire in the Late 1830s" (Parts 3 to 5)

I wondered if my AI Assistant Anthropic Claude could provide me with information about the courtship of my wife's 2nd great-grandparents, Alexander and Rachel (Morley) Whittle in Lancashire in the late 1830s. The biography of Alexander and Rachel (Morley) Whittle is in ABC Biography of Alexander and Rachel (Morley) Whittle of Lancashire, New South Wales and California (1818-1861).

(AI NotebookLM Infographic -- Alexander and Rachel (Morley) Whittle Courtship and Marriage in  Lancashire)

I asked Claude to create a description of Alexander and Rachel (Morley) Whittle's courtship and early marriage years in the 1830s, based on the biography and social history. The first part of this story is in Ask AI: "Describe the Courtship of Alexander and Rachel (Morley) Whittle in Lancashire in the Late 1830s" (Parts 1 and 2).

The second part of the Claude Sonnet 4.6 response was:

The Sawyer and the Millgirl

A Story of Bolton-le-Moors, 1838–1840

(continued)

Part Three: A Child Coming — Winter, 1839

The winter was a hard one. The cold came early and stayed, and the river ran slow and grey between its banks. Work at the timber yard slowed in the worst weeks, when the ground froze and the carters couldn’t get the loads through, and Alexander spent three Saturdays in a row mending things in the yard rather than sawing, which paid less. He minded this, not for himself, but because he had begun, very quietly, to put money aside. He was not sure yet what he was putting it aside for. He had a general sense of the future that was more feeling than plan.

Rachel told him in January, standing in the street outside the mill agent’s office with the rain coming sideways off the moor. She said it plainly, in the way she said everything: a statement of fact, with her eyes steady on his face, watching for what he would do.

He felt something settle in him — not panic, as he might have expected, but a kind of gravity. A realignment of things.

“Right,” he said.

She waited.

“I’ll speak to the vicar,” he said. “About the banns.”

Something in her face shifted — not relief exactly, but the relaxation of a tension she’d been holding. “We can’t afford the licence,” she said, already practical. “Banns take three weeks.”

“Three weeks, then.”

She nodded. Then she said, quietly: “I didn’t know what you’d do.”

“Now you know.”

She looked at him for a moment longer, the rain on her face. “Yes,” she said. “Now I know.”

The banns could not proceed as quickly as they’d hoped. There were practical difficulties — his parish, her parish, the mechanics of the established church — and then there were financial difficulties too, because the mill agent raised his rates in March and Rachel’s income from piecework fell, and Alexander was trying to save and it was slow going on a journeyman’s wage. They moved the date, and then moved it again.

By the time Elizabeth Morley Whittle arrived on the first of June, 1839, her parents were not yet married.

She was a small, fierce, wrinkled creature who announced herself to the world at four in the morning with a cry that woke the neighbours on both sides. Leah was the one who delivered her, or close enough to it — she had fetched the midwife and then refused to leave, and afterwards she sat with the baby on her lap and wept, which was the first time Alexander had ever seen Leah Morley cry.

“She looks like you,” Leah told Rachel.

“God help her,” Rachel said, from the bed.

Alexander stood by the window with the June dawn coming up grey and slow over the rooftops, and looked at his daughter, and felt the world rearrange itself around this new fact.

They had the baby baptised at St. Peter’s on the fourteenth of July. In the register, she was entered as Elizabeth Morley — her last name as her mother’s name, a quiet acknowledgment of how she had come into the world. The vicar was a gentle man who asked no pointed questions. Alexander signed his name in the register; Rachel made her mark.

Walking out of the church into the summer morning, baby Elizabeth wrapped in a borrowed shawl, Leah on one side and Alexander on the other, Rachel felt something she could not quite name. Not happiness, exactly, or not only that. More like the satisfaction of something having been faced and not fled from.

“What happens now?” Leah asked.

“We get married,” Rachel said. “Eventually.”

“Eventually,” Alexander agreed.

Leah sighed theatrically. “You two,” she said.

Part Four: The Wedding — February, 1840

They were married on the twenty-seventh of February, 1840, at Bolton-le-Moors Parish Church, on a morning when the sky was the colour of old pewter and the cobblestones were slick with frost. Rachel wore her good dress, which was dark blue and had been let out at the seams to accommodate the months since she’d last worn it. Alexander had borrowed a coat from a man at the yard who was broader in the shoulder but near enough in the body, and he stood at the altar feeling the sleeves were an inch too short and not minding at all.

The Curate, P.R. Robin, read the banns and the rite in a rapid, practised manner that suggested he had done this a great many times and had no particular objection to doing it again. The witnesses were James Ganoe and James Systrot, men from the yard who had been talked into it with the promise of a drink afterwards. Leah sat in the front pew with Elizabeth on her knee, the baby solemn and wide-eyed, as if she understood that something significant was occurring.

When the moment came to sign the register, Alexander wrote his name — the firm, clear signature of a man who had taught himself to write from a borrowed primer and was quietly proud of it. Rachel took the pen and paused. She had never learned her letters properly; there had been no one to teach her, or no time, which amounted to the same thing. She made her mark, an X, in the space provided.

She set down the pen and looked at the page.

“I’ll teach you,” Alexander said quietly, beside her. “If you want.”

She looked at him sidelong. “Teach me what?”

“To write your name. It’s not hard.”

She looked back at the register, at the X beside his neat signature. “All right,” she said. “When there’s time.”

There was never quite as much time as they hoped. But he did teach her, eventually, in the evenings, on scraps of paper, her hand moving slowly and his hand over hers showing her the letters. R-A-C-H-E-L. It took several months. She was a quick learner when she put her mind to it, which she always did.

The drink afterwards was at an inn on Churchgate, a small gathering — the two Jameses, Leah, two women from Lum Street who had been neighbours, and Alexander’s mate from the yard who had lent him the coat. Elizabeth was passed around from arm to arm and accepted this with the equanimity of a baby who had already become accustomed to a great deal of noise and handling.

At some point in the evening, when the fire had burned low and most of the others were deep in their own conversations, Alexander and Rachel sat together in the corner, and she leaned her head briefly against his shoulder, which was not a thing she did often in public.

“Well,” she said.

“Well,” he agreed.

They were quiet for a moment. The inn noise went on around them.

“I thought about what you said,” Rachel said. “About going somewhere. Your brother Stephen and his ideas.”

Alexander lifted his head. “Did you.”

“I was reading the notice in the reading room window. The government scheme. For families going to New South Wales.”

He was quiet.

“They want sawyers,” she said. “It said so. Skilled trades. They’ll pay the passage.”

He looked at her. She was watching the fire, her expression thoughtful and remote, the face she wore when she was working something out.

“Rachel,” he said. “We’ve been married about five hours.”

“I know,” she said. “But I’ve been thinking about it for three weeks.”

He considered this for a moment. Across the room, Leah was laughing at something one of the Jameses had said, her laughter filling the room.

“Australia,” he said.

“New South Wales.”

“That’s the other side of the world.”

“I know where it is.”

He looked at the fire. He thought about the yard, the long saw, the smell of pine in cold air. He thought about King Street, about Chorley and his mother’s voice and the small life he had made here, which was fine, but which was also narrow. He thought about the moor above the town and Rachel saying: if I ever went anywhere, I’d go because I chose to.

“We’d need to be approved,” he said. “For the scheme. They interview you.”

“I know.”

“And Elizabeth’s small yet for a long voyage.”

“Babies cross oceans all the time,” Rachel said. “They managed the first one. They’ll manage another.”

He turned to look at her properly. She met his eyes. There it was — that look, the one that meant she had already decided, and was waiting to see whether he’d catch up.

“When were you thinking?” he asked.

“They’re taking applications through the summer,” she said. “For ships sailing in the autumn.”

Part Five: The Application — Summer, 1840

The bounty scheme required a great deal of paperwork and patience, both of which Alexander possessed in moderate quantities and Rachel in larger ones. They made their application at the emigration office in Manchester on a bright morning in May, taking the cart from Bolton and arriving with Elizabeth in a basket, their documents in a cloth bag, and a shared sense of having stepped off a familiar path into something unmapped.

The officer at the desk was a brisk, thin man in spectacles who asked his questions in the manner of someone who had asked them ten thousand times before and expected no surprises. Age. Trade. Married. Children. Church. Health. He misspelled their name — Whittell, he wrote, which neither of them noticed until later — and entered Rachel’s mother’s name as Jessie Haslam, mishearing Jane. He called the document complete and told them they would hear within the month.

They heard within three weeks. They had been accepted.

The summer that followed was strange and dislocating in the way of any summer that is also a leave-taking. Alexander worked his notice at the yard. The owner, Mr. Hartley, shook his hand and said he was a fool to go and then said he hoped it went well for him, and meant both things equally.

On a June Sunday, Alexander, Rachel and Elizabeth traveled to Chorley by cart to tell his parents and siblings. His mother was happy to meet her granddaughter, his father was pleased that their son had found stability, and her brother Stephen was ecstatic and said he would apply also and travel to New South Wales.

Rachel set about the methodical dismantling of their life on Lum Street. There was not a great deal to dismantle. The piecework she handed on to another woman. The few pieces of furniture went to neighbours. The dried rosemary from the window she kept, wrapping it in a handkerchief.

Leah was the hardest part.

They had been together their whole lives — born together, baptised together, orphaned together, kept each other going through one winter after another. The prospect of the Atlantic and then the Southern Ocean between them was something Rachel turned over in her mind at night, when Elizabeth was sleeping and Alexander’s breathing had steadied beside her.

“I’ll come after,” Leah said, when they talked about it. “Save up and come after. Or you’ll come back.”

“Yes,” Rachel said.

They both knew it might not be so. That was the nature of going to the other side of the world in 1840: you went, and the people you left were left, and the ocean was very large.

Leah spent a great deal of the last weeks holding Elizabeth, who by August was two months past a year old and had strong opinions about most things. She would sit with the baby on the step of the Lum Street room in the evening, the summer light going slowly, and sing her songs their mother had sung to them — old Lancashire songs, the words half-remembered.

Rachel watched this from the doorway and said nothing.

They left for Liverpool in late August to join the Brothers. Their belongings fit into two trunks and a basket, which struck Alexander as a remarkably small summation of a life, though he supposed that was the point — you couldn’t take the life, only the things, and the things were just things.

The morning they left, Alexander walked down to the timber yard one last time. It was early, before the men arrived, and the yard was quiet in the dawn light — the stacked planks, the sawpits, the long sheds smelling of resin and fresh-cut wood. He stood there for a few minutes and looked at it all, and then he walked back to Rachel and the child and the cart that was waiting.

The road to Liverpool was long and the cart uncomfortable and Elizabeth complained for the first hour and then fell asleep. By afternoon the town was behind them and the landscape was opening out — fields, hedgerows, the long flat runs of the Lancashire plain under a pale sky.

Rachel sat beside him with Elizabeth across her lap. After a while she took his hand and held it, which was not something she did often in daylight, in public, on a road.

“Are you afraid?” Alexander asked.

She considered this in her usual way, without rushing. “A little,” she said. “Are you?”

“A little,” he said.

She nodded, as if this were the right and reasonable answer. The cart went on. The sky was very large above the flat country.

“I chose it,” she said, after a while. “That’s something.”

He looked at her profile, the familiar set of her jaw, the dark eyes fixed on the road ahead. He thought of the corner by the draper’s stall where he’d caught her bundle two years ago, and the pie woman’s verdict — hard girls, not ones to take charity — and the fire on Lum Street, and the X she’d made in the marriage register, and the rosemary wrapped in a handkerchief somewhere in one of the trunks.

“That’s everything,” he said.

She did not answer, but her hand tightened briefly on his, and then they rode on toward Liverpool in the long afternoon light, the road unrolling ahead of them toward the sea.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alexander Whittle and Rachel Morley departed Liverpool on the sailing ship Brothers, 14 September 1840, and arrived at Port Jackson, New South Wales, on 11 March 1841.

But that’s another story!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Note to the Reader

This is a work of historical fiction, imagined from the documented facts of Alexander Whittle and Rachel Morley’s lives. The places, trades, and broad circumstances are drawn from history. The conversations, feelings, and scenes are invented — a story offered in the spirit of understanding two real lives that the records can only partially illuminate.

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The AI Google NotebookLM Video Overview of this story is in:  

This is historical fiction based on known events in the lives of my wife's ancestors -- it might have been this way. The persons mentioned are my wife's 2nd great-grandparents, and I have significant information about her life from the available records, but I know nothing about her day-to-day life.

As always, I am amazed at what life was like in any place over 180 years ago. This description of the family life in Lancashire is interesting and so different from our current daily activities.

After I read these types of social history summaries, I wish that I could be a time traveler for one day to visit this Whittle family in 1840 England and witness their daily lives.  I'm glad that the general lifestyles and occupations are known from historical records and witness accounts.

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Links to my blog posts about using Artificial Intelligence are on my Randy's AI and Genealogy page.  Links to AI information and articles about Artificial Intelligence in Genealogy by other genealogists are on my AI and Genealogy Compendium page.

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