Other Records for Jane, Leah and Rachel Morley in Lancashire

It has been good genealogy fun to find more and more records for Rachel (Morley) Whittle in Lancashire in England and Australia, and for her mother, Jane (Haslam) (Bury) Morley in Lancashire.

I've had a lot of help from other genealogists, and I really appreciate the research and suggestions that they have provided. The help just keeps on coming too - and I need all of the help I can get, since I'm pretty much a neophyte when it comes to English and Australian research.

After my post More on Rachel Morley's Parentage yesterday, Lorine McGinnis Schulze (who has the excellent Olive Tree Genealogy website and Olive Tree Genealogy Blog) commented several times on the post, including:

* if Rachel and her sister were bpt the same day, they may have been twins. Why not look for her sister's marriage to see if she named her father?

Excellent suggestion. I didn't find a marriage for Leah Morley in the FamilySearch Beta English Marriages, 1538-1973 (there is one in 1846 in Derbyshire) or in the FreeBMD Marriage Index (three before 1850, none in Lancashire).

* Randy, you might want to check Bastardy Orders and Examinations. Since Rachel was illegitimate there's a very good chance the Parish took her mother and father to task and ordered money given to the parish on a regular basis to support the child. The father would be named in the examination of the mother and in the orders. See Bastardy Orders for more help.

I will follow up on this after I read Lorine's article about it!

* Oh oh oh!! Look what I found! I was just going to write and suggest you check Removal Orders...

Little Bolton to Blackburn. Order of removal of Jane Morley, widow, and Leah and Rachael her children QSP/2941/37 1830 29 Nov

The docs are at the Lancashire Record Office so you can order them online http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archon/searches/locresult_details.asp?LR=55

Aha - there is a good lead into the Lancashire Record Office holdings. I followed that, and after a bit of thrashing through links and dead ends, I found that record by going into the Lancashire Online Catalog (LANCAT) and searching for "Jane Morley."

* On Facebook, Lorine commented: "Here's what a Removal Order looks like... mine contained lots of great info! http://www.olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/04/finding-removal-order-for-english.html"

I hope that Jane's removal order has all of that good information!

* On Facebook, Lorine commented: "Also see this record: Little Bolton to Blackburn. Order of removal of Leah Morley QSP/2945/60 1831 14 Mar These documents are held at Lancashire Record Office" and "and Little Bolton to Blackburn. Order of removal of Rachael Morley QSP/2945/59 1831 14 Mar (held at LRO)"

I also found these items, and tried to find a way to order them online through the Lancashire Record Office website. I downloaded and printed the Copyright Declaration that has to be signed and sent with the letter or email requesting the specific records. I sent a message to their Help Centre asking what the costs and ordering procedure was, and if I could obtain digital images through email or downloading from their site rather than use the postal services.

I searched for information on the Lancashire Online Catalog for "alexander whittle," "thomas morley," "rachel morley," "rachael morley" and "leah morley" and found only the items listed above by Lorine.

* So exciting. I am so curious why Jane and her girls removed one year then only girls next year. Wonder if Jane died? Please keep us informed!

I'm trying! I found a burial record for a Jane Morley on 2 July 1834 buried at Bolton-le-Moors in Lancashire, age 53 (so born about 1781) which may be "our Jane."

Once again, I get by with a little help from my friends! Thank you, Lorine, for doing some fun genealogy work and leading me to the Lancashire Record Office site.

We'll look at some more California records about Alexander and Rachel (Morley) Whittle in the next few days.

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Here are the previous posts in this series - isn't it amazing how much I've found (with help!) over the past two weeks:

* I Found Rachel in the 1852 California Census where I found Rachel "Wadle" and three children in San Francisco in the 1852 California State Census on Ancestry.com

* Jane's Birth Record, and more... - I found out that Jane's parents were Alexander and Rachel Whittle, not Joseph and Rachel.

* Finding the Whittles in Australia highlighted some of the newspaper articles about the family in The Sydney Morning Herald in the 1840 to 1850 time frame from the Historic Australian Newspapers , 1803-1954, Trove website.

* The Whittles Migrating to Australia - a Forrest Gump Genealogy Moment in which the immigration record was found and analyzed.

* Lesson Learned - Check the Image too! in which I learned that not all information on the immigration record was in the FamilySearch index entry.

* Whittle Marriage Record in England - I found the marriage of Alexander Whittle and Rachel Morley in Lancashire in two places online - the English Civil Registrations and the LDS IGI (and on the http://beta.familysearch.org/ site).

* Whittle Birth Records in Australia - birth records for the Whittle children were online in the FamilySearch Beta Australian Birth and Baptism collection

* Whittle Birth and Marriage Records in England - Alexander's birth record and his parent's marriage record were found in the English Birth and Christening Collection

* Rachel Morley's Birth and Parents which finds Rachel Morley's baptism record and her parents marriage.

* More on Rachel Morley's Parentage in which I find a record that indicates Rachel was illegitimate.