Helpful Historical Background by Suzanne Haigh

posssibles in my family. but are still to confirm. I can search for a possible Smith between 49 – 58, see what I come up with.

Many of your family names are the same as mine, the names of George and John have travelled down my family, Haigh. Unfortunately, you may think Smith is a very common name but you should try following John and George Haigh in Huddersfield (where I live) and they had habits of marrying Mary or Hannah. George and Hannah have now died out in my tree, but John and Maria have continued. My father was John William, but always known as Jack, you have this in
your tree don’t you? others are Thomas, Elizabeth, Ellen. Birth dates are variable. Many parish churches only listed the christening/baptism date, and for some reason can be listed several times under different dates for the same child! I have found marriages pre 1837 also do this. I have not worked out why this happens, I know some families bapt/chris. many of their children at the same time so their ages can be hard to pin down and also had them baptised at different churches and different members of the family recorded the births, so they appear more than once. The census details are reasonably good, although men do tend to loose a year or so!

The hardship of families: – I thought my ancestors would be very poor but now I am not sure, cases of extreme poverty were not the standard in rural woollen/cotton areas and the slums were centered around towns/cities. Things would have been hard compared to today’s standards but living in rural areas families and neighbours shared when things were hard and there was no reliable means of storing meats. There was always an empty house for rent, so presume they
could pick and choose, (listings of uninhabited houses on census’ details ) and did not have to settle for slums. When the new machines came into use, undercutting the home weavers, families had to move to seek work, but average wage around 1880 was 17/6 per week for male weavers, which I understand was a livable wage. My Haigh Gtx2Grandfather had13 children who reached adulthood on this, he lived to around 78, being first a wollen weaver and later a
fancy weaver. They often worked till they dropped in some trades. or ended up in the poor house. I realise things were hard towards the end of the 19th century, perhaps Skipton did not have many mills, I am not sure of the industrial history of this area, but reaching 70 in Yorkshire was common. The average age of death at the time was 45, but this included cities and the gentry who had strange ways of feeding babies. There arer also the poor laws, all households
were taxed, the money collected by the church and given to familes suffering hardship, this is an area I have not explored.

I am not exactly sure what you wish me to look for, I presume it will be some more checking on the Morrell/Bannister’s and a possible missing child. Anyway, let me have your comments.

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Yes Kildwick is in Halifax, West Yorkshire, not a long way from me (I had never heard of it till your email). I have looked in the GRO register but only found Titus and Sarah’s wedding in 1768, could this be correct? Anyway, I intend to venture over soon as my relatives lived around the borders of Halifax and Huddersfield, so are found in both areas. If you would like wait till then I can look in the church records. Stephen Smith appears to be a popular name around 1800
in Kildwick, so if you could send as many details as possible I will see what I can do.
regards
Suzanne