© 2016 David E. Spencer
The discovery that my ancestors included the Bailey family from the Ribbleside village of West Bradford was almost a chance discovery and I'm sure that it provides some valuable lessons for budding family historians.
A few months into starting my family history research I obtained the marriage bonds for the marriage of James Calverley to Ann Nutter. Nutter ancestry in Pendle! - I wanted to know more about this girl and her family.The marriage bonds name Ann's father as Richard Nutter of Sabden Hall and that her mother was called Elizabeth. I discovered very quickly like many others before and since that tracing Nutter ancestry in Pendle can be extremely complex and difficult.
Examination of the baptismal records in the Parish Register and Bishop's Transcripts revealed that Ann was the sole surviving child of her parents. It also allowed me to start looking for a marriage of Richard Nutter to an Elizabeth in the middle 1770's.
I tried Newchurch-in-Pendle, Richard's local church but with no success. I then moved on to neighbouring chapelries in an "ever-widening spiral"- Burnley, Colne and Padiham. In Padiham I appeared to be successful - the marriage of Richard Nutter to Elizabeth Stockport in 1777!. For many years I believed that I had simply reached the end of this particular trail. This was an important lesson for me then as a budding family historian - sometimes the first answer which appears to fit your search criteria may not necessarily be the right answer.
Some time later I received from long term local and family historian Reg Postlethwaite a copy of a document that he had found during his researches and was kind enough to pass the contents to me. This was a copy of the will of John Bailey, a wealthy Clitheroe man who stated that his sister Elizabeth had married Richard Nutter in 1778 but at Waddington, just across the River Ribble at Clitheroe - and just in Yorkshire.
Like many others before me I had regarded the Lancashire / Yorkshire boundary as a barrier to the movement of people. In my case this was particularly unwise since I had crossed the Ribble from my native Burnley to get married in Grindleton! - this is the next village to West Bradford.
The will further revealed that Elizabeth had died so John Bailey left her share of his considerable assets to Elizabeth's daughter, Ann, now the wife of James Calverley. Her inheritance of 800 pounds was a considerable sum of money early in the nineteenth century but Ann and James seem to have disposed of it during their lifetime!.
It occurred to me that a wealthy family like the Baileys should be well documented and in many ways this has proved to be true. A great deal of information came from papers relating to a lawsuit between family members that had necessitated the solicitor acting for one family member to abstract from the Slaidburn Manorial records all entries relating to this particular Bailey family and how and when their various properties were acquired, passed on within the family and, in some cases, sold. This document also came to me from Reg Postlethwaite (see above).
Click on the link to go to the main Bailey family history page.