Author's note
I found quite early in my search that my 3great grandad Thomas Sellers married "Ellen Willowsy" at Goosnargh Parish Church in 1812. At that stage I was sufficiently inexperienced not to be fully aware of the ingenuity of parish clerks in spelling names. I did, however, work out that "Willowsy" was an attempt to spell the name now, in our age of more universal literacy, spelled as "Willacy" and which is quite a common surname in the Ribble Valley. Searching the Longridge and Goosnargh failed to reveal Ellen's parentage until a long time later a distant relative suggested that I look in the registers of Ribchester where many early Longridge baptisms, marriages and burials are recorded. Sure enough in 1783 I found Ellen's baptism as the daughter of weaver Thomas Willacy and his wife Elizabeth. Ellen had four siblings and was the eldest in the family. Ellen's mother Elizabeth had the maiden name of Jackson. Thomas died in 1828 aged 67.
Thomas's parents were John Willacy, a cotton weaver born about 1723 in Ribchester and his wife Ellen, nee Ireland, born about 1724, the daughter of Thomas Ireland. John was himself the son of Robert Willacy and his first wife Ann Newsham whom he married in 1722 at St. Wifred, Ribchester.