My 6th great-grandmother, brought her daughter Margaret to Douglas Chapel in Parbold, England to be baptized. It wasn’t illegal to have an illegitimate child, but it was illegal to withhold the father’s name. She did.
James Wiggans, my great-grandfather, was born August 1st, 1881 to Sarah McIntyre. As far back as I can trace, her father’s people were West Highlanders from in and around the Firth of Lorn.
This tracks the English Catholic line of the Smiths in Lancashire back to 1823. It’s hard to go back any further in a country where being a Catholic could get you executed – record keeping was dangerous.
Elizabeth Rooney, my great-grandmother, was born in Chorley, Lancashire on the 7th of October, 1883 to John Rooney – an Irish immigrant to England who worked all his life as a farm labourer.