The descendants of Benjamin Halstead (1832-1878) and Frances Holt (1833-1864)

Whilst investigating the tree of Robert Halstead (1783-1853) (see blog The descendants of Robert Halstead (1783-1853) and Margaret ? (1792-1835)) I found another instance to two separate Halstead tree having a link only by marriage similar to that posted in that blog.

In this instance I noticed that Roberts' great-grandson Rowden Halstead (1888-1918) had married Sarah Jane Ashworth (1886-) in 1915. Following the death of Rowden in Egypt in 1918 Sarah Jane went on to marry Thomas Tattersall in 1923. As far as I can tell Rowden and Sarah had no children.

It transpires that Sarah's parents were Henry Ashworth and Sarah Ann Halstead. Sarah Ann Halstead being the daughter of Benjamin Halstead (1832-1878) and Frances Holt (1833-1864). Benjamin and Frances married in 1854 and had fivechildren

1. Thomas Halstead (1852-?) - no sign of Thomas after the 1871 census
2. Susan Halstead (1854-1854)
3. Margaret Halstead (1857-?)
4. Sarah Jane Halstead (1859-?) married Henry Ashworth
5. Holt Halstead (1862-1878)

A new Lancashire Chart-12 has been created from Benjamin and will appear in the next website update

John Hanson

Marriages of Robert Halstead b. 1839 Briercliffe d.1912 Briercliffe

Just before Easter I took the opportunity of ordering a large number of birth and marriage certificates to help try and resolve some of the anomalies in the Halstead study. The first of these certificates finally arrived yesterday after 3 weeks.

I have all of the birth, marriage and deaths from the GRO indexes as well as all the details from the Lancashire BMD project but even with these it is often difficult to work out who married who. This becomes especially difficult with some of the common pairings like Robert and Mary.

This update relates to the marriages of Robert Halstead, the son of Robert Halstead (1798-1846) and Tabitha Taylor (1799-1871).

Robert married Ellen Proctor on 30 October 1858 in St James, Briercliffe, Lancashire and they had two children

1. John Robert Halstead (1870-1932)
2. Tabitha Halstead (1871-)

Ellen died on 17 Aug 1874 at the age of 38.

The census records then had Robert married to a second Ellen, Ellen Clough (1848-1905) this time, on 16 April 1878 at Haggate Chapel. They had four children according to the census returns

1. James Halstead (1879-)
2. Mary Jane Halstead (1879-1915)
3. Lawrence Halstead (1882-)
4. Edwin Halstead (1883-)

There was a marriage in 1874 in the indexes that I couldn't place and this is the certificate that arrived.

This showed that in fact Robert had married for a third time! He married Mary Whitehead, a 32 year old spinster, on 8 October 1874 at the Registry Office in Burnley. He was a 36 year old widower.

Mary died in the third quarter of 1877 at the age of 35 apparently without issue. It is always possible that she died in childbirth.

This information will appear in the next website update