Owd Timothy o' th' Looms- Holden Family

[Louise Mumford]

Thanks anyway, OC
I'm not giving up, though - next time I'm up in Lancs visiting the family, I'll be in the Record Office, hunting them down!

[Hannah Jayne Moore]

Hello Louise

I'm sorry but i cannot help with this family as I don't recognise any of them. The only hint or clue I can give you is - the name Christopher (Kester) comes from the Marsden family and so does Susannah. I don't have any Greenhalghs in my tree either, so I think this is a "lost" branch of the Holden family.

Sorry I cannot be more helpful.

OC

Hi Olde Crone,

I know this is a very old thread but was wondering if you have your family tree research published online somewhere I can view? I keep coming across your name and information (which has been incredibly helpful) and all our ancestors seem to be the same. Just would like to know if i'm on the right track. My ancestor is John Holden b.1737 who was Owd Timmy's son.

Many Thanks,
Hannah

[Olde Crone Holden]

Hello Hannah and welcome to FTF.

If you've got back as far as John 1737, son of Timothy, then there's not much more I can tell you! I have not found Timothy's parents, other than his father was called James. I have no idea what his mother was called - definitely NOT Elizabeth Halliwell though (as many trees have it). There is not a shred of evidence she was his mother and plenty to say she wasn't.

Can you give me your brief line of descent from John please - obviously don't mention any living people.

OC

[Darksecretz]

Sounds like you are on a roll OC :smilee: what with this owd thread being brought up from the depths and the Kedleston family.. happy days!

[Olde Crone Holden]

LOL Julie, meant to tell you the Kedleston information nicely tied up a loose end I hadn't pursued - thankyou for that!

OC

[Darksecretz]

LOL Julie, meant to tell you the Kedleston information nicely tied up a loose end I hadn't pursued - thankyou for that!

OC

Happy to help OC. :smilee:

[Hannah Jayne Moore]

Hello Hannah and welcome to FTF.

If you've got back as far as John 1737, son of Timothy, then there's not much more I can tell you! I have not found Timothy's parents, other than his father was called James. I have no idea what his mother was called - definitely NOT Elizabeth Halliwell though (as many trees have it). There is not a shred of evidence she was his mother and plenty to say she wasn't.

Can you give me your brief line of descent from John please - obviously don't mention any living people.

OC

Hi OC,

Thanks for the reply, I wasnt sure if you are still active on here.

My direct line is as per below - I'm mainly interested in any stories or where I might be able to find anything else about any of the ancestors (and if the below is even correct). I am based in Australia so I cant physically go anywhere if required, I'm only using whats available on the internet and and old family tree handwritten by a distant relative in the 1980's.

So far I think I have :

Tim 'of the looms' Holden married Phoebe Entwistle
One of their sons John b. 1737 married Mary Ellison b. 1753
One of their sons Timothy b. 1770 second marriage to Mary Duerden b. 1770
One of their sons James b. 1805 married Ellen Wood b. 1806
One of their sons Nicholas b.1844 married Margaret Dugdale b. 1851
One of their sons James b.1869 married Hannah Jane Hargreaves b. 1869
James and Hannah then were the first generation to only have daughters, so that's the end of the Holden name for our direct family line. One of their daughters, Sarah Jane Holden b. 1893 married Arnold Yates Hunt and they are my great grandparents.

If this could be verified that would be great, you seem to be the expert on the Holdens so anything else you might be able to share would be most appreciated.

Thanks,
Hannah

[Olde Crone Holden]

Hannah

Send me a private message on here with your email address and I will send you an invitation to my tree on Tribal Pages.

OC

[Sue1]

OC - I hate to ruin your day BUT I also have a few Holdens on my Tree - one lot - and there are not many, are actually living in Accrington. Basically, my father's wife divorced him in absentia and she re-married a Benjamin Holden Brewer - he was the son of a Holden and a Brewer. The generation before that were also Holdens. They had a few children but I have never pursued this line very much!

[Olde Crone Holden]

LOL Sue, I'd be glad to be related to you!

I've earmarked this for future research, I'm rather busy moving house atm.

OC

[Sue1]

Crikey OC - have just realised what you said - I thought you were moving the atm machine from the house - clearly I was having a bad day!
How are you managing - err ..............you don't by any chance need motorbike with side car, ambulance and tank do you - the Team could be placed on standby!
Sue

[Olde Crone Holden]

Sue

You cannot know how much I need a SWAT team for my house move! I've been here 15 years and appear to have accumulated about 100 years-worth of rubbish. I certainly don't have room for an atm machine!

OC

[Jacqui_Gee]

I don't know why it's taken me so long to find this site, but I thought I would share my lineage from Timothy Holden, he's my 7th Great Grandfather from my fathers Maternal line, my mothers paternal line is Bury, they also lived in Little Scotland in Darwen in the 1700's, I thought it would be easier to share via image.. it's still very much incomplete.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Hello Jacqui, welcome to FTF.

A couple of comments on your tree.

Thomas Holden is (so far) an unproven son of Owd Timothy and I feel that he is more likely to be a son of Titus Holden as he names his first son Titus. If you have proof that he is indeed a son of Owd T, I will.be absolutely delighted!

Jane daughter of Thomas (she married Christopher Duxbury) I have her death as 1825 ( from Jeremy Hunt's book) but no other record of this. Where did you get a death in 1840, please? Hunt was a bit wobbly when it came to facts about women, so he may indeed have the date wrong.

OC

[Jacqui_Gee]

Hello Jacqui, welcome to FTF.

A couple of comments on your tree.

Thomas Holden is (so far) an unproven son of Owd Timothy and I feel that he is more likely to be a son of Titus Holden as he names his first son Titus. If you have proof that he is indeed a son of Owd T, I will.be absolutely delighted!

Jane daughter of Thomas (she married Christopher Duxbury) I have her death as 1825 ( from Jeremy Hunt's book) but no other record of this. Where did you get a death in 1840, please? Hunt was a bit wobbly when it came to facts about women, so he may indeed have the date wrong.

OC

I may be in the wrong, I don't have the evidence, probably a mistake on my part for a hint for a burial on Ancestry.

Jane Holden

Female

5 Jan 1840

Darwen, Lancashire, England

That's the only info I have, I have looked into burials hoping to gain evidence, I noticed on the Lancashire Online Parish Clerk records, most of the records from 1837 to 1845 are missing. Maybe I'm just a bad detective, especially on my Lancashire side. I am certain Jeremy Hunt is closer to knowing than I am, as wobbly as he was about the women.



But I do have a question, it's about Timothy Holden's father, James, it states his occupation as a Webster, but the James Holden who married (or didn't marry) Elizabeth Halliwell, stated he was a weaver.. a Webster is another name for Weaver, is there a chance that whoever filled out the document, termed the occupation as he wanted, putting weaver instead of Webster?

I'll delve deeper into my errors, I'll leave my Thomas (who married Jane Briggs) as a question mark.. Owd Timothy also named his first born son Titus and his second born son James, even though James was Owd Timothy's father.

[Katarzyna]

HOLDEN, JANE age 22
GRO Reference: 1840 M Quarter in BLACKBURN Volume 21 Page 41

Blackburn Registration District covered Darwen/Eccleshill area.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Jacqui

Sorry, I didn't make it clesr, yes, certainly leave Thomas as a son on your tree, I have, but I have marked him as "unproven son" because there is only Hunts's hearsay evidence that he is - along with severalmore of T's children where there is no primary evidence.

If Titus really was Timothy's son, then he was born at the very latest by 1718, as he (Titus) married in 1732. Not impossible but a bit of a stretch for me! I have the baptism of James, the eldest son in 1723 meaning Titus was the first son, not James. As Titus was not a name which ever appeared in the Holden family before this, it worries me, lol. I have never found a marriage for Timothy and Phoebe, nor any trace of Phoebe before her marriage, so that hasn't helped. I think they did not marry out of principle because Timothy at least was a committed non conformist. There is also something a bit odd about the spacing of their children, very few in the early years, then a great burst of fertility in Phoebe's 30s and 40s.

James Holden and Elizabeth Halliwell are not the parents of Timothy. They had at least 4 children, all dutifully baptised. Timothy would have been the middle child of five - why would they not only fail to have him baptised, but be happy to pay a fine for that privilege? Doesn't add up. And, James and Elizabeth have children with slightly unusual names which never appear in Timothy's family nor in his descendents.

James Holden, webster of Over Darwen. Webster would have been an important distinction back then. Timothy's father, James, was a webster. James married to Elizabeth Halliwell was a weaver.

Jeremy Hunt said that Timothy's GRANDFATHER was "old Mr James Holden". I can't nail this down either, but the "Mr" bit suggests a higher social rank.

In short, Hunt is broadly accurate most of the time but sometimes has missed the detail, lol. He never reports anything immoral, so a lot is missed by omission. I have wondered if Timothy might have been illegitimate and "Mr James Holden" his grandfather not his fther. Doesn't get me anywhere.

Sorry for the long post, you will regret getting me going, lol. I've put it here rather than a pm, in case anyone else comes across it with the same wueries.

OC

[Olde Crone Holden]

Ooh Jacqui! Thankyou for renewing this thread, your interest made me do a bit more digging and I THINK I may have identified Phoeb e Entwistle's parents! All a bit speculative, but I have pencilled them in as Thomas Entwistle and Esther Crompton, married at St Peter Bolton on 29 December 1696. Owd T and Phoebe had children called Thomas and Esther and their son John was buried at St Peter Bolton in 1725, I always wondered why he was buried there and not in Darwen.

Of course, no baptism record as usual! But this is the first breakthrough I've made for nearly 20 years, even if it is only speculative - so thankyou again for the prompt!

OC