My Family History

by Norman Weston

 Hello and welcome to my family history pages. These pages are not yet complete and with family history being what it is, I doubt if they ever will be. They may be updated at odd intervals as new information comes to light. 

At present my main family lines, WESTON, THORLBY, ORMANDY, DOHERTY, DOWNS and BETTLES are quite well documented. 

With regard to THORLBY,  I have to thank Jennifer Dancy who did a lot of the work to enable me to put this together. 

All information about living persons has been suppressed in accordance with current practice.

Anyone interested in tracing their family history must start with their own beginnings and work backwards. These were my beginnings:-

I was born in 1949 during the post war baby boom  in the midst of some poor folk in Rossal Street, Hanky Park, in Pendleton, Salford. It was my uncle's Tommy's house. Housing was scarce and my parents didn't have their own home. On the corner of Rossal Street and Hankinson Street stood the Brass Handles Pub. I was christened at Pendleton (Pengie) church and went to John Street school. As a kid I was a ragamuffin scrambling for bonfire (bonny) wood in the slum clearance program. Somehow I survived and prospered.

My beginning of life were not affluent but remembered with affection still are, the  Pea soupers (smog), cobbled streets, dolly tubs, stone sinks, indoor gas lights, mums in turbans stoning front steps, ceiling racks of drying clothes, being able to walk into neighbours houses freely ("it's on the latch"), wooden mangles, tin bath on Friday nights, Saturday morning matinee, brown linoleum, white stoneware beer jugs, coal fires in cast iron ranges, old ladies in shawls, rag & bone men, backyard toilets, pencils called "blackleads", hole-in-the-wall bookies, Co-op divvy, rationing, day trips to Blackpool, Southport or New Brighton, "Chimley pot park" and Granddads allotment. 

Navigate the whole  Family

Weston                  Thurlby           Ormandy          Doherty              Downs               Bettles

Our ancestors have wandered the globe, and often left us with only one clue to trace their heritage, their surnames.............

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