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A really good place to start is actually the Lancashire Online Parish Clerks website; it's completely free to search and their volunteers have transcribed the burial registers from 1557 to 1645, then 1658 to 1906. Our society has also published gravestone transcriptions for different sections of the graveyard, and if you follow the link to our Parish Chest shop, you can find a description of each of the different sets of Ormskirk church records, which might be helpful if you're trying to find out whether people with a particular surname had a gravestone. (Not everyone did, and a lot were moved - I think in the 19th century - but some of our members have done research to try to match them to their original locations.) If we can help with anything else, please let us know.

@@odfhs Thank you so much! Yes I will reach out. Is there an email to reach you at?

@@scarlit9788 There certainly is - the best one to try is secretary@odfhs.email - if you use that one, it will get through to someone who can get an answer to any questions you might have.

@@odfhs perfect! Thank you!

I think we probably do, but at present, they are likely to be in books kept in our research library in Ormskirk; Banks is actually just outside our bit of the map (although we do have a few members researching ancestors from Banks). However, another organisation that may be able to help you are North Meols Family History Society; they cover pretty much the whole Southport area, and they have got a website at nmfhssouthport.co.uk/ so they may have a gallery on there, or know of a resource for old photos. Hope that is a little bit of use; I can easily check our own library catalogue, if that would be helpful.

@@odfhs - Thank you for your helpful response and the link.

Hello Eddie. I don't know whether you have found any known family links to the south-west Lancashire area (north-west England, between the cities of Preston and Liverpool) but we do know that there were people living in our area with the surname Bickerstaff (and other variant spellings, as spellings didn't tend to be standardised a few hundred years ago). In the 1500s the name comes up in the church registers for Aughton, which is only a couple of miles from Bickerstaffe; Bickerstaffe didn't have its own church until the 1840s, so before then, you often find that the residents went to Ormskirk or Aughton for weddings and christenings. I can certainly recommend having a look through the transcribed parish registers on the Lancashire Online Parish Clerk website (it's free to search), as a simple search for "Bickerstaff" gives results for many other spelling variants, too, e.g. Bycarstafe, Bykerstaffe, Bikerstaffe, Bicurstethe. Interestingly, the surname also comes up in church records in northern Lancashire (e.g. Kirkham and Poulton-le-Fylde, not far from Blackpool).

@ODFHS SocialMedia Thank you for replying. I'm interested in the knight order. I read that the knights Templar had been near their and one of the landowners was a Bickerstaffe I think it was around King Henry. I'm curious as the coat of arms was a spear or Halbert, and black armor with silver plumes with gold trim. I'm also interested in anything that may have had mystique. As I've had recurring dream of a castle and the armor I forementioned. It was at medieval times I found the name in the book of names and ordered the book from ancestry but it has limited information. I know a bickerstaff also helped build the black tower in Liverpool

@@HazelBLAZE247 That is interesting; I hadn't come across any mention of the Knights Templar myself, but possibly other members of our Society may have done. I have had a quick look at the Victoria County History of Lancashire (1907, available online) and this link (which I hope will work . . .) definitely refers to people known as "de Bickerstath" in the early thirteenth century, so at the very early stages of surnames being used. The Victoria County History mainly talks about landowners and properties, but there might be something useful in there. www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol3/pp276-282

@@HazelBLAZE247 Additionally, if you go to the following page on our website, we have made our Research Library catalogue accessible to the general public; it's listed under "Research Library and Help Desk", and can be downloaded as an Excel spreadsheet. It's also searchable so you may be able to identify something of interest in there. www.odfhs.website/index.php/more

@ODFHS SocialMedia thank you so much for the links . I really appreciate the time and effort you put into this

Thanks for letting us know; we are aware of the hiss, but haven't quite worked out the right strategy for getting rid of it. (Every time we adjust the audio settings on the video file, it makes the sound quality worse, but we are trying to sort it.)

That's not a bad idea; unfortunately, we didn't get much in the way of film footage on the day of this event, but we'll keep that suggestion about the organ in mind for a future event. The organ music might be something we can sort out, though; TH-cam has got a music library that we can access, so we'll investigate and see whether we can find anything suitable in there - it might add a bit of atmosphere!

As far as we can make out, both spellings seem to be in common use in British English. We think the spelling we've used goes back to the time when there was a habit of printing "a" and "e" so close together that they looked like a combination letter (if that makes sense). There is an interesting bit at this link which suggests that the "ae" version comes from a short form of the Latin phrase "medium aevum" (which translates as "Middle Ages") - which sort of makes sense: english.stackexchange.com/questions/456261/is-mediaeval-an-outdated-spelling-of-medieval It's a really valid point, though - it just shows how language changes over time.

@@odfhs Thank you, I've learnt something there 😃

Thank you, Gail - we definitely didn't know that! I could easily imagine how that might have happened, especially if they were using tarmac on the roads. (Which, I would guess, they were.) We just wish we knew what the event was!

That's a really interesting detail, thank you. I'm not sure how many of our members know about that hall - I certainly didn't - but it's brilliant to find out more about how it all worked, and how everyone was chosen.

@@odfhs I have checked out the hall I mentioned with my friend who also remembers it. It was called The Institute.

Thank you so much, Anne! We often wonder what the founders would have made of new technology being used for family history, and - now you mention it - I think our longest-standing members have mentioned that the committee meetings used to be held in the Janes' house, back in the day. (I've got a feeling theirs was our first postal address, too!)

Just in case you're interested, Geoff, I think we have got a scanned copy of that photo on file. Please get in touch if you'd like us to e-mail you a copy; I'm sure we can sort that out.

Thank you for letting us know! We'll have to do some investigating, and maybe make an updated video to go with it.

You're very welcome - hope you enjoyed the video!

Hope you enjoyed the video! Do you happen to know whereabouts in Scarisbrick? It's such a big area, but has all sorts of links - agriculture, canal boatmen, Scarisbrick Hall, and quite a few churches, too.

That's something we'll have to look into. Although a neighbouring society to us also covers Skelmersdale, because it's one of the 16 ancient parishes, we cover it, too, so there must be information out there that we can do something with.

Should be good history there. Would anyone know pronunciations? Newburgh Burscough Blaguegate

@@ArnoldClarke Now that, we can help with. Newburgh (which is apparently twinned with a place of the same name in Indiana, USA) is pronounced "New-borough" - it "rhymes" with Edinburgh, if that makes sense. Burscough's an interesting one; it's got Norse origins (and translates as "fortress in the woods"). Many people say it "Bur-sko", but I've also heard it said "Boss-ka" in the local dialect. As far as I know, Blaguegate is said with the first syllable rhyming with "vague". (Scarisbrick is another interesting case; those of our members who I've spoken to who live there say "Skays-brick", but sometimes it can be heard as "Scares-brick", and I have come across at least one person in the past who had that surname but lived outside West Lancashire - their name was always said "Scarriz-brick".)

So completely not how there spelt (:

You are very welcome; some of these old records contain the most surprising details! I was quite sorry not to manage to get in a note on the people of Aughton celebrating the unsuccessful Jacobite Rebellion of 1745; from the way it was phrased in the book, I don't think Aughton sided with the rebels at all!

Thanks for the message, Cathy. I've just been looking through some items from our past magazines, and have found a couple of references to Harriots in Ormskirk during George III's reign. Apparently, there was a breeches maker called George Harriot in Ormskirk in 1793, and in 1811 a John Harriott ran the Swan Inn on Burscough Street. (I think Burscough Street is included in this video.) I wonder whether they are related to you?

Thank you; we're glad you enjoyed it. When you start to dig into it, it is amazing how many little details about Halsall are actually pretty significant. (I wonder how many people even know that they started digging the Leeds and Liverpool Canal there, for instance?) We're just hoping that, if we keep making videos like this, more people of all ages will be intrigued enough to find out more - and maybe get into learning more about social history, too. I think, sometimes, the key thing is to find something that people can relate to - like the idea of paying rent in the form of spices! (Incidentally, I just checked the price of cumin on Tesco's website - history leads you to do some strange things! - and today, 1lb. is worth £9.08. I think that's a bargain for an entire manor!)

Shame the subtitles didn't stay in the screen long enough. Had to keep pausing rewind.

@Mick Langley younger people just are not worth any effort at all. Far too many “educated” adults are all for turning historical sights such as the bombed out church in Liverpool into student accommodation. I wish I wasn’t such a nihilist. But the one thing I do have a love for is the beauty of times past and so nicely preserved.

Thank you for the feedback; we have spotted a couple of errors ourselves in this one that we need to correct.

If they were born before 1900 or so, we wonder whether they might be listed on the boatfamilies website, Carolyne? A very quick check suggests that there are 56 Stazickers at the moment . . . and 459 Harrisons! (We have just updated the site in the last few days, so it may be worth a search if you haven't tried it yet.)