talk report - september 2007
26 September: Pilkington Puzzles In My Family - Dr Andrew Scarisbrick
By means of a Power Point presentation Dr Scarisbrick began his talk by recapping his Mercer ancestry and showed how his two Mercer lines converged at Edmund Mercer and Mary Mawdesley. He then showed how Mary's mother was an Ellen Pilkington. He then talked about his other Pilkington ancestry showing how his grandfather's mother was an Amelia Pilkington and demonstrated how the line went back to John Pilkington (b.1774). He differentiated this John Pilkington to another (b.1772) who had married Hannah Mercer who was the sister of Edmund (see above). At this point it became complicated in that a marriage between William, son of John (b.1774), and Ellen, daughter of John (b. 1772) was mirrored by a marriage between Matthias, son of John (b.1772) and Margaret Pilkington, daughter of Ralph (b. 1780) who was himself the son of James (b.1745). This information allowed him to identify the five Pilkingtons he wanted more information on. They were Ellen, William, John, James and, Sarah , who were all born around 1750, all of whom lived in Burscough and Scarisbrick but who were not born there. He had then found all were five baptised at St. Chad's, Kirkby and all were children of John Pilkington and Ann Caddick.
While he had been researching the Pilkingtons he found a few connections with Berrys, including the marriage of Sarah Pilkington and Peter Berry in 1772, and Jane Pilkingon and Peter Berry in 1805, this also tied in with the Mercers in that James Mercer married Sarah Berry in 1821 and Ellen Mercer married Richard Berry in 1828. Researching the Berrys he found that they came from two different branches of the Berry family, both came from Burscough and which he designated the Lordsgate Branch and the Four Lane End Branch after the farms where they lived. Looking through Berry wills at the LRO he found the will of PeterBerry (died 1775) which showed a link between the two branches via brothers Richard and James Berry.
This was a very interesting and involving talk which while demonstrating the hard work needed to solve a problem also showed how rewarding finding the answer could be.