Find Ancestors

George Tomlinson my great grandfather.The first record I can find is when he married Susanna Phillips in Plymouth on the 11th April 1886, can follow through with the birth of his children and on census returns up until 1901 but cannot find any trace before 1886. His marriage lines has his father as William Tomlinson a wagoner (deceased) and on the census returns his birth place is Cheshire .I have search every record that I know and followed everylead all to no avail so if anyone can help I would be very grateful.There have been suggestions of name change so I will follow any lead.

we have a william tomlinson from Runcorn cheshire who married a Florence Bushell and had one son Derek (My father) william married about 1920ish does this fit?
Regards Heather

Hi Heather , thanks for the thought but if your William Tomlinson only had one son he cannot be my great grandfather George's parent .

Alrighty. I could do this stuff all night, and often do.

I had a whole big theory worked out involving a George Tomlinson in a workhouse in Leicestershire in 1861 whose mother (big sister?) subsequently married a Pollard, blah blah ...

But what about this guy in 1861?

Name: George Tomlinson
Age: 3
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1858
Relation: Grandson
Gender: Male
Where born: Warrington, Lancashire, England
Civil Parish: Warrington
Ecclesiastical parish: St Paul
Town: Warrington
County/Island: Lancashire
Country: England
Registration district: Warrington
Sub-registration district: Warrington

Ann Whittle 51
John Whittle 16
Matilda Whittle 13
Mary Tomlinson 28 - married daughter of Ann
George Tomlinson 3

Here we hit a potential problem: the FreeBMD transcriptions for the mid-late 1850s have still not caught up. It's a broken link in the chain, and it's driven me mad in my own searches. I had someone who stated she was 19 when she married in July 1875, so I searched the images back to Q1 1855 ... and when a new batch of transcriptions came on line a few weeks ago, I found she'd been registered in Q4 1854, and just lied about her age to her husband (who *was* 19 when they married, I also learned when that batch got transcribed) the whole time they were married, apparently.

But the George Tomlinsons for the period all seem to have been transcribed ... yeah, I looked at the images. ;) And I couldn't guess which one might be him.

Ah, but maybe I could.

Name: George Whittle
Year of Registration: 1857
Quarter of Registration: Jul-Aug-Sep
District: Warrington
County: Cheshire, Lancashire
Volume: 8c
Page: 131


Trying to find the Mary Whittle marriage, or that Mary Whittle in 1851 ... too much for me at the moment. Gotta go home watch teevee and make din for the co-vivant. Me, I'm not hungry -- had that first in-the-flesh meeting with a long-lost unknown cuz met through GR at lunch today! and stuffed myself.

But I'd say it might be worth getting hold of that George Whittle birth certificate. Mother Mary, no-name father might be a good clue that it's him. And then I'll leave you to trawl through the Mary Whittle marriages between 1857 and 1861 in hopes of finding the Tomlinson one, if it's there!

Oh well, I think I've trashed my own theory there.

In 1871:

Name: George Whittle
Age: 12
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1859
Relation: Grandson
Gender: Male
Where born: Warrington, Lancashire, England
Civil Parish: Warrington
Ecclesiastical parish: St Paul
Town: Warrington
County/Island: Lancashire
Country: England
Registration district: Warrington
Sub-registration district: Warrington

Ann Whittle 63
George Whittle 12
John Whittle 28
Matilda Whittle 22

Ancestry has probably mistranscribed him in 1881, but he's accounted for in '91 and '01.


He's obviously the George Tomlinson in 1861.

Back to the drawing board. It was such a lovely theory ...