Valentine Walls (Blackrod/Aspull/Wigan) where did you come from ?

[andrewalston]

Interesting!

Haulgh is a name with wide-ranging pronunciations.

The place on the east of Bolton is currently pronounced something like "Hoff". When you compare that with "haltch" for the almost identical end of "Greenhalgh", imagining a variation of "Walls" seems quite possible. The presence of more than one Valentine in this family is a good sign. Time to look for corroborating evidence!

The Hultons, by the way are all still extant - Over, Middle and Little all used to be part of Deane parish, though Little Hulton became part of Salford relatively recently. Deane parish formed a barrier between Blackrod and Bolton, running from Rivington in the north west to Westhoughton in the south and Little Hulton in the east. It must have rankled Blackrod residents that they were supposed to travel all the way to Bolton to get married, especially as the obvious route took them past Deane Church.

[Prouty99]

Hi Andrew,

The Halgh/Haulgh family seemed to die out prior to 1700, the surname just disappeared for what could be a number of reasons...

I have a more promising lead though which has become apparent over the last 24 hours

There was a 'John Walles' fathering children who were baptised at St.Katherines as well, and John's first child was in 1731, (Robert Walles) which would make Johns possible birthdate around the same time as Valentine Walls, and his Brother Robert Walls.

John Walles appears nowhere in Valentine, or Robert's tree

I can only deduce that John Walles is Valentine and Robert's brother !

Let's say that the age at marriage was 18 (for arguments sake), and the first child after marriage was the year after the wedding (again, for arguments sake)

This would make Valentine Walls birth year of 1708.

Robert Walls birth year would be 1709

John 'Walles' birth year would be 1713

All 3 lived in Blackrod, fathering children at the same time, which were all baptised at St.Katherines, in the same period.

The problem is that John 'Walles' fathered 8 children, 7 boys, 1 girl, and in all those parish entries there is no mention of John 'Walles' wife, mother, or father....,the mystery deepens, and if John is Valentine and Robert's brother, we still do not have an origin for any of them !

Here are the children;

Baptism: 25 Dec 1731 St Katharine, Blackrod, Lancashire, England
Robert Walles - Son of John Walles
    Register: Baptisms 1727 - 1782, Page 3, Entry 25
    Source: LDS Film 2148001

Baptism: 15 Aug 1736 St Katharine, Blackrod, Lancashire, England
James Walles - Son of John Walles
    Register: Baptisms 1727 - 1782, Page 7, Entry 21
    Source: LDS Film 2148001

Baptism: 16 Jul 1738 St Katharine, Blackrod, Lancashire, England
Thomas Walles - Son of John Walles
    Register: Baptisms 1727 - 1782, Page 9, Entry 16
    Source: LDS Film 2148001

Baptism: 19 Aug 1739 St Katharine, Blackrod, Lancashire, England
James Walles - Son of John Walles
    Register: Baptisms 1727 - 1782, Page 10, Entry 16
    Source: LDS Film 2148001

Baptism: 26 Sep 1742 St Katharine, Blackrod, Lancashire, England
Danell Walles - Son of John Walles
    Register: Baptisms 1727 - 1782, Page 12, Entry 17
    Source: LDS Film 2148001

Baptism: 1 Apr 1744 St Katharine, Blackrod, Lancashire, England
George Walles - Son of John Walles
    Register: Baptisms 1727 - 1782, Page 13, Entry 21
    Source: LDS Film 2148001

Baptism: 23 Mar 1745/6 St Katharine, Blackrod, Lancashire, England
Jane Walles - Daughter of John Walles
    Register: Baptisms 1727 - 1782, Page 15, Entry 11
    Source: LDS Film 2148001

Baptism: 10 Jan 1747/8 St Katharine, Blackrod, Lancashire, England
Peter Waeles - Son of John Waeles
    Register: Baptisms 1727 - 1782, Page 17, Entry 3
    Source: LDS Film 2148001

[andrewalston]

Valentine and John both appear to have named their first son Robert. Unfortunately Robert's first apparent son was a John. Not knowing when he arrived in Blackrod, it's possible a Robert was baptised elsewhere, then died in infancy, being "replaced" in 1734.

I think we need to look for a father named Robert.

In the meantime, I think I ought to review my Walls family groups. I definitely have some wrong. Arrabella's parents Robert and Elizabeth in 1757 are not going to be the same as Agnis' 30 years earlier.

[Prouty99]

This is the problem i've been poring over for the last couple of years Andrew, and i know that you have dedicated considerably longer in the search for Walls folk...

There are so many Robert's, Valentines, and the like, its been a task to separate them at times. Sometimes you get two people with the same name who are born in the same year, only a couple of months apart both baptised in the same church, with Walls people as witnesses !

As for Robert, Valentine, and John, the fact that there is no baptisms for any of them suggests that they all came from out of the area. It does seem strange though that there is absolutely no mention of John's wife, as you know the Katherines registers usually give you lots of info, such as;

         25 Sep 1625 Roger s. of Henery Hodgkenson & Elizabeth
      borne 22 Sep 1625 being Thorsday about
      fore of the clocke in the afternone

         Or

         10 Sep 1639      Edward s. of Allexander Vause had his
      Nativitie 10 Sep 1639 : aboute an hower
      after sonneryse 10 Oct 1639

You can usually set your watch by the St.Katherines registers, they are stunningly informative, although where John Walles is concerned there's nothing but basic info.

To not find one baptism is everyday stuff, but to not find 3, who may be brothers, is rare. I'm leaning toward an out of England origin, and i haven't explored Scotland yet. (1700 to 1800, the highest concentration of Walls surnames was a.Wigan, and b. Kirkwall in Scotland)

Maybe it is derived from 'Wallace'....

Maybe you can drop the ice cream empire, and opt for a blue face and a claymore instead

By the way, i've been meaning to ask you for a while, what lead you to believe that Robert and Valentine were brothers when you originally made the Gedcom file on Rootsweb ?

[Mary Marsden]

"I have been researching the Walls family in the Blackrod/Aspull/Wigan area, and have hit a major brick wall with Valentine Whall (walls) b abt 1700, d 1774 and his brother Robert Whall (Walls) b abt 1710 d 1774. "



Like everyone on this forum I'm stuck with my Walls line at Valentine (my 5g-grandfather) who was buried at Blackrod in 1774.  My great grandfather, William Walls, always maintained that the family had Scottish roots. The name Walls does indeed occur commonly in Scotland (see, for example, http://gbnames.publicprofiler.org/Map.aspx?name=WALLS&year=1881&altyear=1998&country=GB&type=name)

Has anyone explored this possibility?

I have found Y-chromosome  DNA testing for my son and brother to be very helpful and found it interesting also to find out about our shared mt-DNA even though the latter doesn't help directly with genealogy. I intend to have autosomal testing as soon as I can arrange this, so I am hoping that this might shed light on my Walls links and others.

If anyone would like further information on testing or on my Walls links, please get in touch.

[Prouty99]

Hi Marymar

You say your great grandfather was William Walls ?  Do you know his birth and death year ?

It would be interesting to look at the charts i have to see where your William fits into the picture

[Mary Marsden]

Thanks for your reply. This is my g-grandfather:

Walls, William
b. 04 Mar 1846, Guide, Lower Darwen, Lancs
m.  Livesey, Mary, 25 Apr 1873, St John`s CofE, Abram
d. 13 May 1900,Warrington Road, Abram, Lancashire

He was son of:
Walls, Robert, b 1814, Blackrod
 m1 Margaret Dickinson, 20 Dec 1835,St Wilfrid`s, Standish; m2 Maria Hatton SepQ 1865, Wigan
d  Platt Bridge, SepQ 1879

who was son of:
Walls, Thomas
b. ABT 1777,    Blackrod
m.  Walker, Sarah (Sally), 28 Oct 1802, Billinge
d c 25 Oct 1834, Blackrod

who  was eldest son of:
Walls, Thomas
b. 1755, Blackrod
m.  Doughty, Betty
d Blackrod?

son of:
Whalls, Valentine
b ?
m.  Green, Katharine,    24 Sep 1753,Wigan
d BEF 13 Mar 1774

If you'd like to see my Tribal Pages tree, which has more information, feel free to contact me via mary[dot]sayers[at]virgin[dot]net.

Best wishes, Mary

[jandanmaxandpaul]

Hello, I am a very newcomer to this. Started a few years ago, stopped and lost everything, and now back again to try and work it out.

I was a Walls originally from Wavertree in Liverpool. I've worked back to find the family came from Aspull/Blackrod/Westhoughton but there seem so many branches it's getting confusing.

The one who moved to Wavertree as Robert Walls b. 1823 in Westhoughton. He had moved to Liverpool by the 1861 census and worked as engine driver on railways.

As far as I can work out (in a very amateur way...) his father was John Walls b. 1781 in Blackrod.
His father was Thomas Walls (Whalls) b. 1761 in Blackrod. It seems Thomas's mother was Alice Whalls who was a prolific babymaker with various fathers! Have found 2 records in National Archives where she is claiming filiation and maintenance of her 'bastard children', including Thomas Whalls.

Apart from her many children (Richard 1750, Sally 1854, Hannah 1858, Thomas 1761 and Isabell 1778) I cant find anything else about her, like birth or death.

Hope I haven't gone too far wrong or gone off the thread too much, but any help would be appreciated.

Maybe I'm related to some of you!

[Mary Marsden]

For more information please contact me at . The address below is now defunct.

If you'd like to see my Tribal Pages tree, which has more information, feel free to contact me via
Best wishes, Mary
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