Quaker families in Lancs.

[diavalos]

 Is anyone out there researching the Whiteside family, from the Cockerham, Ellel, Dolphinholme Overwyresdale area of Lancashire.
I know that many of the people from these areas were Quakers, but i am not sure how to find out for definate if this family were Quakers.
This Whiteside family  and a son in law William Barker also from Ellel moved to Freckleton Lancs. in the late 1860s, which also had a thriving Quaker movement. Members of the family are listed on the graveyard records of the local Church but there is no gravestone for them.There is a Quaker burial ground in Freckleton but so overgrown so as not to be able to find anything.
I am stuck on this one so would be grateful for any help.

[liverpool annie]

Hi diavalos !

I found this ... have you already tried all these avenues ??

Depending on the dates the most probable one was either Lancaster or Garstang.
If you go to http://www.quaker.org.uk/ and click on "Find a Quaker Meeting" on
the right hand side, then insert "Dolphinholme" it will give you the meeting
houses closest to Over Wyresdale, including both Lancaster and Garstang,
although you will then need to determine which was operational at the time of
interest and where the records are kept.

If you can get there, or hire a researcher, the Lancashire Record Office in
Preston is the repository for the Quaker records for Lancaster, Preston,
Sawley, Swarthmoor as well as later Meetings at Bentham, Yealand, Settle,
Garstang etc covering Lancashire down to Warrington. You can check the Record
Office holdings for Quaker Meetings and Burials in the Green List at
http://www.lancashire.gov.uk/education/record_office/records/green.asp

If not, then you should know that under the "1840 Surrender of Non Conformist
Registers Act", the Quakers surrendered 1674 registers (covering 1578-1841) to
the Home Office, these passed to the GRO and into the National Archives where
they are stored under "RG6". The good news is these are being digitised and
will appear online in due course. See the National Archives website and search
for "Non Conformist Registers"

There are some useful guides to researching Quakers, covering resources, that
includes a brief description of the way Quakers organised their meetings and
records at
http://www.quaker.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=90018 but the one thing
you will need is the guide to The Quaker Calendar as they did not use the
"heathen" names for weekdays and months - trust me the way they record dates is
often confusing! There is a very useful guide at:-
http://www.quaker.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=90037

Annie 

[diavalos]

Thanks for that. I didn't know about the changes to the calender and the non use of some names of months.
 I will try the records Office in Preston as soon as i can get there.and see what i can turn up.
Joyce