Steffie Barcomb

Steffie and I are fourth cousins, once removed. Steffie is descended from the marriage of John Tetlow and Alice Knowles. Alice, by now a widow, emigrated to the States with a number of her children on the SS Saxonia from Liverpool, 24 August 1909 arriving in Boston, Massachusetts, 1 September 1909.

Their last permanent residence was Stalybridge and the destination was Westerly, Rhode Island. The name of the nearest relative was Alice's sister, Mrs Waterhouse in Stalybridge. Under the section where it asks if they are joining a friend or relative it says: Son, James Tetlow, 53 Prospect St., Westerly, R.I.

They eventually settled in a small town outside Westerly, called Bradford. In Bradford was the Bradford Dying Association. The BDA is where several Tetlows worked in the textile industry.

I descend from Mary Ann TETLOW 1845-1923.  She was born Oldham and lived most of her life in the Hollinwood area.  She is buried in Hollinwood cemetery with husband, Charles Robinson.

I would be pleased to hear from anyone with links to the above families and interests in the Hollinwood area of Oldham.

Bill Dowdell

Bill Dowdell has been researching the Tetlow name for some 15 years and has provided invaluable help to many family history researchers interested in the Tetlow line. Bill collects all references to the Tetlow name irrespective of geography and continues to add to the records which comprise his one-name study. These records were in excess of 16,000 Tetlow references the last time I asked him. As one would expect for such an activity, Bill is interested in all variants of the name.

Bill started his interest in genealogy about 17 years ago. His father got him interested by relating some of the events which he experienced as a young man about his family. Being an Irishman, the truth of the stories might perhaps have been exaggerated to a degree but basically there was some truth in them. Most of them Bill was able to corroborate with existing documents in the National Archives of the U.S.A.

When this was exhausted it eventually led Bill to the Republic of Ireland. After many frustrating trips to Ireland without any success he turned his attention to his wife, Shirley Tetlow’s, line. So, on a trip to London, about 15 years ago, Bill & Shirley decided to spend a day at the Public Register Office to see what they could come up with. With the information that they already had they decided to check the 1881 Census in the Bradford, Yorkshire area for her Tetlow/Nichol/Topham/Atkinson line. As Shirley was more familiar with the Bradford area than Bill was, she concentrated on the Tetlows from the Manningham area of Bradford. Before long she found her great grandfather James Tetlow and his brood. It was his place of birth which surprised Shirley though – he was from ‘Back oth Moss’, Heywood, Lancashire. As Bill could research closer to home in Preston at the Record Office, he began to spend a lot of time at the library. Several certificates later, he was able to establish that they originally came from a farm called Jarrot Hey in Thornham near Middleton.

What started as a simple project of tracing a family evolved into a full ‘one-name-study’ of the Tetlows. What brought this about was the search for Shirley’s great-great-grandfather, Samson Tetlow. His baptism could not be found anywhere so Bill started looking for brothers and sisters of Samson and he collected every reference to Tetlows along the way. Bill did eventually find Samson in an unlikely document. Up until 1815 all the siblings had been baptised at a Church of England church. Samson was found squeezed between two entries in the Union Street, Wesleyan Methodist church of Rochdale. It wasn’t a baptism but an actual birth entry and it’s not on the I.G.I.

Beth Gaudin

Beth and I are sixth cousins and is descended from Jubal Tetlow and Margaret France who married on 7 May 1836 at St Michael’s Church, Ashton under Lyne. As far as I can tell Jubal and Margaret emigrated to the States circa 1863 and settled in Ohio.

Beth and her husband, Felix, have been researching their Tetlow line for many years and have visited the U.K. to carry out some of their research. Now that they are retired they are keen to continue their research – focusing on going back earlier than James Tetlow and Martha Horsefield. I wish them luck!

Beth and Felix have recently invested in a computer and are still very much getting to grips with it; their records are therefore primarily manual.

Emily is also my sixth cousin and is descended from the marriage of Frederick Tetlow and Sarah Tomlinson who were married on 29 September 1861 at St Mary‘s Church, Stockport. They emigrated to the States sometime between 1863 and 1866, settling in Taunton, Bristol County, Massachusetts.