FARRAR
by Maureen McManus (extracted from Appendix T in the main text)
Tracing my Family History was, for many years, something that I promised myself I would do 'one day '. I think I was deterred somewhat by warnings that, as a hobby, it was very addictive and time consuming and also by the family folk-lore stories that all of my great-grandparents came from Ireland and therefore records would be unavailable or even non-existent. I used to dream of tracing a family of "olde English yeomen " with roots going back two or three hundred years. Early retirement was the chance to indulge myself. My starting point was my father's parents, married in St. Helens in 1904. I had never known my grandmother, Elizabeth Farrar, nor any of her family as she had died in 1925 when my father was 12 years old. I was surprised to discover that she had been born in 1879 in Chadwick Green, Billinge, a place that I had heard of but knew nothing about. The 1881 Census gave me the address Brown Heath Nook and details of the family; parents Thomas and Elizabeth and seven children, Elizabeth being the youngest. Some time soon after that, I found myself one Sunday afternoon with nothing planned and decided to visit Billinge. I don't know what I was expecting to discover. I drove through the village and noticed St. Mary's Church, Birchley. It looked old enough to have been there in Elizabeth Farrar's time so I stopped to look around. I noticed many people walking round behind the building and followed them. I arrived at the doors of the Parish Hall on which was a notice announcing an exhibition of Parish History!
Inside, the Hall was crowded with people and displays of all types. I soon realised that I hadn't time to read everything. Noticing a table with two ladies selling booklets I asked if there was one about the exhibition. They pointed to a man at a table in the middle of the room and said he was the one to answer that question. It turned out that he was responsible for staging the whole event and was just looking forward to it being over so that he could get his life back. He asked about my interest in the exhibition and couldn't believe that I had arrived that day just by chance. I explained that I knew nothing about Elizabeth Farrar, her family nor of any connection with St. Mary's. He then introduced me to several people in the room who were from old Billinge families and might be able to help me. One lady told me that the reason for the exhibition that weekend was that the original Church Bell was going to be re-hung in the restored bell tower and that the bell was on display in the Church. If Elizabeth had lived in Billinge, she would have grown up hearing that bell. I decided to go across to the Church to see it. Walking across the Hall I had to pass a pillar with part of a display on it. The names on one of the notices seemed to jump out at me. They were a Farrar family with the same Christian names I remembered from Elizabeth's family; Ralph, Thomas, James, Francis, Ann and Elizabeth. The list was the Papist Return for 1767 in Billinge. I knew then that I was meant to be there but I didn't know then that my dream was about to come true.