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Thanks Willow, I knew about the first site and have my own photographs dating back to only just a little later than the Francis Frith ones. The second link was fascinating and I'm just about to compare my Winspers with those.

I have Jemima Winsper who married Samuel Higgs in 1850 at Coseley Christchurch. I think she was born in 1827 but christened in Bilston 1st Feb 1829. Her parents were William and Sarah, and the 1841 census shows Jemima aged 14 living in Highfields, Sedgley, with mother Sarah, aged 35 (born 1806), and a whole host of siblings, but no father shown. Also present was a 50 years old James Woodall and 40 year old Ann Woodall and their one year old child Martha. So I'm wondering if something had befallen William and Sarah had moved in with her brother or sister and in law. There are a number of William Winspers and so I need to work on which one now.

Hi, I thought I would let you know about this website, associated with the local Heritage Centre, which carries information and photographs relating to this part of Aberdeenshire in North East Scotland. Photographs show a number of locations past and present, often with people associated, many of whom have been identified. The website is increasingly proving to be of use in genealogical studies in this part of Scotland.

www.alfordimages.com

Thanks again to you both....I'm sure this is the family of Talbots, Willow, and thanks again for getting me past a log jam. Looks like a trip to the BC is in order sooner than I had anticipated to look at the resources in the Molyneux and at the Express and star.

PS I notice a number of posters are wondering about photographs of the Bilston area and buildings therein....have you tried www.geograph.org.uk  ...I know there are a fair number of photographs of present day Bilston on the site and I have found it useful in letting me know just how much of what I remember is still there....sad to see buildings such as Henry Newbolt's home gone (although the gargoyles at the door used to scare me rigid as a child)!

Thanks DW and Willow. In fact Willow, that's amazing.....I have searched and searched for ages and not managed to find the right Talbots....I was beginning to think they might have been averse to filling in census forms or anything like, and possibly avoided the enumerator too. This is the right area, and judging by the names (which I had no idea of in this generation) likely to be correct, since many of these names were passed to the next generation. This gives me a toe-hold, thanks again!

As for the Winspers, as a Bilston name goes, I was under the impression that there were a few, but not as many as say Fellows or Hickman or a few others I could mention. They appear to have been a fairly short-lived group, although I gather there may still be one Winsper living in Bilston. Parish/Parrish also seem to be similarly short lived and relatively infrequent.

Wellings is an interesting one....after the death of the household (William) in the iron foundary accident, the wife remarried to Probert and the children took on the new surname. This caused all sorts of problems until I had worked out what had happened. At least one of the children by the first husband then reverted to the original name, Wellings, although I suspect they may all have done this....so there is a James Edward Wellings (I have this completely covered), Rose Wellings (apparently became a landlady of a pub possibly in Moxley), Albert Wellings (possibly coal and possibly served in WW1) and William Wellings who apparently moved to Shrewsbury and became a market trader....and these I have not managed to trace as yet. The Winspers, Boads, Parish/Parrish, Higgs and Bunce families are further back in the Wellings line and are fairly new discoveries. Incidentally, James Edward Wellings  went on to become Mayor of Bilston.

Any ideas how I could track down reports of William Wellings industrial accident and that of Joseph Bunce who died on 29th August 1891, although apparently the accident had happened a week or so previously? It's just conceivable that they were both mortally injured in the same "explosion". I've tried all the obvious on the internet.....but then Willow made that breakthrough where I had failed. Just goes to show that more than one working on something or taking a break and going back to a problem often results in a solution.

Thanks again.

JJ