Keighley 1919

I love maps, particularly old ones, and at the Who Do You Think You Are? show at London's Olympia yesterday I bought some ordnance survey maps to help me trace where my ancestors lived, as part of my ongoing family tree project.

On this 1919 map of Keighley, Yorkshire, I was able to pinpoint Pitt Street, where my great grandmother Sarah Ellen died, aged 37, giving birth to my grandfather, Herbert Wiles, in 1895.

My great grandfather Henry Wiles Ellison, a foundry worker, remarried and the family moved a short distance away to the delightfully named Wren Street, part of a maze of streets named after birds: Jay, Linnet, Nightingale, Thrush. Judging by the many iron foundries in the area, I doubt Keighley at that time resounded to the sound of chirruping birds.