I have taken great interest in my Ainsworth line, that being my middle name, and have managed to piece together the story of my great, great grandfather, John Ainsworth. The first clue to his origins were his naturalization papers, showing he was granted U.S. citizenship in 1871, and giving his birthplace as Cheshire, a county in England. This bit of information was not online, and was only discovered on a visit to a National Archives facility in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 2010.  A copy of the naturalization papers is attached to the bottom of this web page.

I was not able to pinpoint the specific town that John came from until 2015, while using a free trial on the British genealogical website FindMyPast.com. I found a family in the town of Macclesfield that included a John Ainsworth (born 1834) and three sons (Thomas Antrobus born 1854, Frank born 1859, and James born 1861). This matched up with an 1870 census record in which Frank and James were living with their father in Fall River, Massachusetts.  However the name of John's wife in Fall River did not match his wife in Macclesfield.  The reason became clear as I found more records.

John was first married to Hannah Sutton.  They both came from villages on the outskirts of Macclesfield--he from Hurdsfield and she from Sutton.

John and Hannah were both baptized at St. Michael's (Church of England). Later, when it was time for their children to be baptized, they identified as Methodists.

Firstborn son Thomas was given the maiden name of his paternal grandmother (Antrobus) as his middle name. (The Antrobus name can be traced to a noble family that lived not far from Macclesfield in the 15th century, and to a small village there that still bears the name.)

Frank was born next, then James.  A census in 1861 records the family living at 108 High Street in Sutton. John is listed as a silk weaver, the predominant local industry; Hannah as a lace weaver. The work was often done at home on hand looms. (Macclesfield remained a center for silk production through World War II, when it produced silk maps and silk parachutes for the war effort.)

The dwelling where the Ainsworth family lived in 1861 is still there. The gray door in the center is #108 High Street.

In 1864 daughter Emily was born.  The next year the fortunes of the family took an unhappy turn, according to facts found in probate records.  On February 23, 1865, Hannah was admitted to the Macclesfield workhouse due to insanity, accompanied by her infant daughter. 

The workhouse was where people went when they were not able to take care of themselves or when they were unemployed. The able-bodied were put to work.  In an effort to improve conditions and efficiency, a new workhouse had been built in Macclesfield in 1845. What were the conditions like when Hannah and Emily entered the facility in 1865? For more on this question, see a great website called The Workhouse: The Story of an Institution, created by someone after learning that his great grandfather had died in a British workhouse.

Here is what the Macclesfield workhouse looks like now, having been converted into apartments.

On March 18, 1865, about three weeks after Hannah and Emily entered the workhouse, the three boys were admitted, due to the absence of their father.  John's absence is confirmed by a passenger list that has him arriving in New York on March 29.  Since transatlantic crossings at that time took about 10 days, he would have sailed from Liverpool around March 19.  It seems irresponsible and uncaring for John to have left his wife and family in such circumstances.  But perhaps there were considerations that we will never know or understand.

Two days after John's arrival in New York, Hannah was transferred from the workhouse to the lunatic asylum. About two weeks after that she was buried at Christ Church.  The boys (ages 4, 6, and 10) spent the next year and a half in the workhouse.  The youngest, James, was to be my great grandfather.  In November, 1866, the three were removed by family members from the workhouse and put aboard the steamship S.S. Hecla, bound for America.

The boys arrived in New York two days before Christmas.  Presumably their father was there to meet them.  Poor Emily, left behind, did not fare as well.  She was taken out of the workhouse, but was dead by the age of six.

Below is a table summarizing the events I have described thus far:

The next chapter in the Ainsworth saga begins in Fall River, presumably in 1866. An 1870 census shows John living in Fall River with his second wife Elizabeth and sons Frank and James.  John seems to have been steadily employed in Fall River, first relying on his weaving skills, then becoming a tin peddler.  Tin peddlers usually went door-to-door, but from 1884 until his death in 1891 he is listed as doing business at a location in the heart of the city's commercial district at 121 South Main Street. In the view below, looking north towards the old city hall, John's shop would have been on the left.

John Ainsworth died of pneumonia at age 56 in 1891.  (The obituary has his age as 55, but that is not correct.)

Elizabeth remarried twice before her death in 1908.  John and Elizabeth are buried in the family plot at Oak Grove Cemetery in Fall River, along with Elizabeth's second husband Thomas Wootton, his first wife Hannah, Frank, my great grandparents James and his wife Jeanette, and several members of later generations.

Frank and James both have living descendants.  An online search for Thomas Antrobus Ainsworth fails to produce any results.  Perhaps Thomas stopped using his uncommon middle name after coming to America.  I have found some Thomas Ainsworths, but no proof of a match with the Thomas described here.