Mary Finch (1900-1973)

I have been spending time recently (a lot of time) on the children of Richard Finch and for some of them this has at times been a little speculative although I have received some very useful information from a member of the wider family. My thanks for that!

The problem comes with the daughters of Richard Finch as we always have to find the correct husband for daughters and Finch can be a ‘popular’name in Wigan and Standish and not all people called “Finch” are related to this Finch family. I became a little obsessed with Mary Finch (b 1900) and what happened to her but when did she die?

I was puzzled by a Mary Finch in the Burnley cemetery buried March 1 1973 (A12655). and wondered if this could be the daughter of Richard and Nancy Jane (nee Howarth). The aged certainly seemed correct although it takes a little more than a ‘blunt’ age to ascribe parentage. There was a need to cross reference the occupant of the grave to the family to make a positive match but how to do that.

The grave number (A12655) seemed the best way to do that and thanks to the OPC project, I was able to look at the grave number for Mary Finch and cross reference that against other members of the family in Burnley. That seems to have done the trick because the other occupant is none other that Nancy Jane herself buried December 8 1917 in grave A12655. It seems that either other people had suggested- post mortem-that Mary may be buried with her own mother or Mary may have made a stipulation that she be buried with her own mother.

Is this attribution co-incidence? Well, yes it could be and I have to offer that as a possibility in the absence of documentary evidence and being at a distance but it is perhaps a little churlish to deny that the Mary Finch buried in 1973 is not the daughter of Nancy Jane. The idea of Mary being buried in the same grave as her mother seems right and proper and an idea that we should nurture rather than discount.

So, Mary Finch is accounted for and ‘gathered in’ and we know what happened to her and Mary and Nancy Jane Finch are buried alongside Rose Lilian Finch who died in 1920. The same is not true of Mary’s sister - Nancy Jane Finch – and we will have to work to find her resting place as she is not in the cemetery at Burnley.