Ainscough

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Ainscough (Ayscough/Askew/Ascough) - a Catholic family with origins in Lincolnshire, where, as Ayscough, they owned estates around Stallingborough and Bedale. Ayscoughfee Hall was a manor house reputed to have belonged to the family in the early part of the 16th Century. In the 15th Century the Ayscoughs had supported the Lancastrian side during the Wars of the Roses and later held posts at the Courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII. Sir William Ayscough of Stallingborough was knighted in 1513 during the reign of Henry VIII, his son Edward Ayscough was cup-bearer to Henry VIII, another son Sir Francis Ayscough was knighted "at the wining of Boulogne" and was Sheriff of Lincoln in 1545, 1549 and 1554. He is buried at St Mary's Church, South Kelsey, Lincolnshire. Anne Askew (Ayscough) Kyme (1521-1546), the English Protestant and persecuted heretic was also the daughter of Sir William and sister to Sir Edward and Sir Francis. Sir Isaac Newton is also from this family line, Hannah Ayscough being his mother and James Ascough born 1585, Ormskirk, Lancashire, his grandfather. It is speculated that James' father was John Ayscough b.1565, son of William Ayscough b.1542, son of Sir Francis Ayscough b: ABT 1509 of South Kelsey, Lincolnshire and Elizabeth Dighton b: ABT 1513 of Shurton.

The family participated in the Lincolnshire Rising in 1536, a Catholic uprising against Henry VIII of England, against the dissolution of the monasteries. Following this they lost their estates, and migrated west to Lancashire, where they settled in the area around Mawdesley, near Croston, bleak wastes in the 16thC, as Farmers and Millers. Branches of the family developed around Blackrod, and by the 19thC, across Lancashire. As industrialisation came to Lancashire, the women taking work in Cotton Mills and the men on the railways, particularly the L&YR and the LMS.

The Catholic tradition was maintained during the 300 years till religious tolerence eased in the nineteenth century, members of the family being charged with recusancy, as recorded in "Return of the Papists". Many became priests, most prominently Anthony Ainscough, Prior of Ampleforth College.

In 2006 several Ainscoughs featured in the Sunday Times Rich List.

Name variations include, as identified in Reaney's Dictionary of British Surnames: Ainscough, Ayscough, Ascough, Askew, Anscow, Askow, Ascow, Ascoe, Arscow Anescoe Aniscoe Anscow Ascoughe Aynstowe Askoes Asckoe Askoe Askowes Aynscow, Ainscowe and probably many mor, though it must be remembered that bearers of these names are not all necessarily descended from the family. Early records come from the Churches of Croston, Ormskirk and Standish in Lancashire. It is thought that the name is derived from the Norse words "ask skog". The o is pronouced as oo (food) even now in Norway and Sweden—thus Askoog, Old English (Old Norse) meaning ash tree / forest. Although other sources suggest that Aiskew is a corruption of the words "Eiki Skogr" translating to Oak Wood. In Medieval English the name was pronounced - Akeskeugh.

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Lancashire Ainscoughs

Whether the Lancashire Ainscoughs had their origins solely in the migration of members of a particular family from Lincolnshire, as the main article asserts, is an interesting debate. Some genealogical sources give the English-Scottish borders as the origin of the family, others claim Cumberland as the source. Given the various theories on the derivation of the name, it is possible that there were other, independent lineages with the same surname, and that Ainscoughs may have existed in Lancashire prior to the migration from Lincolnshire. Ralph Ainscough (b.1899 in Horwich) recorded his grandfather Ralph (b.1841 in Aspull) telling him that older generations of the Ainscoughs - e.g. William (b.1816 in Blackrod) had pronounced the name as “Ainsker”. There is some documentary evidence for this as William’s younger brother Charles (b.1818 in Blackrod) gave his name as “Insker” on moving to Staffordshire in the 1840s. Some Yorkshire names acquired an internal “n” when crossing the Pennines into Lancashire. “Ainsker” may well have originated as “Aisker” - which is not far removed from the Anglo-Saxon “Aiks keogh” or oak wood. Given the common nature of places as surname origins, it is possible that there was more than one distinct line with the same surname.

Evidence of origin from the International Genealogical Index (IGI) is mixed and inconclusive. The IGI itself is a valuable but flawed resource. The current online database - which I shall term “IGI 2” - contains records contributed by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), many of which are questionable. The original pass through Britain’s parish records by LDS members was free of personal contributions and was available on microfiches in such centres as the library of the Society of Genealogists. I shall term this database “IGI 1”. This original database excluded many Catholic records, owing to the reluctance of Catholic priests to allow their records being transcribed by the LDS. It also failed to record some nonconformist register entries. Given these caveats, an examination of the 1,623 records of Ainscoughs in Lancashire in the original IGI 1 shows that the earliest recorded event was the christening of Thomas Ainscough - son of John - on 27th April 1549 in Chorley. The next was the marriage of Kateryn Aynscow to John Brindill (Katherine Ainscough & John Brindle) on 17th January 1550 in the parish of Chorley. In the same year, on the 20th January and in the same parish, Richard Aynscow married “Jone Leeds”. John, Katherine and Richard may have been siblings and quite possibly were born in the 1520s. The records in IGI 1 are drawn almost exclusively from Anglican records, but these three Ainscoughs may well have come from the Lincolnshire connection.

The Catholicism or otherwise of the Lancashire Ainscoughs in general is also open to speculation. Prior to the Reformation, of course, all English people were Catholic by default. It seems clear that, while the Lincolnshire-based line maintained its Catholicism through the turbulent Reformation and Tudor religious periods and beyond, many other lines did not. Many Ainscoughs, for example, were baptised in the Anglican churches of St. Katherine in Blackrod, and St. Peter in Bolton-le-Moors (now modern Bolton). Wesleyan Methodism also appealed to many working-class people in the mid-19th century, who saw the Anglican church as a bastion of the upper, ruling class, and there were Wesleyan chapels in many towns - such as Chorley - in Lancashire - where Ainscoughs were married.

In the early 1800s, most male - and some female - Ainscoughs in the villages of Blackrod, Haigh, Aspull were coal miners. They started as drawers, pulling coal carts, at the age of ten (until this was stopped by legislation), graduating to miners at around the age of sixteen. The area was rich in cannel coal, a high-grade, rich but volatile coal, and many mines were on the estate of the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres who lived at Haigh Hall. All but one of the five sons of Ralph (b.1782 in Blackrod) were miners - and nearly all male descendants of these Ainscoughs were also miners, as censuses from 1841 to 1901 attest. In the 1850s and 1860s, some of the Ainscough miners moved further afield to Westhoughton, Pemberton, Hindley and Ince, with some members of their families going into the silk and cotton weaving industries.