Although I generally refer to this family as Holden, because that is the form in which I first met them, the 19th century censuses suggest that they used the Holden/Holding forms fairly indiscriminately and the same person may switch from one spelling to the other. My 3g-grandparents were Charles Holden born in Tottington about 1805 and his wife Sarah also from Tottington. Charles had a brother Henry who was about 20 years younger and lived with Charles's household in 1841 and 1851. The name is quite common but the following is a tentative outline. Charles and Sarah had at least 11 children:

• John 1826 m Mally/Mary [my 2g-grandfather]
• Edward/Edmund 1829-1888 (m Nancy Haworth)
• William 1831 (m Sophia)
• James 1833 (m1 Ann, m2 Mary)
• Ellen 1835 (m John Marsh)
• Thomas 1835
• Maria 1839
• Jesse 1841
• Charles 1843
• Mary 1845
• Sarah 1848

Most of the people above appear on either the 1841 or 1851 censuses near Tottington village. John and Mally had 4 children:

• Sarah Alice 1853 (m Richard ETHERINGTON) [my great grandmother, see under ETHERINGTON]
• Maria 1854
• Thomas 1857 (m Mary GRIMSHAW). Thomas and Mary had 6 children:
  • John 1879
  • Rebecca 1881
  • Mary Jane 1882
  • Sarah Ann 1884
  • Thomas William 1887
  • Charles Edward 1889
• William 1860

Edward HOLDEN (who often appears as Edmund) and Nancy Haworth had 10 children:

• William 1856
• John 1858 (m1 Rhoda Jane issue Ethel; m2 Elizabeth)
• Charles 1859
• Betsy 1861 - 1903 [buried with parents at Tottington St Anne]
• Sarah 1862 [like the following Sarah was born at Hawkshaw Lane]
• Albert 1866
• Ellen 1868
• Edmund 1871
• James 1873
• Jesse 1876

William and Sophia had a daughter Eliza Ellen b 1875

James married twice and had 5 children by Ann and another (Fred) by Mary:-

• Sarah 1857
• Samuel 1859
• James 1862
• Anne 1864
• Selina/Eleanor 1869 [baptised St John Free Church of England]
• Fred 1876

Ellen Holden m John Marsh and they had a daughter Elizabeth MARSH. In the 1871 census Elizabeth is living with her maternal grandfather and in 1881 in the household of 3 unmarried Holden uncles.