I am researching my ancestors and have gone back as far as 1808 with James Hawkard who was born that year. He married Alice Mills at St Chads Church, Rochdale in 1831 and she was born in 1810. Since that date I have been very successful in tracing ancestors but I hit a brick wall at this point. James lived in the Littleborough area and worked in cotton mills eventually becoming the proprietor of Whitelees Mill at Littleborough. There are a number of relatives buried in the local churchyard with the surname Hawkard. Searching through records there are a good number of Hawkard's in the area but I cannot get back further. One of the problems is that the records for churches in Littleborough are not on line for that period as far as I can see.
When he married the spelling of his name was Halkyard. The 1841 census shows him as Hawkwood. The 1851 census and subsequent ones show it s Hawkard. Now we know spellings as well as years of birth were variable to say the least. Also there is a story that he was the son of a doctor from Ripponden, Yorkshire who fell out with his father and moved to the Rochdale area and changed some of the letters in his surname. How do I check the register of medical practitioners for that period?
Can anyone help me get past this brick wall...