Ancestry adds Lancashire, England, Quarter Session Records and Petitions, 1648-1908

There are 1,218,050 records in this new database on Ancestry described as:

"document(ing) Quarter Session judges’ decisions in matters that include settlement inquiries, highway rates, criminal trials, registers of settlement, orders of removal, bastardy examinations, apprenticeships, licensing, contracts, lists of justices, payments for services rendered to the county, and other documents related to the business of the running of the county."

Although some documents cover multiple pages most I found were entries of a single or just a few lines. Checking my favourite name, Northwood, there were two entries, both at Salford; "an inquisition taken at Collyhurst the 25th day of September (1819) on view of the body of Mary Northwood who was casually killed by a coach" and a single line accounting of costs associated with an inquest on Benjamin Northwood on the 20th of May 1868.

The records are sourced from the Lancashire Record Office.