Family history

I have a long standing interest in family history and have gathered a lot of information in the course of my research.

Initially, this site includes:

details of my primary areas of surname interest.

a number of articles and papers I have written to date about family members and historical contexts that might be of interest to a wider audience.

If you want any further details on anything you see here please contact me.

Surname Interests

My main research interests are:

	Location & Period
AINLEY	Yorkshire (Saddleworth, Delph) - pre 1850
BOULTON	Yorkshire (Any, but especially Malton) - pre 1850
BRIEN	Kent - pre 1850
GALE	Yorkshire (Scruton) - from 1100
HARLE	Yorkshire (Leeds/York) - from 1800 onwards; (Newcastle) - pre 1800
HIRST	Yorkshire (Huddersfield) - pre 1800; (Leeds & Gommersal) - from 1800
LeGRYS	Any - (especially Norfolk) - any period
RID(E)OUT	Dorset - pre 185)
ROBERTS	Yorkshire (Leeds) - before 1800
STANLEY	Kent - pre 1850
SWANSON	Scotland - pre 1850
TATHAM	Yorkshire (especially, West Witton & Leeds) - from 1600 onwards
WILKINSON	Yorkshire (Armley, Leeds) - pre 1850

If any of these names and locations match with your interests please get in touch

Articles and Papers

William Hirst (1777-1858) - 'Father of the Yorkshire Woollen Trade'

Find out about an important figure in the industrial history of Leeds and the wider community:

	Part 1 - The Rise of William Hirst (published in the Leeds History Journal vol. 5 (3/2005)
	Part 2 - The fall of William Hirst (published in the Leeds History Journal vol. 6 (8/2005)

You can find more information about the Leeds History Journal here.

William Hirst was featured in the BBC 4 Radio programme 'Making History' in January 2005, click here for further details

The role of the Royal Flying Corps Observer in World War 1.

This article pieces together the limited information I have of my grandfather's experiences during WW 1 and tries to set it into context with background research. Like many combatants he did not talk much about this period of his life, and finding out more about what was typically endured it is easy to see why.

Harle family

I have written up the history of my Harle ancestors from my research to date (it has taken 5 years on and off just to write it so far!). The paper which is included here also covers the deriviation of the Harle surname as I understand it (please get in touch if you know different!). All references to living persons have been omitted from this version.