As a family historian I was hoping that at some point I would find a significant historical figure in my family. Early on in my research I came across a possible link into the Fairfax family who had risen to significance during the English Civil War. On further investigation it proved incorrect as there were two Henrie Arthington’s living in the old West Riding of Yorkshire during the 17^th century. The first Henrie Arthington (1616/7-1681) was baptised on the 2 January 1616/7 in St John the Baptists Church in Adel; his parents were William and Ann Tancred. Arthington is also a place within the parish of Adel and Arthington Hall was the seat of the Arthington family from 13^th to 18^th century. Henrie married Mary Fairfax (1616-1678) in 1638; Mary’s father was Ferdinando Fairfax (1584-1648) who was on the side of the parliamentarians in the Civil War and was at Marston Moor. The second Henrie Arthington (1605-1656/7) was my 10^th great grandfather and he was buried in Gargrave on 19 January 1656/7. Gargrave is near Skipton in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Henrie married Elizabeth Shaw and I am descended from their son William (1630-1670) – see the following chart.

I have a copy of the transcribed Gargrave Parish Records for the period 1558-1812 which include quite a lot of records for members of the Arthington family, some of which I’ve been unable to link to my own family. For example, the register records on 10 April 1637 an agreement that the vicar and churchwardens had come to over the pew rights of Richard Arthington and that “Henrie Currar is contented to suffer the said Richard Arthington to sitt in (the pew) during his natural life”. If anyone else has been able to link together more of these Arthington records then do please contact me.

Turning then to another landed gentry family, the Waterhouses, it seems likely that there are connections between them and my ancestors. My first clue came when I eventually found the baptism for Bridget Waterhouse in the Braithwell parish register. Braithwell is in the West Riding of Yorkshire and Bridget had been baptised on 6 October 1635 with her father recorded as Charles, gent. Bridget married Thomas South (1629-1685) on 30 April 1655 in Braithwell and they are my 9^th great grandparents.

 

Bridget’s father Charles proved more difficult to find until I found a reference to Charles in the pedigree of the Waterhouse family of Braithwell (near Halifax) reproduced in Joseph Hunter’s history of South Yorkshire. Charles was one of Thomas Waterhouse and Dorothy Vincent’s younger sons and his baptism was recorded in 1580 in the Braithwell parish registers; the registers can be found on Family Search. Thomas and Dorothy had married in 1573 and the lands of the Vincent family at Braithwell passed to Dorothy, the daughter and heir of Thomas Vincent, and thus her husband Thomas Waterhouse. Very little information could be found for Charles, although he does seem to have received an inheritance when his father died. The estates at Braithwell went to his elder brother Vincent and were passed to his descendants.

Charles’s father Thomas (1547-1598) is descended from the Waterhouse family of Halifax whose pedigree is recorded in Foster’s Yorkshire families and can be traced back to Sir Gilbert Waterhouse (1275-1340). Thomas’s grandfather was Robert Waterhouse (1500-1581) of both Moot Hall and Shibden Hall which his wife Sibil’s (1500-1588) grandfather William Otes had owned. Shibden Hall dates from the early 15^th century and was owned by the Savile and Waterhouse families before the Lister family. One of the Lister families descendants was Anne Lister, also known as ‘Gentleman Jack’.

Returning now to Bridget Waterhouse and her husband Thomas South, after their marriage they continued to live in Micklebring near Braithwell and had at least 10 children: eight boys and two girls. Three of their children died young and no marriages could be found for any of their siblings in the Braithwell parish register. It seems that some family members did marry in the nearby parish of Conisbrough. Thomas’s burial record in the Braithwell parish register records that an affidavit was sworn indicating that he had been buried in a woollen shroud. Thomas and Bridget’s son Samuel (1677/78-1729) is my 8^th great grandfather. The family chart shows Thomas and Bridget and their children.

I am interested in knowing more about the South family as I have not been able to trace all of Thomas and Bridget’s children. Do contact me if you know more about them.

Note: the map used in this blog has been reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland under the following creative commons licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ and sourced from the NLS maps site https://maps.nls.uk/.

Bibliography:

Adel, West Riding of Yorkshire. https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/WRY/Adel : accessed July 2020.

Braithwell, West Riding of Yorkshire. https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/WRY/Braithwell : accessed July 2020.

Braithwell, West Riding of Yorkshire. https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/11657 : accessed July 2020.

Burke’s Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland. https://www.ancestry.co.uk : accessed July 2020.

Clay, John W. ed. (1895) Familiae Minorum Gentium. London: The Harleian Society. Vol III. pp. 844-850. https://archive.org/ : accessed July 2020.

Foster, Joseph. (1874) Pedigrees of the County Families of Yorkshire: West Riding. London: W Wilfred Head. Vol II. https://archive.org/ : accessed July 2020.

Hunter, Rev Joseph.  (1828) South Yorkshire. London: Hunter. Vol II pp. 130-135.

Gargrave, West Riding of Yorkshire. https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/WRY/Gargrave : accessed July 2020.

OS Maps. https://maps.nls.uk/ : accessed July 2020.

Turner, J. Horsfall. (1883) Biographica Halifaxensis. Bingley: T Harrison. Vol I. pp. 274-276. https://archive.org/ : accessed July 2020.

Turner, J. Horsfall. (1911) The Coats of Arms of the Nobility and Gentry of Yorkshire. Idle: John Wade. https://archive.org/ : accessed July 2020.