Family Narratives
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The four main branches of the Family Tree derive from my own and my wife's parents and therefore the "Key Families" are the Parker; McGann; Strettle; and Morgan families. From these families a total of 83 family names cascade backwards (if that's possible!).
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The full inter-relationship of the families and their individual family members may be viewed in the Family Pedigrees, these pages linked from here provide a narrative family history of the key families (and their "feeders").
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The Parker Family
The Parker ancestral line that has been verified in our family tree extends back over 300 years and for 11 generations, although one of the associated branches extends back close on 400 years and over 13 generations! The Parkers have not strayed far in this time, moving around the Leyland / Longton area for some 150 years and then spending the last 150 years in Chorley and district – travelling about 15 miles in 300 years!!
In the Leyland / Longton years the Parkers were tenant farmers, evidently of some substance locally without ever approaching “being prominent”. The Chorley years saw the Parkers very much as manual workers.
The family tree includes an Irish branch which has proved impossible to trace in Ireland despite knowing where some of the families originated from - this research goes on!
Other family names that figure in the Parker family tree are:
Baxendine / Beardsworth / Bibby / Blackburn / Bradshaw / Brannen / Bridge / Calderbank / Chisnall / Crook / Cross /
Deakin/Deacon / Dickinson / Doherty / Dunleavy / Farington / Fidler / Foster / Foy / Gore / Holding / Howcroft /
Jackson / Knoll / Mawdesley / Okenshaw / Rigby / Rotchet / Sharples / Sumner / Taylor / Thornley / Turner / Walmesly /
Walton / Woods
link to Parker Family narrative history
The McGann Family
The McGann family and all their "feeder" families are rooted in Ireland, and the ancestral line that has been verified in the family tree extends back to the early 19th century and for 6 generations.... Little is known of the Irish hometowns of these ancestors - indeed only one specific hometown is known (Tullamore, Co Offaly) and therefore only one family group (the Grogans) has had its Irish antecedents researched in detail...... hopefully our ongoing research will give us some more Irish leads!
The McGanns (and all other branches) have been manual workers since their emigration to England - the Grogans were peasant farmers in Ireland.
Other family names that figure in the McGann family tree are:
Burke / Delaney / Dyer / Garvey / Grogan / Hensey / Logan / McDonnough / Quinn
link to McGann Family narrative history
The Strettle Family
The Strettle ancestral line that has been verified in our family tree extends back over 400 years and for 11 generations..... In that time this branch of the Strettle family have lived in North Cheshire (for 150 or so years); South West Lancashire (70 years) and then Preston (190 years) – moving a fair distance for a “normal” family. The surname has commonly been spelt as both Strettle and Strettell over time and both spellings (and others!) have been found in the family tree. In the "pre-Preston" days the Strettles were primarily tenant farmers, the Preston era has seen the family primarily as manual workers.
The first real documentary evidence of the Strettell family as a dynasty is in Mobberley, Cheshire around 1600, although the origins of the family lie in Normandy with the supposed ancestral line traced back to Gilbert de Venables, a knight who arrived with the Conqueror in 1066 and who was created Baron of Kinderton and granted lands in Cheshire following the subjugation of the local populace. Our ancestral line is verified back to the early-17th Century “Mobberley Strettells”. Further researches are necessary to try to "prove" the link back to Norman times!
Other family names that figure in the Strettle family tree are:
Abbott / Breck / Cocker / Cooper / Darwin / Fairist / Fazackerley / Ford / Gornall / Hunt / Myerscough / Orred / Parker /
Pound / Prescott / Procter / Robinson / Runcorn / Ward
link to Strettle Family narrative history
The Morgan Family
The Morgan ancestral line that has been verified in our family tree extends back over 220 years and for 8 generations, although one of the associated branches extends back over 350 years and over 12 generations! Whilst the Morgan’s have been rooted in Preston from the earliest research, other branches of the family have descended on Preston primarily from the Lancaster area, Chester, and Westmorland.
All branches of the family have basically been manual workers over the years.
Other family names that figure in the Morgan family tree are:
Ball / Birkenhead / Connell / Drape / Hardacre / Horne / Howard / Langhorn / Lawe / May / Nicholson / Parker /
Robinson / Simpson / Smith / Taylor / Vickers / Wharton / Whiteside