The Research

After years of research I decided to put some of the family history findings online and will leave the boxes of paper in the loft. Much of the research has been through various family history sites but also including birth, marriage and death certificates, and some historic books and newspaper articles.

The research has focused on 4 branches of the family, Machan, Tibbot & Rowden & Harrogate, Robertson & Duncan, and the Usher and Hawksfield families.

I grew up in Nprth Yorkshire and spent time in the places many of my ancestors lived. Some places would be recognisable today, others changed completely. One site I grew up with was the view from Redcar to the Blast Furnace, but in recent years even that image is resigned to the archives and memories.

It all started when the 1901 census was published and I wanted to find out the real name of my grandmother Daisy who was born in 1900 somewhere in Wales. That was the only knowledge we had at the time. She had gone through life not knowing her real surname, had never seen a birth certificate and I remember a holiday to North Wales when I was 7 or 8 and driving around to see if anything rang a bell or jogged a memory. 

So how did I find that her maiden name was Tibbot? 

Searches for siblings knowing she had an older sister (Lilian) and brother (Bert).  This one break through opened a whole family that was unknown about. After now 22-years the mystery is still only part solved as through research for every answer another question is often asked.  The reason why Joseph Tibbot (Daisy's father) disappeared from the family, although he died 35-years later, and why Laura Loiusa Tibbot (nee Rowden) left with Joseph Harrogate.

Along the way other sides of the family have thrown up their fair share of mysteries. My great great grandfather thoght lost at sea off Hartlepool, recorded in accounts as Charles Usher but the Whitby Gazette ran an article with his real name William and the link to his father. In 2023, this was proven to be an error in the Whitby Gazette. The Charles Usher lost at sea was really Charles Usher and not William. William had died two years earlier of a heart attack on a boat, but docked at South Shields. 

Or, the mystery around newspaper articles and the split of Christopher Machan from his wife and then serving 6-months in prison for feloniously wounding someone in a drunken rage. 

The level of any research will start to identify such skeletons and through the research in my family alone we have bigamy, prison, heraldry, disappearances, and accidents.  As you open one door another closes but equally there are other choices to be made.  Assumptions are made and some are substantiated years later where others remain not fully qualified. My mother yearns for the day I find concrete proof she is descended from Robert the Bruce.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE MAIN PAGES HAVE QUITE A FEW IMAGES SO LOADING TIMES MAY BE A BIT LONGER