Introduction
I dedicate this web site to my maternal grandmother Harriet Ellen Cheesbrough b. 2nd Sept. 1882 who, after the death of my grandfather, lived with my family for 25 years. It was only after her death that I realised I knew nothing about her heritage other than she had been born near Castleford, Yorkshire. It was for this reason that I started to trace my family tree.
This Web Page has been created to enable other researchers into the Cheesbrough family name to have access to the large amount of data and information I have collated. This is freely given by me in the hope that others will benefit and as a result will contribute the results of their own research so as to enhance the overall study and thereby increase the benefit to all fellow researchers.
When I decided to extend my own research into a full One Name Study I quickly realised that several spellings of the name existed. Because of this I decided to include all variants including Cheesebrough, Cheeseborough, Chesebrough and Cheesborough.
To save repeating these in the following pages I will use the title spelling for simplicity.
Freda Lawson, Leeds, England.
The Cheesbrough Name and its origins and meaning
Nearly all English surnames bear some significance to either the place of birth or employment of the holder. A search for that of Cheesbrough indicates it to be of English origin, probably a habitation name from an unidentified place and could be from Old English cis gravel + burk fortress town. A place is recorded dating to 1286 as Cheseburgh, Northumberland and now called Cheesburn. There is also a place called Chirbury in Shropshire dating to 1291 and now known as Ches(e)bury. Either of these may be the source of the Cheesbrough surname.
The earliest recorded source of the name appears in the Freemen of the City of York with two entries in the 16th century. Edwardus Cheseburgh was a baker in the City between 1526-7 and Henricus Cheysburgh was a blacksmith in 1537-9. Both these sources are before the eariest parish Church register entries.
Several different variations in the spelling of the name have been established, these include Cheesebrough, Cheesborough, Cheeseborough, Chesebrough, Cheseborough and Chesebro.
A study of more recent family history shows that the Cheesbrough surname is now found most commonly in Yorkshire. The earliest parish registers available to family historians indicates there to be several areas around which the name proliferated. The main area is indeed that around Rothwell near Wakefield and Leeds in the West Riding of Yorkshire and this area was found to be the birth place of the largest percentage of Cheesbrough births in the years immediately following the commencement of civil registration in 1837.
Other significant areas were also located from the early records these being in the towns of Well and Snape in North Yorkshire close to the boundary with County Durham, an area of Cumberland close to Penrith and around Boston in Lincolnshire. The earliest records date back to the latter part of the 16th century but regrettably it has not been possible to make direct links between the Cheesbroughs of these regions, albeit geographically they are not too distant.
Probably the best way in which to illustrate the distribution of the Cheesbrough name is by comparing the births in the period 1837 to 1859 by using the records of births at St. Catherine's House. These show that the overwhelming majority were recorded in the County of Yorkshire followed by Co. Durham and only a smattering in other counties of England. The following table illustrates this in a simple format.
Inevitably the Cheesbrough name was taken to other parts of the world with early emigrants from England. Most noticeable amongst these pioneers was William Chesebrough who was the first settler in the town of Stonington, Connecticut. He appears to be the founder member of a large dynasty of Chesebroughs in United States today.
One such descendant, Larry Chesebro has dedicated his web site to the study of the American families who descend from William and these can be found at the following:
Early history and descendants of
William Chesebrough of Boston Lincolnshire and Stonington, Mass.
Cheesbrough Distribution of Births 837-1859
Parish Locator Program for Windows
Very frequently we discover that our ancestors originate from an area of the British Isles with which we are unfamiliar. If we do not know the names of parishes or churches in the vicinity this can make researching difficult unless we consult reference books.
This is where Parish Locator can help you. We have created a database of almost 25,000 parishes and churches throughout England, Scotland and Wales. From the full listing you are able to select a 'Home' parish around which you need to identify other churches. You can enter a distance in either miles or kilometers from the 'Home' parish and request a listing of all such churches from the database within that radius.
The listing may be printed or saved to file. This shows the names of the churches within the specified radius along with the County code and National Grid Ordnance Reference. In addition the distance from the 'Home' church and the direction from it are shown.
Parish Locator will run on a PC running Windows 95 or above. This new version published in January 2001 has been extended by around 10,000 additional churches and has been enhanced by showing the years between which records are known to exist and included in the Vital Parish Records as cataloged by the LDS. Also new to this version are the facilities to search by a part name or by County or Ordnance Reference number.
Full help facilities are included and the program may be uninstalled via Windows Add/Remove Program. This software is Freeware and so may be passed on to anyone provided payment is not charged and all files are included.
The program is available as a compressed Zip file. Please click on the link to download the files which are approx. 6.3mb.
Download Parish Locator
If you need to know the Poor Law Union that a particular parish came under then have a look at Mary Hallett's database
click here.
