Saturday, January 17, 2009

Welcome to my Hubberstey / Hubbersty family history blog

I am a Hubberstey currently living in Canada. My father was born in Bolton, as was my grandfather. Farther back our family line traces to the Samlesbury area near Blackburn/Preston.

Over the last year or so I have spent a fair bit of time researching everything I could find on Hubberstey history. It has been a bit like doing a massive jigsaw puzzle as I try to fit hundreds of pieces together to get a big picture of our common background. There are still many pieces missing, but overall I think we still have a very good picture of where we have come from.

This blog is a collection of the information that I have uncovered. There have been more than 25 posts in total, and several of the posts have been rewritten as I have come across new information.


In a nutshell here is what I have found:

Back in the 1500's and 1600's there were several clusters of Hubbersteys found around Kendal, Lancaster, Garstang, and Yealand Conyers, as well as a few entries elsewhere (London). Over those years there were many spelling variations ranging from Hubberstey to Hubberstei to Huberche. Eventually however it looks as if the spelling "Hubberstey" was used by Catholics and "Hubbersty" by Protestants. There were a few well known Quakers as well.

According to the English Surname Dictionary:
This unusual and interesting name is of English origin, and is locational from a now so called "lost" village near Cockerham, Lancashire. It is the genetive form of the Olde English pre 7th Century female personal name "Hunberg" of uncertain origin and the Olde English word for an enclosure, "tiege", thus "Hunbergs settlement".

By the late 1700's several of these clusters had disappeared, likely because of the problems that Catholics had at the time. Most of the remaining Hubbersteys were clustered in an area near north Preston, an area known to have been safe for Catholics. There were also still 2 lines of Hubberstys emanating out of the Kendal area.

Using census data and what church records I could find on line I set about tracing every Hubberstey I could find to see if I could draw out a common history. What I found was quite surprising, or at least I think so.

Almost all Hubbersteys (and Hubberstys) alive today can trace their lines back to the late 1700's along perhaps 5 and possibly as few as 2 lines from the Preston/Blackburn area. This includes all the Hubbersteys that I have found living outside of England. I'd say that is a pretty "tight" history, making all of us relatively closely related.

I should also note that the original 2 "Hubbersty" lines (Protestant) coming out of Kendal, that I detail in a couple of posts, seem to have slowly disappeared over the last 100 years. My last record for these lines was in 1958 although of course there may still be members out there that I have not yet found.

On this blog I have tried to document much of what I have found. It can be a bit confusing at first as there are a number of different lines and so many of the first names (especially for males) are the same. If you would like some help navigating these pages please send me an e-mail and I will do whatever I can to point you in the right direction. I can also quite possibly send you a personal family tree from the database that I have put together.

I would also love to hear from anyone that may have additional information to share. My e-mail is chrishubberstey@gmail.com

A list of all the current posts is HERE

The newest post - on the 1911 census is HERE. I have put together an alphabetical list of all the Hubbersteys in the British census of 1911 as well as their birth years and the line of Hubberstey from which I think they are descended. If you can find an ancestor on this list, then it is very easy to trace further back.

For a quick overview of the research and findings - Click Here

Short Update: I have been slowly trying to tie in all current Hubbersteys back to their respective lines. I am almost there! Once that is done I will be rewriting this blog to put it in a more organized format that takes account off all the new information that I have found since I started. That should happen sometime in the Fall of 2009. Suffice to say that it looks like all Hubbersteys can be traced to just 2 lines, which to me has been the most amazing finding I have come up with.

Enjoy!

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