Huxley a small rural village in Cheshire England. I got to visit it while I was back packing in England in my younger years. There was not much there but this Australian city boy was interested in getting some sort of feeling for that country life might be have been like.
The old lady in the middle is Sarah Huxley one of my grand mothers. I never got to meet her but from the stories my Dad and Mum used to tell she was very nice. She had 8 children, other than my Dad, I only remember meeting two of them. My father was the youngest of the 8 and is not in this photo as he and mum were trying there luck on the other side of the world in Australia. I get a bit confused with all the names and faces but Mum loves to correct me and make sure I get them right, My mum really misses the big family and all the connections back in there in England. I have got to visit a few times but it is just something I have never really known, beening in a big family, being born and growing up so far away. The first time I visited I really enjoyed piecing together lots of the family history. I was interested to learn about peoples surnames, what they meant and how they originated. For example "Smith" came from being to the blacksmith of a town. Huxley was a place name so people that lived in and around the village Huxley became known as "Thomas of Huxley" that was a long, long time ago and eventually it was shortened to Thomas Huxley. Every generation you go back in your history, the more and more names appear in your tree.
Anyway Huxley is quite rare and the theory being it might be possible to link my Grand mother Sarah all the way back to the same village of Huxley in the English Cheshire country side. At the time I definitely keen to see that I would find and learn a bit of the area and my history.
Unfortunately with a limited time and budget, I only got a few generation back before there were too many possible matches to it seems everyone liked to name there children John or Thomas back in the late 1700s and early 1800s but all of the possibilities did in fact come from in and around the Cheshire district in England. The family history experts say that people did not move that far in those times, usually just the next village or two to find work and or marry. It all makes a lot of sense so there is a good chance that if I could piece together all the old church records of Cheshire that my Huxley blood line would mostly likely come from someone living nearby this little village.
It appears that the Original Male family line of the Huxley land owners which got its name after the Norman conquest of 1066 died out but obviously the name of all the other locals still went on. I found it an interesting to delve a little deeper into this section of my family tree even though I could not successfully piece it all together.
Thumb nail and background photos from unsplashed.
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