Saturday, January 18, 2014

Family History Research on The Hurt Family

This weekend, I've been doing family history research from my mothers side of the family. Her fathers side had the family names Bird (paternal) and Hurt (maternal) and her mother's side had the family names Thawley (paternal) and Baker (maternal).
 
I have been tracing the Hurt family, which are possible descendants of  Henry II and distant relation to the author Enid Blyton. Our family was from Staffordshire, England and I'm tracing them back to the Hurts who left to marry prominent families in Derbyshire, England.
 
On a Who Do You Think You Are message board for John Hurt's episode, I saw this posting by Siann Hurt, who is on a similar family history mission to find the same descendant family trees;
 
I find the Hurts fascinating, doesn't mean it will make good viewing for the general public. However, I wonder if I may be allowed to briefly explain about the Hurts of Derbyshire. They are considered to be one of Derbyshire's most notable families, being wealthy lead merchants and iron manufacturers. They were also Magistrates, Justices of the Peace, Lieutenants of Derbyshire, Sheriffs of Derbyshire and held high rank in the Army. They married into other notable Derbyshire families such as the Arkwrights and the Sitwells of Renishaw Hall.

Three books have been written about the family: The Hurts of Derbyshire by Derek Wain; The Hurts of Haldworth and the Lords of Alderwasley Manor.

The Derbyshire County Records Office holds published pedigrees of this family and they show that this particular branch of the Hurts are descendants of Henry II.

The Hurts lived in grand country mansions such as Reinshaw Hall, Alderwasley Hall, Alderwasley near Matlock; Castern Hall near Dovedale and The Green Hall, Ashbourne.

I am reliably informed by a descendant of this family that the Hurts were constantly offered titles by the Crown, which they refused, having to pay considerable fines for declining.

There is also a Hotel on the A6 in Ambergate, Derbyshire called "The Hurt Arms" after this family.

Finally, several generations of Hurts were Sheriff of Nottingham in the 16th century but, to date, I have found no connection between the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Hurts.

Of course, people who don't live in Derbyshire would not know any of the above, so I thank you for your time reading this lengthy ramble and allowing me to explain my interest.

For 18 years Chris (my husband ) and I lived in the parish of Heage and Ambergate (adjacent to Alderwasley parish) which was "Hurt country" and our house was built on land once owned by the Hurts of Alderwasley. The deeds of our house were full of references to the Hurts. We currently live about 9
miles from Alderwasley Hall and although this branch of the Hurts are long gone from there, the family are still held in high esteem by older generations in this area. Despite being a Hurt by marriage, I am very proud of my Hurt surname!

I have been carrying out a One Name Study of the Hurts for the past 8 years and for 19 years have been trying to locate the origins of William Hurt, born around 1650, who appeared in Eakring, Nottinghamshire on 5th May 1674 when he married Ann Brocklehurst. He appears to have been a man of means, as mentioned in previous posts on this forum - so I will not repeat that. I would be absolutely thrilled to link my husband's Hurt ancestors to the Lords of Alderwasley Manor - that would be the icing on the cake, but even if no connection is ever made, we are still very proud of our Hurt roots so far discovered (and also to count John Hurt and Enid Blyton as distant cousins).

Thank you for reading this

Siann Hurt
Co-Ordinator
Hurt One Name Study
 
Casterne Hall
 Castern Hall
 
Renishaw Hall, Derbyshire
Reinshaw Hall. Photo taken by Kevin Sinclair.
 
Alderwalsey Hall is now a school.
 
 
Isn't that fascinating? So far I have traced back to Joseph Hurt 1750-1798 and his wife Ann. His descendants for over 300 years were framework knitters who were part of the East Midlands knitting industry. The family moved to Alberdare, Wales between the 1850's and 1900's, all the way to my mother's paternal grandmother Betty May Hurt, who in her lifetime moved back to Staffordshire.
 
We'll keep looking back, as well as deeper into the lives on the family tree to learn a lot more.
 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for posting your search for the surname "Hurt". I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post. I too am a "Hurt", direct line. I live in the U.S. and unfortunately cannot go beyond the mid 1700's without any definite proof of my Hurt line. I hope you have better luck than I. Janet

Hurtt said...

You would think with the advantage of DNA someone with considerable knowledge in the field would be able to connect the families. Interesting My g2x great grandfather Samuel Hurt was born in 1818 in Eakring, Notts. He immigrated to Ontario in the 1830’s and finally to North Dakota, USA where generations still live. Samuel kept in contact with his two brothers William and Francis who remained in England...all lived to old age.

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