The Farndale Family Website
The history and genealogy of the Farndale family
Farmers, pioneers and soldiers
Over two thousand years of British History told through the story of a single family
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The Farndale Directory is a listing of all Farndales linked to their individual web pages |
Various themes associated with the Farndale history and relevant social history |
Historical narratives and chronologies |
Particular branches of the family tree A direct link to separate individual Farndale Lines within the wider family |
This page provides information about research methodology |
General
Sir Martin Farndale KCB Biographical notes about the originator of this research |
This page provides links to genealogies of other related families (including and Bakers, Halls) |
Welcome to the website of the history of
the Farndale family
The Farndales of Tidkinhow 1910 Joseph Farndale 1842 to 1901, Chief Constable of Birmingham The Coat of Arms of General Sir Martin Farndale KCB The Coat of Arms of Joseph Farndale CBE KPM
1929 to 2000 1864 to 1954, Chief Constable of Bradford
(John, James, Alfred, William, George, Martin (inset)) Dictum meum pactum (“His word is his bond”) Vigilantibus (“Vigilant or “Watching”)
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Introduction to this
website The purpose of this web site is to make available genealogical and historical information about the Farndale Family. This website is the culmination of work started by Martin Farndale in 1956 and continued by his son Richard since 2000. General
Sir Martin Farndale KCB died in May 2000. During his lifetime, he carried
out extensive research into the Farndale family history. This website has
been compiled by his son, Richard Farndale and continues this research which
is made available to anyone who may be interested. The site was first
published on 6 November 2001, and after a few years off line, was
re-published from March 2019. After nearly 75 years of
work over two generations, the genealogy is aspiring to be a uniquely
thorough genealogy of a non aristocratic British family, tracing the family
origins back to the Norman Conquest and beyond and comprising a historical
record of a single wider family. Work continues but the site already provides
significant depth and detail. What makes this record unique is the thorough
research by Martin and collation of a wide breath of direct family records
and recollections, which can now be enhanced by twenty first century search
methods. The
Farndales descend from the folk who made up the engine room of British
history. For the bulk of such families, it is generally very difficult to go
back in time much beyond about 1500. However the Farndales are privileged to
have a locative name, which is rooted to a place. What is more that place is
a relatively small, rural valley in North Yorkshire, which provides a
uniqueness which helps research of early medieval records. The name therefore
provides a unique beacon which makes navigating the medieval sources a
possibility. This has made it possible to find significant records of
individuals back to the fourteenth century.
We are extraordinarily privileged to be able to see back that far.
If your surname is Farndale, or if you
are descended from Farndales, then this website will provide you with
information about your ancestry. We are lucky because our surname is that of
a family small enough, that we can all trace our family history together. |
The best way to view
this site Whilst you
can view this site on a mobile or tablet, it is primarily intended for use on
a PC. This is because the site is intended for the provision of detailed
information, more suited to the larger format of a PC. However, it does work
quite well on a tablet, such as an ipad. On an iphone it may sometimes tend
to be distorted with text not always aligning, though you can generally read
text and it should work ok with an iphone too. Your interest in the
site This site
is relevant to those whose name is Farndale, or who know they are descended
from Farndales. If this describes you, then you should be able to discover a
lot of information about your ancestors. If you have information which you
can share, please help me by getting in touch. If you have an interest
in Farndale family history and particularly the information provided here: ·
First please tell other Farndales (your cousins and other
relatives) about the site. ·
Second, please contact me by email to rcfarndale@hotmail.com. This will
encourage me to develop the research. It is
hoped that anyone able to provide more information about the Farndale family
history, will e-mail Richard Farndale at rcfarndale@hotmail.com, so
that I can develop the available information and make corrections where you
can point those out to me. What you will find when
you explore this website This
website assists those who are a part of the wider Farndale family, or
otherwise linked to it, to gain a greater understanding of their history and
ancestral origins. It provides vertical context to enable you to trace back
your ancestry through time directly, and then beyond that to medieval
records. It provides horizontal context by providing information about the
wider family of which you are a part. The
website records the many achievements, struggles, lives and relationships
within our family over the centuries. Each individual Farndale has his or her
own webpage. Some have enjoyed full lives and collectively the descendants of
the medieval and early Farndales such as Nicholas
have a rich
history of accomplishment. Others have struggled, such as those who moved
from the country to settle in the town of Whitby, some depending on Poor
Law support. Some died very young, or at birth. Each has his or her own page,
so that each member of our family is recorded for their life and role in
society. The intention is that every historic Farndale will have a place on
this website. Although
in the Twenty First Century, the family has diverse and broad interests, we
can perhaps summarise the historic Farndales, as farmers, pioneers and soldiers, with many also taking to the sea, working in ironstone mines in Cleveland and in many
other occupations. Personal
Information
I do not wish to record
detailed information about living Farndales unless I know that you are happy
for me to do so. This site is about historic Farndales who are no longer
alive. As a rule I only record the most basic publicly available information
about living Farndales, primarily their year of birth. This is so that anyone
who wishes, can find themselves in the directory, and then use this site to
explore their ancestry. Where I am aware of
public information about living Farndales, on their own websites, or public
entries on the web which is available already, I have sometimes included that
information on personal pages of living Farndales. If you find your own
entry on this website and would like me to include more information about
you, please let me know. Please don’t provide me with any information you
would not wish to be publicly available.
A History of the Baker
Family There is now a separate
section of the website which records the history of the Baker Family of
Highfields, Audlem, Cheshire. The Home Page of the Baker
Family History. |
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A Simple Guide to using the website
The website comprises
over 3,000 webpages of information. It is suggested that you
begin by reading an
Introduction to the history of the Farndale Family, together with two
timelines which cover the periods 1000 CE to 1600 and 1600 to date. The introduction
and the two timelines will give you the best feel for the family’s history. There are also some
other routes into the family history including: ·
The
Farndale Family Lines. A list of the 84 Family Lines into which the family has been
sub-divided. You will find a link to the Family Lines in the menu bar on
every page. Explore your own Family Line, or the line you are interested in.
You can follow links to individual records and between different lines. Each
Line is a bit like an underground map – you will sometimes be able to change
to a different Family Line to explore your ancestry further. You will also
find how the Family Lines relate to each other on the Interface Page, for
orientation. The Family Lines now each contain a chronology and you may find
these pages as helpful to understand more about each part of the wider
Farndale family. These pages are a good way to learn more detail about the
history and context of a particular section of the wider family. ·
The
Farndale Directory. The Farndale Directory provides a hyperlinked directory to
well over a thousand pages of individual Farndales, listed chronologically by
their dates of birth, so that you will be able to find your own direct
ancestry and the individual stories of each person you are interested in. ·
You can also explore themes
associated with our family including those who were farmers, pioneers and soldiers, with many also taking to the sea, working in the
ironstone mines of Cleveland. These pages all need a
bit more work over time. ·
If you would like to get a
quick perspective on some of the interesting stories of our ancestors, then
you will find some headlines of
the history of the Farndale family. This might be a good place to get
a flavour of some of the most interesting tales in our history. ·
You can get a geographical context
and follow links to locations associated with our family, to find more
information about each location and our ancestors associated with each
location. ·
Having explored the direct ancestry of the Farndale family,
please also visit the web page which explains the
earlier history and pre-history of the region. Click
here for an account of Yorkshire on the eve of Farndale recorded history. By these means you can
navigate to each individual record in which you are interested. As a whole
the individual records provide a record of the lives of each historic
Farndale and an important purpose of the website is to record the
achievements and lives of our ancestors, which would otherwise be lost. The Farndales and the
legend of Robin Hood You may be interested to
explore a page which relates to some significant links between the early
medieval origins of the family name, and the legend of
Robin Hood. The wider context of
English History The Farndale genealogy provides
a unique insight into the social history of England and the British Isles for
over a millennium. Separate pages are currently being developed which tell
the parallel national and local history, which provide context for the
genealogy. These pages are regularly crossed referred to in the genealogy and
there is an index of
the English and Social History Pages for direct reference. |
Projected programme for this website
I have recently been
reviewing newspaper articles which have provided considerable detail on the
activity of individuals. I am reformatting each
individual webpage into a timeline format which is easier to use. I am now working on the
medieval period from 1000 to 1500. I have developed a timeline of early Farndale
history from 1000 CE to about 1600.This will develop into a major element
of the history of our family up to 1600. I am also working on
some important ancestral relationships, focused on the
Doncaster-Kirkleatham-Skelton Line, including some interesting links to
the legend
of Robin Hood. I am also working on medieval genealogy research
methodology. History repeating itself Social Distancing Edmund
the Hermit was the first recorded inhabitant of Farndale. Pandemic William Farndale
suffered from the ‘Spanish Flu’ epidemic in Canada in 1918. War in the Crimea John George Farndale
wrote letters home from the heights of Sebastopol in 1855. The King’s Coronation in
1902 Chief Constable
Farndale expressed himself highly pleased with the conduct of the people
yesterday, and assures us that the police were given every assistance. To use
his own words: “It was a good natured and thoroughly well behaved crowd.” The
streets were certainly well kept yesterday by the force. Inflation Inflation due to the
First World War was 12% in 1915, 18% in 1916 and 25% in 1917. So in February
1916, presiding over the Rothbury Licensed Victuallers, William Leng
Farndale agreed to an increase in the price of spirits. |
Related Families Many other families will
be able to link to the Farndale Family Tree. There are more detailed
records of closely related families as follows: The Baker Family of Fenton Culvert and Hasfield Court. The Baker Family of
Highfields. The Hall Line of
Staffordshire. Other themes Martin Farndale’s own records include material of military historical interest. Therefore the following material will also be find on this website: · Extensive records of the History of First Regiment Royal Horse Artillery between 1950 and 1971, with some material in the years following. · Some records from the first days of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. · You will also find records of a remarkable overland expedition in early 1962 from Malaysia to the UK via Myanmar (then Burma), India, Nepal, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Europe. There are also video and audio recordings from original cine and tape reels, from the 1950s onwards recorded by or relating to Martin Farndale. |
History of this website
Martin Farndale’s
historical research began: 1956
Site First Published by Richard Farndale (at www.farndale.info): 6 November 2001
Site Second Published by Richard Farndale (at www.farndalefamily.co.uk): 6 December 2014
Site Third Published by Richard Farndale (at www.farndalefamily.co.uk): 16 March 2019
Site Last
Updated: 29 March 2024
Research Notes
To find a description of
the source material I have used, including more detail about individual
sources, including for the medieval period, see my research notes. This needs a bit
more descriptive work and in time should be helpful to others conducting
genealogical research, particularly for Yorkshire families.
Peering back into our deep history:
The village in fact was like a deep-running cave
still linked to its antic past, a cave whose shadows were cluttered by spirits
and by laws still vaguely ancestral. This cave that we inhabited looked
backwards through chambers that led to our ghostly beginnings; and had not, as
yet, been tidied up, or scrubbed clean by electric light, or suburbanized by a
Victorian church, or papered by cinema screens. It was something we just had
time to inherit, to inherit and dimly know – the blood and beliefs of generations
who had been in this valley since the Stone Age. That continuous contact has at
last been broken, the deeper caves sealed off for ever. But arriving, as I did,
at the end of that age, I caught whiffs of something old as the glaciers. There
were ghosts in the stones, in the trees, and the walls, and each field and hill
had several. The elder people knew about these things and would refer to them
in personal terms, and there were certain landmarks about the valley –
tree-clumps, corners in woods – that bore separate, antique, half-muttered
names that were certainly older than Christian. The women in their talk still
used these names which are not used now any more. There was also a frank and
unfearful attitude to death, and an acceptance of violence as a kind of ritual
which no one accused or pardoned. In our grey stone village, especially in
winter, such stories never seemed strange. When I sat at home among my talking
sisters, or with an old woman sucking her jaws, and heard the long details of
hapless suicides, of fighting men loose in the snow, of witch-doomed widows
disembowelled by bulls, of childeating sows, and so on – I would look through
the windows and see the wet walls streaming, the black trees bend in the wind,
and I saw these things happening as natural convulsions of our landscape, and
though dry-mouthed, I was never astonished.
Cider with Rosie, by Laurie Lee, 1959