Nicholas farndaile

1512 to 6 August 1572 (buried)

The Kirkleatham Skelton Line

The most likely paternal and maternal ancestors of modern Farndales, who died in Kirkleatham having emigrated with their family into Cleveland

Direct paternal and maternal ancestors of the modern Farndale family, who moved eighty miles north from Campsall to Kirkleatham in about 1565.

 FAR00059

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Headlines of Nicholas Farndale’s life are in brown.

Dates are in red.

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References and citations are in turquoise.

Context and local history are in purple.

All we know about Nicholas Farndale is that he was buried in Kirkleatham on 6 August 1572. But we can piece together a great deal more about him, from the wider evidence.

1512

If he was buried in 1572, then say he was aged 60 when he was buried, then he was born in about 1512.

1537

We also know from Kirkleatham Parish records that Agnes farndaile (FAR00060) was buried in Kirkleatham on 23 January 1586. So it doesn’t seem too much of a leap to suppose that Agnes was Nicholas’ wife. If Agnes was 70 when she was born, then perhaps Agnes was born in about 1516.

I have seen another person’s family tree that refers to Agnes as Agnes Null. I’m not sure if someone has seen evidence that her maiden name might have been Null. I haven’t found any evidence of her maiden name.

If Nicholas was about 25 when they married, and Agnes was about 21, then maybe they married in about 1537.

They may have been married around Doncaster, perhaps Campsall, for reasons which will be explained below.

1539

We have previously linked Nicholas and Agnes to the following siblings:

William Farndale (FAR00063), who may have been born in around 1539 in or around Doncaster. Doncaster Parish records show his marriage in Campsall in 1564.

Jean Farndale (FAR00064), who may have been born in around 1540 in or around Doncaster. Kirkleatham Parish Records show her marriage in Kirkleatham in 1567.

It seems very likely that Jean was their daughter, given she was married in Kirkleatham in 1567, five years before we know that Nicholas died in Kirkleatham.

For the purpose of family continuity, the real question is whether William was also their son. The link to William at first seems a bit tenuous, as the link to Kirkleatham is not obvious. However there are reasons why the link is likely.

· We don’t know when William was born, but from the date of his marriage, this was probably about 1539. That would make sense if he was Jean’s sister. We know he married Margaret Atkinson (or possibly Kiddall) in 1564 in Campsall, which is near Doncaster.

· There is a William Farndale who died on 24 January 1606 in Skelton. This might not be the same William, and if it is not, our theory is probably wrong. But dates fit, and it makes a lot of sense of the evidence if it is the same William.

· Skelton and Kirkleatham are about 5 miles apart and the same parish.

· There are three children who married between 1588 and 1598, two in in Skelton. (1) Jane, married in Skelton in 1588; (2) George who married in Skelton in 1595; and (3) Eln or Eleanore, married at Wilton, near Kirkleatham in 1598. Eln married Peter Atkinson, and it seems likely that she was a cousin or otherwise related through her mother’s family – Margaret’s maiden name was Atkinson. So the family might have moved from Campsall near Doncaster to Wilton near Kirkleatham after William had married Margaret Atkinson in 1564 because that is where Margaret’s family lived.

· So if William who married in Campsall is also William who died in or near Skelton, then it is very likely that these are his children, with Margaret.

· So William married near Doncaster in 1564, but was in Skelton for the birth of his first child in 1588. Skelton is about 5 miles from Kirkleatham, so there may be some interchangeability in the records here. He then died in or near Skelton in 1606.

So looking carefully at the records we have regarding Nicholas, his potential children and grandchildren, we can build a timeline. We know that from the second half of the sixteenth century, the Farndale ancestors were predominantly living in the Cleveland area. So this timeline gives an explanation as to how early Farndales left the dale and moved south, with a group living around Doncaster, and how and when the Doncaster Farndales moved to Skelton/Kirkleatham in the mid sixteenth century to establish the lines of Farndales across Cleveland.

Campsall, Doncaster, 1512 to 1564

Nicholas Farndale might have lived in or around Doncaster from when he was born in about 1512.

He met Agnes, who might have come from around Doncaster too. They would have married in about 1537. If so, they probably married around Doncaster, perhaps in the same church in Campsall, where William later married.

William was born in about 1539. Jean was born in about 1540. Let’s assume they were still living around Campsall, Doncaster then.

We then know that William married at the church at Campsall, the same church where Robin Hood is reputed to have married Maid Marion by later legend, in 1564.

Cleveland Bound

This is what I think probably happened.

Nicholas was probably born in about 1512, assuming he lived until he was about 60, perhaps a little earlier. I think he was probably a descendant of Nicholaus and Alicia Farndale who we have already met in Doncaster and I think his family had probably moved just north of Doncaster to Campsall, or somewhere nearby in Barnsdale Forest.

Since Nicholas and Agnes both died in Kirkleatham in 1572 and 1586, they were almost certainly married. So Nicholas probably married Agnes in or around Campsall, probably in about 1537 when Nicholas was 25. Agnes might have been about 21, so born in about 1516. I have seen a suggestion that Agnes’ maiden name was Null, but I’ve not managed to verify that.

I suspect that William Farndale was their eldest son, born in about 1539.

I am pretty sure that Jean Farndale (who we know married in Kirkleatham in 1567) was their daughter, born in about 1540.

We know that William Farndale married Margaret Atkinson at St Mary Magdalene Church in Campsall on 29 October 1564. If we are right about this narrative, he would have been about 25 years old.

I think the family then moved eighty miles north to Kirkleatham and I think that is probably because Margaret’s family came from Wilton, a small village two kilometres south of Kirikleatham. This may have been very shortly after they married, so perhaps in 1564 or 1565.

Nicholas Farndale would have been about 52 at this stage, so perhaps they moved north because the newly married William and Margaret decided to settle in Margaret’s homelands.

Two years later, on 16 October 1567, Jean Farndale married Richard Fairley, an established Scottish family who, by that time had a large family in and around Kirkleatham.

By 1568, Nicholas and Agnes had their first grandchild, Jane Farndale who late married Valentine Wraye. In about 1570, their grandson George Farndale was born and he is the grandson who took the family lineage forward to the modern family. They also had a granddaughter Eln Farndale, born in about 1573. Eln married et Atkinson, who we know came from Wilton. It seems very likely that Pet Atkinson was part of the same family, perhaps a cousin, as her mother. Margaret Atkinson. Whilst the medieval church banned marriage within four degrees of consanguinity, cousin marriage was pretty common in small agricultural communities and there are several examples in the Farndale family including Martin Farndale who married his cousin Ruth Farndale in 1929. Their fourth grandchild, Isabell Farndale, died at birth in 1592.

Nicholas died in 1572 and he was buried in Kirkleatham on 6 August 1572. Agnes lived for another fourteen years and was buried on Kirkleatham on 23 January 1586.

Moving north, between 1564 and 1567

Between 1564 and 1567, the family moved to the Skelton/Kirkleatham area. One possibility is that Agnes came from there. For whatever reason, they moved to Kirkleatham.

Kirkleatham, 1567 to 1586

In 1567, Jean married Richard Fairly at Kirkleatham, where we know Nicholas and Agnes both died. Richard Fairley had a bit of a pedigree. So perhaps another reason for the move north is that Jean moved to the neighbourhood of her new husband, and the whole family moved north at about the same time.

They then lived in Kirkleatham, which was perhaps more the Fairly home, and the Atkinson home, than the Farndale home before then.

William’s three children were born in Kirkleatham between 1568 and 1573.

We then know that Nicholas died in Kirkleatham in 1572, and Agnes died there in 1586.

William died in Skelton in 1606 and was buried there.

Going back further from Nicholas

If this theory is correct, and it all fits pretty neatly, then this places the direct known relatives of certainly most, and probably all Farndales today to the Doncaster/Campsall area between about 1512 and 1564.

Modern Farndales are almost certainly related to each other. There is some doubt about the link of the Ampleforth Line and the Lines that trace from it, back from 1733 when Elias was born, nut it is likely they were also descendants of the Cleveland Farndales.

That is exciting because we then know that Sir William Farndale (FAR00038)(about 1335 to about 1420), was the Vicar of Doncaster parish church between 1396 and 1402. Sir is simply the title used by vicars at the time. We have guessed he might have lived between about 1335-1420. He owned land for a period at Loversall just south of Doncaster. Of course the span between 1402 and 1512 means that there must have been some generations between, but could this have been the same family. It seems most likely that all living Farndales are descended from this group living in or around Doncaster from about 1396 to 1564.

So the probable common ancestry of all those modern folk who are descended from the Farndale family is:

1. Farmers from around Kirkdale moved into Farndale the place in about 1230;

2. Individual people started to move out of Farndale and use the name Farndale;

3. Families started to emerge using the name of Farndale (increasingly without the ‘de’) more permanently including the Sheriff Hutton Line and the York 1 Line – these might well have included our direct ancestors (the probability increases as the information improves);

4. The direct line to modern Farndales focused around Doncaster from at least 1335 to about 1564;

5. Between 1564 and 1567, the family moved to the Skelton area in Cleveland;

6. From 1512, and certainly from 1570, we know beyond doubt who our ancestors were;

7. Cleveland, and particularly the areas of Skelton, Kirkleatham, Moorsholm, Loftus, Brotton and eventually Kilton become the home of the Farndales from 1564 to the Victorian age.

If that is right, then we trace our ancestry directly back to 1512, have some pretty good guesses about links to folk coming out of Farndale from about 1330, and then know that they in turn descended from the villeins put into Farndale to assart and clear the land to farm from about 1230. Before that our ancestors were plucked from the cauldron and primeval mass of Bronze Age Beaker Folk, Iron Age Settlers, Brigantes, Roman, Anglo Saxons, and Scandinavians that had roamed the moors and Dales of Yorkshire since about 9,000 years BCE.

1572

We know from the Parish records of Kirkleatham Church that Nicholas farndaile was buried in the parish of Kirkleatham, in Cleveland, near Skelton on 6 August 1572 (Kirkleatham Parish Records).

Nicholas farndaile was buried at Kirkleatham on 6 August 1572 (Kirkleatham Parish Records). Nicholas Farndaile - died about 1572 and buried at Kirkleatham, Yorkshire on 6 August 1572 at the age of 60.

(Extracted from the Yorkshire, England, Extracted Church of England Parish Records, 1538-1837 (Parish Register of Kirkleatham, 1559-1812, Vol 59; Author: Transcr & Ed: J Charlesworth; Publication Year: 1917)

That is the only sure fact we know about Nicholas. Everything else is an assessment of the wider evidence to attempt to ascertain the most likely circumstances on a balance of probabilities.

We also know that Agnes Farnedaile, was buried 23 January 1586 at Kirkleatham (England, Select Deaths and Burials, 1538-1991; England Deaths and Burials, 1538-1991)

They were both buried at St Cuthbert Church, Kirkleatham.

St Cuthbert’s Church in the village of Kirkleatham was built in 1763 on the site of a much earlier church, thought to have dated from 800 AD. The site of the church is believed to have been used as a resting place for the body of St Cuthbert on its journey to Durham, his final resting place. The Turner Mausoleum, attached to the earlier church, was built in 1740, by the renowned architect James Gibbs. St Cuthbert’s Church is a Grade I listed building.

Our common ancestor

If we are correct in the analysis above, then although there are some educated guesses in linking Nicholas to his descendants, it seems a fair conclusion that Nicholas is the person to whom most Farndales, and probably all, today can directly trace their ancestry. It is probable that there is some link further back to William of Doncaster.

Once you have established your ancestor somewhere in this line, you will then be able to trace yourself back to Nicholas.

Nicholas is probably my Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather. He is probably something similar to all members of the modern Farndale family.

How do Nicholas and Agnes Farndale relate to the modern family?

We cannot be sure, but it is probable that Nicholas and Agnes Farndale are the paternal and maternal ancestors of all modern Farndales. If we have pieced the jigsaw together correctly, then Nicholas was a descendant of Nicholaus and Alicia Farndale of Doncaster, brother of William Farndale the Vicar of Doncaster.

There are some branches of the family (including the Ampleforth Line) about which there is some doubt of the direct ancestry. However it seems most likely that they are a common link to the whole family.