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O u t lo o k :
A n d t h e n t h e r e w a s m e
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GENEALOGY is a fa s c in a t in g , hobby. Something to get your
in this subject when I was quite young. We would often go to see my great- aunt Jessie Leah, and I was fascinated by the family Bible which had been handed down through the generations. In it was a sec tion for family history, in which names of children born to the family were faithfully recorded together with d ate s . I had not thought of tracing my ancestry, then, I just liked to look at the beautiful script and the pictures. Much later, I used it for my research. My Grandma Leah (nee
teeth into. I first became interested
Sutcliffe) was a great hoarder of things to do with
the family, for which I an very grateful, because I could do a lot of work with out having to search for information. She also had two big photograph albums, which are invaluable as they contain pictures of my great-grandparents and their other children. They give an insight into w'hat life was like before the First World War, and in the late nineteenth century. My father, Arnold Leah,
CHRISTINE LEAH on some of the fascin ating things that can happen when you’re tracing your ancestors.
joinery and building works foundered by my great grandfather, William Henry Leah, in about 1850. This was later run by my grand father, Ernest Leah, until 1926, when, through ill- health he was advised to find less exacting responsi bilities. There was also a small furniture business in the village which he ran as a side-line. Times were hard (from
floors with four bedrooms, which looked out on a mag nificent view of the River R y b u r n a n d t h e cricket-field. Across the road was the
our modern-day viewpoint). No freezers or automatic washing machines for them. The thought of washing, ironing and starching all those shirts (plus cricket shirts and pants) by hand leaves me cold. However, my great-grandmother Lydia Lean (nee Whi tworth) was the daily help! Upon moving to Burnley, my grandfather bought fur
was born in 1916, the third eldest of a family of six sons, one daughter, mother and father. In their forma tive years, the children lived in a typical Yorkshire stone-built house in Trian gle, near Sowerby, on three
nishing and baby care businesses, and in the year of the General Strike, 1926,
established the family in Colne Road, later retiring to Ennismore Street. My grandparents were
strongly religious people and attended Thursby Road
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Chapel (the old “tin-tab”, as older readers may remem ber it!) That’s where my dad met my mum and they married in 1945. I came along a year later. I had written down a lot
5' ■ LvV.* ■-.Vpt
of what the family had told me, and so had the nucleus of my family tree. The next stage was more difficult. I had to check that all the names and dates were cor rect. As both my parents’ families came from York shire, I had to visit register offices in Halifax and Hud dersfield and look up the indexes to the registers. Register office records only go back to 1837, because births , marriages and deaths did not have to be certified before that time. So then I had to turn to the church records. My g r a n d p a r e n t s
Christine consulting documents to find out more about her ancestors.
a t te n d ed th e U n ited Reformed Church in Sowerby, (as it became after two churches merged), so I wrote to the minister to ask if my dad and I could search the church records. He said that we could and so off we went. Looking through the books, I saw the nostalgia on my dad’s face as we came across names of his boyhood friends and family. He chuckled when he disco vered that a girl he had been keen on had married a rival. He blamed it on the fact that they had left the area. I’m glad they did, or I might not have been here at alir
hours in the vestry, we went out into the church yard to look at the grave stones. Every time we “found” a family member we shouted with glee, which earned us some very pecu liar looks from passing vil lagers! One thing we disco vered is how often names were distorted. From Leah, we found Lea, Lear, Leer, L e ig h e r , Leehar and Leighar. Even church records have mistakes in
After what seemed like
ter for his time, we went to Triangle. As we walked along the main road, my father pointed out Hollins Terrace, where he had lived, and the junior school he had attended. We went to Great-Aunt Jessie’s for tea and she was enthralled by our research. Sadly, on October 5th, 1979 we returned to Sowerby for her funeral, and another piece of family history. She was the last person to be buried from Sowerby Church. The building had become unsafe to be used and was to be demolished. The chuch records have now been lodged with the County Archivist’s Office in Halifax. I did hope that Great-Aunt Jessie might have left me the family Bible, but this is now the property of my Uncle Fred. Just as an aside, to show how names can be changed, my Uncle Fred should have been Fre derick, but on his birth cer tificate it is FredricK with no ‘e’ in the middle. The registrar mis-understood my Grandfather, and so it remains without ‘e’. I have now catalogued ail
the information obtained from these sources. I have
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them, so we had to go very carefully. After thanking the minis
researched back to 1767, which is my great-great- great-great grandfather David Sutcliffe Leah and his wife Emma Annie Smith. Returning to Halifax to search back even further is more difficult still, because the further back you travel.
if there are any Leahs (or derivatives as mentioned), or Sutcliffe, Gill, Dixon, Whitworth, or' Mitchell family members out there — help!
the more sketchy the infor mation becomes. Before I do go to Halifax,
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