This page tries to cover a host of different local names, and it can never be complete. What little information I have on various families - through my own research or that of others online - I present here in an attempt to fill a few gaps in your searches.
I began this page back in 2018 and realised I had little to nothing on other local families, so I apologise for the lame attempt in posting this current page. I have done so merely because I have received reliable information on three families, Shorthouse, Sanders and Neaum.
- PDF book with illustrations on George SANDERS and Family
- PDF document on Sarah Ann NEAUM 1915
- PDF document on Isaiah SHORTHOUSE 1915
* SEE HERE for Bourne, Crofts, Booth, Slater, Arkwright, Statham, Ward, Robinson & Others
- HARRISON/Litchfield Family Tree
- VARNEY family - (Mosley family website)
- GREATOREX Pedigree (Web Link 1) and (Web link 2) and (Web Link 3)
- "The Name GREATOREX" booklet with photographs
- Those who died in the Eyam Plague (many local names)
Merrell/Morrell
Will of 1690
MERRELL, Humphry, of Headge als Higheadge, 21 Sep 1687 [3 James II]
Houses Lands Tenemts& Hereditamts in the Mannor of Belper als Beaurepe; Lands called the Backside now in possession of Benjamin WALKER, third son Joseph MERRELL; wife Mary MERRELL*; eldest son Samuel MERRELL, and his eldest son Joseph; his brother Daniel MERRELL, and sisters Mary MERRELL, Elizabeth MERRELL Rebecka MERRELL & Anne MERRELL; daughter Elizabeth, wife of William LITCHFIELD; second son Daniel MERRELL; my brother SAMUEL MERRELL;
Witnesses: John ADEN, Joh NADIN, Robert TYME(X), Jas TAYLOR.
Appraisers of Inventory: Henry LITCHFIELD, William WILLOTT, Richard RYLES, William ?AMABLE, 10 Feb 1689/90.
[Probate granted at Derby 28 Mar 1690; John HUSBAND, Sur. Effects 112-17-02]
- A Humphrey Merrell died in the Plague at Eyam: Humphrey Merrell 9 Sept 1666
- Many other Merrell/Morrell wills - "The Wills of Derbyshire"
Various Belper Names
In 1788 (Enclosures meeting in February) The Upper Swan is said to be the House of WILLIAM WATSON.
Same year, June, Mrs LANE was keeping the LOWER SWAN.
1789, land sold including Swinney Well Croft:
At Mrs Lane's, Upper Swan in Belper, 4th Feb 1789
Upper part of a Croft in Belper in the middle of Belper Town, late in the possn of Sarah HARRISON, about 2 roods.
Stone Croft, about one acre
Swinney Well Close - two acres
Piece in The Field - two acres
Piece in the Five Roods - three roods
Allotment to be made to the above and other premises on the Enclosure of Belper Common;
Premises now in possn of MR SPENCER.
John JACKSON and JOHN SPENCER are both Belper Nailers.
John SPENCER drowned in Nov 1792. Found lying in a pool of water, near Duffield. He fell off his horse, one can only guess why - tiredness, an accident or most likely drunk. His son "begs leave to inform his friends" that he will carry on the nail-making trade as before.
SELLERS FAMILY of Belper, emigrated to the States in the 17th century: Sellers Hall, Upper Darby, PA
p. 315: "Sellers Hall". By Horace W. Sellers. -- After leaving the city line at Cobb's Creek, the West Chester road passes westward for the distance about a mile through what was for nearly two centuries the property of the Sellers family. The original tract, consisting of one hundred acres, was granted in 1690 by patent to Samuel Sellers, who had held it prior to that time under a rental from William Penn. It included two small farms of fifty acres each upon which George and Samuel Sellers settled after their arrival in the Province in 1682. They were brothers, and came from Belper, in Derbyshire, England, the home of the family for many generations ... George and Samuel Sellers jointly built and occupied the dwelling that now forms part of the old homestead, still standing, and known until recent years as 'Sellers Hall.' The general plan of the house is in the form of an 'L,' with semi-detached out-buildings, forming in all a picturesque group. The old portion faces the south, and from this front the lawn slopes to a terrace wall that the higher ground of the garden from meadow land through which flows 'Naylor's Run.' It is said that in building this wall the workmen came upon a fireplace with fragments of a blackened hearth and charcoal, the remains of what was supposed to have been the cave or dug-out in which the settlers lived in 1682 before the house was completed."
