​I can confidently trace my ancestors back to a Christopher Buckle born in 1746 and I’m reasonably confident that his father was Christopher Buckle born in 1712. Certainly several Ancestry family trees include this connection. But I can’t nail a document to make this a 100% certainty.
However given the small population of the area and the fact that Christopher was married to Margaret Cook at Pickhill (North Yorkshire), I’m going to hang on to him as my great, great, great, great, great grandfather! 
Christopher Buckle was baptised on September 23rd 1712 at the parish church of St John the Baptist in Adel.

​​Adel is thirty five miles south of Pickhill and I think there’s a reasonably strong chance that this is my ancestor. In which case his father was Henry Buckle. But there isn’t really any evidence to make this a definite connection so I’m not going any further back on this branch of the family tree.
And that’s all I know about the early life of Great X 5 Grandfather Buckle. 

My 5 X great Grandmother, Margaret Cook was born in Pickhill in 1713.
She was baptised at the parish church on 13th August 1713. Her father was John Cook.
And that’s all I know about her early life until her marriage to Christopher Buckle in 1737.
The parish register records the marriage on 20th April, 1737. 
In due course, Christopher and Margaret had two children:
Mary Buckle baptised in the parish church on 11th April 1739
and
Christopher Buckle baptised on 15th February 1746.
Whether or not Christopher and Margaret lived happily ever after, I don’t know. Sources of further information don’t appear to be available. 

I haven’t been able to find out anything else about my 4X great grandfather Christopher Buckle until 1772 when he married Dorothy Binham. And here’s something!
The banns of marriage were signed by both Christopher and his intended with a cross. They made their mark. They were illiterate. 

​And both Christopher and his fiancée lived in Wath about five miles south of Pickhill. 
In 1772 it would have been straightforward to drive to Wath from Pickhill. Now it might be a bit more tricky as the A1 motorway section has been built between the two villages.

​Apart from her marriage to my 4X Great Grandfather (Christopher Buckle) in 1772, I’ve been unable to find out anything more about the early life of Dorothy Binham.
There’s a record on Find My Past of a Dorothy Buckle who died in 1799 in Topcliffe. That’s only 7 miles away from Wath where Christopher and Dorothy were married.
If this is my 4X Great Grandma’s burial record, her birth year is given as 1752 but I’m not certain about that.
However, on 14th December 1772, Dorothy Binham and Christopher Buckle were married in the parish church of St Mary in the village of Wath.
Christopher and Dorothy had their first child soon after their marriage and he was named Christopher too. Unfortunately he died in 1774 and was buried in the churchyard at St Mary’s on 14th March 1774.
​Christopher and Dorothy had several other children.
A second son was born soon after the death of Christopher. He too was named Christopher. 
The record of Christopher’s birth in 1775 doesn’t identify the church where he was baptised. But all his eight siblings were baptised at St Mary’s, Wath, Yorkshire, so I think it’s a safe bet that he was too.
There’s a record on Find My Past for the burial of a Christopher Buckle in the parish church at Well which is in the vicinity of Wath and Pickhill. There’s a degree of probability that this could be an accurate record for Christopher. If so, his date of burial was 7th September 1834 which makes him about fifty nine years old when he died.
Elizabeth Buckle was the oldest daughter of my 4X great grandparents, Christopher and Dorothy Buckle.
Born in Wath, North Yorkshire and baptised in the parish church on 28th September 1777, Elizabeth is a family history challenge.
Wath is a small village as are the neighbouring villages of Well, Pickhill etc. You wouldn’t expect to find records for so many Elizabeth Buckles as there are in this small area.
For example, there’s a burial record for an Elizabeth Buckle who died in Well in 1809.
And a different Elizabeth Buckle who died in Well in 1816.
And another Elizabeth Buckle who died in Well in 1834.
And then there’s an Elizabeth Buckle who married Robert Hobart in 1795 in the village of Kirklington, another small village in the vicinity. This is definitely a Family History brick wall!
Christopher and Dorothy’s second daughter, Dorothy Buckle, was born on January 28th 1780 and baptised in the parish church at Wath, North Yorkshire on January 29th.
Dorothy died aged fifty years in 1830. Her burial record indicates that she lived in the village of Melmerby which was part of the parish of Wath where she’d been born. Dorothy appears to have stayed close to home throughout her life.
Margaret was born on 23rd September 1782 and baptised four days later at St Mary’s.
Unfortunately, Margaret died in 1802 and was buried in the Wath churchyard on 17th January 1802.
William was born on 2nd December 1784. He wasn’t baptised until 1st March 1785. This was just before he died so presumably he’d been too ill since birth to be taken to church. William was buried in St Mary’s churchyard on 2nd March 1785.
Mary was baptised in the parish church on 6th March 1786. Unfortunately she died in 1803 and was buried in the churchyard at St Mary’s on 4th September 1803.
Anne Buckle was the youngest of my 4X Great Grandparents’ children. She was baptised at St Mary’s on 29th May 1791 and that’s all I’ve been able to find out about her.
John Buckle was baptised on 3rd January 1789 at St Mary’s.
John is my 3X Great Grandfather. 
John met Hannah Dobby who lived in the neighbouring village of Well. They were married on 25th November 1811 in the parish church at Well.
By the time of the birth of their first child in 1813, John and Hannah had moved to live in Pickhill just a few miles away from both Wath and Well.
John and Hannah had eight children: three boys and five girls. All their children were born in Pickhill and the neighbouring village of Sinderby which was part of the Pickhill parish.
My 3X Great Grandfather, John Buckle, died in 1836. He was buried in the churchyard of All Saints church, Pickhill on 10th August 1836.

Hannah Dobby, my 3X great grandmother, was married to John Buckle in 1811. The marriage took place in the parish church of Well in North Yorkshire just a couple of miles from the village of Wath where John lived.
Hannah was born in Well and baptised at the parish church on 9th January 1787. Her father (and my 4X great grandfather) was John Dobby.
Hannah and John were married in St Michael’s parish church, Well on 25th November 1811.
After husband John’s death, Hannah continued to live at Sinderby and she is recorded on the 1841 census as being the head of her household and a widow. She also had the care of her grandson, John Buckle, who was about three years old at the time.
Later that year, my 3X Great Grandmother, Hannah Buckle, also died. She was buried in the churchyard at All Saints, Pickhill on 26 December 1841.

That's all I know so far about my eighteenth century Buckle ancestors. Thanks for reading about them.
​If you enjoy reading about village life, you might also like Leefdale by Michael Murray. More details here.

I’ve enjoyed family history for over twenty years. I’ve researched our family tree back to the eighteenth century. I became a Murray when I married Michael but was previously a Buckle. I’m the end of the line for my branch of the Buckles.
Originating in the village of Pickhill a few miles north of York, in 1850 my ancestors relocated to Harthill on the Yorkshire / Nottinghamshire border. In 1898 the Buckles moved again to Royston, Yorkshire.
My next family name is Ashworth and this is a story about some family history treasure which was almost lost forever.

​My uncle Jack Ashworth was the end of the line for our Ashworth family. When he died  his house was sold along with most of the contents. The new owner was clearing out the loft and came upon a couple of cardboard boxes filled with old photographs and cine films.
Thankfully he didn’t dump the photos and films but returned them to the vendor. 
One day my husband Michael recalled that the aforementioned uncle had made a short home movie at our wedding in the mid-nineteen seventies. He wondered what had become of the film and if there was anyway we could view it.

​In a phone call with my auntie I remembered to ask her about Michael’s request. She contacted the family and discovered that they’d had the films returned to them. A couple of weeks later they very kindly left the box of films at her house along with a box of photos.
Although she couldn’t do anything with the films, my aunt was thrilled with the photos. There’s over a hundred photos of her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins going back to the 1920s and even a little bit before. She’s gone through all the photos and, where she knows them, written the names of the people on the reverse.
And then her son brought the two cardboard boxes over to our house for us to borrow for a while. And what a treasure trove they proved to  be.

CONTENTS

​• Agfa Family cine camera
• Agfa Family cine film viewer
• 4 boxes of film reels each holding about 200 ft of film
• Splicing kit
• INSTRUCTION BOOKLET
The boxes of films and the film reels are labelled and have been sorted in groups for transfer to video cassette. Unfortunately the video cassettes haven’t survived the house sale. Which is a shame as 
a) it would have taken my uncle quite a while to sort them out 
and
b) it would be much easier to get video cassettes transferred onto DVD or a memory stick.
However, fortunately the instruction booklet for the cine film viewer is in the cardboard box and, even more fortunately, despite being at least thirty years old, the viewer still works.
So I spent the best part of three days working out how to use the viewer and then looking at all the films to try and find some film of our wedding.

​The film is in colour and has no soundtrack. The colour quality is excellent and the film is sharp and bright. Many of the guests have passed on. It was more than forty years ago, don’t forget. I wondered how I would feel looking at moving images of close relatives and friends, some who’d died far too young.
In fact, it was wonderful. Like every wedding it was a happy occasion and to see so many of our recent ancestors laughing and chatting was a real pleasure.
And that wasn’t the end of the discoveries.
There was another film which had my sister and myself aged about eight and ten respectively and then a couple of years older. There was my other sister’s christening in the early 1960s and my grandad Buckle who was born in 1881. And lots more. My mum and dad who both died in their mid-fifties in a happier time before ill health took over. And my grandmother smiling and laughing and looking with great tenderness at her baby grandchildren. 
I sent the films in the post to a photo studio to be transferred to DVD. I googled and picked a company which judging from the reviews would do a good job. And they did. 

​These photos are all of my Ashworth and Barratt ancestors.
My grandad was Horace Ashworth (1905 – 1984) and my grandmother was Minnie Barratt (1906 – 1991). 
There are photos of both sets of their parents:
• John Thomas Ashworth (1871 – 1931)
• Emma Jane Gooding (1871 – 1957)
• Thomas Barratt (1881 – 1949)
• Harriet James (1881 – 1947)
and some of their siblings, aunts and uncles and other family members too. Plus a good few photos of individuals unfamiliar to my auntie who’s done a good job naming lots of the photos. 
There’s also an envelope containing the family history researches of Cousin Clifford Ashworth. He was my grandad’s nephew and I was aware that in the 1970s / 80s he’d collected considerable family history information and shared it with my grandfather. I’d never seen it or ever thought I would but it’s all there and I’m still going through it in detail and comparing it with my own researches. Cousin Clifford died in 1989 and didn’t have the benefit of on-line data so it will be interesting to see what he discovered.

​About four years ago I was contacted by a distant relative who’d inherited lots of old photos. The information with the photos suggested that his Great Grandfather and mine were brothers. He very kindly sent copies of all the photos including this one:

​and this:

​My distant relative was able to identify his great grandfather back row right in the first photo and back row left in the second photo. Knowing that my great grandfather was older I guessed he would be the taller man in the back row of each photo. And I guessed that my grandad (Horace Ashworth) was the little boy in the middle of the front row of the second photo. 

​because not only did Cousin Clifford send my grandparents a copy of the second photo

​And yes, my guesses were correct.
My great grandfather John Tomas Ashworth is Number 4 and my grandad is Number 26.
There was hours of scanning to get copies of all the photos and match them into my family history files. But what a labour of love it was.

Thanks for reading my blog today. You might also like Cabbage and Semolina, my memories of a 1950s childhood.