We find the earliest
record of our Brough Family ancestors in the parish of Holme Cultram,
centred on Abbey Town in the north-west of Cumberland, just across
the Solway Firth from Scotland. For over a hundred years from 1589, all
references to the name Brough in ancient manuscripts relating to the
parish, are to a family living in or near Newtion Arlosh. In time, it
is clear from the early parish registers that Abbeytown, some three
miles further south, becomes the centre of gravity of the family by the
early eighteenth century, but for generation after generation, they
remain within the parish of Holme Cultram. Finally, after eight
generations, a certain John Brough, born in Abbeytown in 1839, breaks
with family tradition and heads south, to establish a drapery
business in Main Street, Cockermouth, some twenty
miles away. Here he meets and marries a lady by the name of Tamar
Grave, daughter of local (Uldale) farmer Stephen Grave. Tamar was one
of thirteen children, several of whom remained single and lived
together for the last years of their lives at a farm in Blindcrake,
which became something of a social hub for the Brough and Grave
families for a generation or two.
John Brough
and Tamar Grave raised nine children in Cockermouth, including twins,
Thomas and Ellie. Thomas was my grandfather. He left Cockermouth for
Manchester as a young man, and there he met and married my grandmother
Anne Prentice. Ellie married local farmer John Graham and they
emigrated to Canada. Another sister, Martha Brough, married local
farmer's son, George Teasdale and emigrated to Western Australia.
Cumberland Resources and Research Aids
Having already
spent nearly a year researching my Glamorgan roots when I decided to
start tracing the Brough origins in Cumberland, I knew from
experience that the Rootsweb Mailing List
would probably be a good place to start. However, I could not have
imagined just how helpful that List would be. Within half a day of
posting my interests, I received three responses which enabled me,
within a very short space of time, to trace my Brough ancestors back to
the beginning of the seventeenth century. The first was from Barry
Lawman, whose outstanding Cumberland Roots Website
contains details of the parish records for Holme Cultram - the parish
where the Brough ancestors had lived for at least eight generations.
The second was from Joy Light,
in Australia, who had spent a great deal of time reseraching the Brough
family in Holme Cultram because her husband Keith, who turned out to be
my fourth cousin, was descended from them. The third response was from Marian Noble
in Canada, who had researched the Grave family because she was
descended from them. We quickly established that we were fourth cousins! With
help like that on my first day of Cumberland research, I hardly needed
any other resources, but one other website in particular deserves
special mention, because I turned to it repeatedly for help on the
parishes of Cumberland - it was Steve Bulman's excellent Images of Cumbria Website. I have since made contact with another cousin, Joyce Birnie,
in Western Australia. Joyce, granddaughter of Martha Brough and George
Teasdale, and Carol, her sister-in-law, have provided me with a great
deal of information on the Teasdale family and their
fellow-early-settlers in Western Australia, and this is being added to
the website - see more on the Teasdale Family.
