Introduction

The site is still at an early stage of development and contains only a small fraction of the material which I hope to be able to include in due course.

WKA's great grandfather John Armitstead went into the church and was fortunate enough to marry the daughter of the local squire, who was a substantial heiress. The fortune was used to set up his elder son as a country gentleman, and provide the son of his second marriage with the advowson of Sandbach in Cheshire. A transcription of John's will is included on this site.

As recently established gentlemen and clergymen with good livings, John's sons and grandsons were able to marry daughters of prosperous local families. Of WKA's eight great-great grandfathers, two were from minor gentry families (the Massies and Townshends), one was a successful Rochdale wool merchant (Royds), and three were prosperous Liverpool merchants (Molyneux, Bourne and Drinkwater). The main focus of my research is the business affairs of these entrepreneurs, and their place in the context of the industrial revolution.

Structure of the site

For each of the families listed in the menu box to the left I am building a set of pages to contain:

- GEDCOM ancestry files
- a full narrative of each family
- transcriptions of unpublished documents
- photographs and illustrations
- links to the sites of other researchers.

These are not all set up yet, but will be built and populated as fast as time and technical understanding permits.

Any comment or feedback would be gratefully received.

Although this project is not setting out to be a one name study of the Armitsteads or any of the other listed families, I would be most interested to receive information about individuals or sites which share the same surnames.

Nigel Watts
Islington, London
October 1999

Vistitors since 6 October 1999