These pages deal with my father's CAKEBREAD / HOWE
roots and the HARRISON and SMITHs on my mother's side and many
other Family names before them.
There is an Index of all names
discovered in my research, together with details of where they fit into my
history. There are also Family Trees and Descendant Charts of the
main names together with links to Profiles of some individuals.
If
there is little information on the person you are interested in, please email
me as I have may have more available.
My earliest roots are around 1600 at Mancetter in north
Warwickshire with Thomas ISON on my father's side of the family, this line
continuing through the nearby rural areas of Over Whitacre, Ansley, Bedworth
and finally Coventry.
The known records of my line of the name CAKEBREAD
begin for sure in the village of Bloxham, near Banbury, Oxfordshire with Robert
CAKEBREAD who was probably born about 1776. Later in 1839, his sons William and
Robert, both Plush Weavers in the Banbury Workhouse, and both with young
families, decided to move, with their brother George, to Coventry a city about
30 miles away.
They settled in the city and many of their descendants
still live in Coventry.
Other than the CAKEBREADs all my father's ancestry seems
to be from Coventry and North Warwickshire areas for many generations.
On my mother's paternal side, the main HARRISON
name is traced for 200 years to Exhall, then a rural area about 5 miles to the
north of Coventry. All my mother's family lines on her father's side come from
the same vicinity of Exhall, Bedworth, and Foleshill.
There is an
interesting account of 19th century life in Foleshill on my Foleshill
page.
On my mother's maternal side my grandmother's SMITH roots
are much more difficult to trace as she was abandoned as a baby.
I now know
that her natural father was not SMITH, (it is unknown), and that name
has not been researched. Her mother's maiden name was Mary CORT and her
background was in the cotton towns of Lancashire, and the city of Manchester.
Her CORT family were bleachers in the valleys north of Bolton and there
are pages about the early Bleachers. Mary Cort's story makes interesting
reading. Find it by following the link to CORT and then click on the link to
Mary Cort. A few generations earlier my roots are in the famous AINSWORTH
family of Bolton area.