Family Lessons 139: Cousins Over Wyresdale

On 29th November, 1628, my 10x great-grandparents married at St Mary’s Church, Lancaster, now commonly called the Priory. Richard Hathornthwaite, parents unknown, married Dorothy Hathornthwaite, daughter of Lawrence and Ann Hathornthwaite. Can you see the peculiarity? Both bride and groom share the same surname. This may have been helpful to Dorothy as she was no longer required to change her signature; then again, seventeenth-century women were seldom deemed to be sufficiently important to even sign documents.

Dorothy’s parents lived at Over Wyresdale (which is the area about Abbeystead between Clitheroe and Lancaster) and that is the place where Richard and Dorothy lived and died (1665 and 1640 respectively). Doubtless, Richard and Dorothy were cousins, but whether first, second or even third, one cannot tell. Dorothy’s grandfather was one William Hathornthwaite of Catshaw Hall, who was buried at Lancaster’s St Mary’s in 1592, a known recusant and a likely harbourer of Jesuits. I would wager a guinea that he was grandfather to both.  

Much as we might find cousin-marriage distasteful (though various migrant communities seeming to enjoy the practice while suffering some of the genetic consequences) all human beings are cousins to some extent. We all descend from Adam and Noah, and for that fact, we are a large, but seldom happy, family. Although Christ elevates us by adoption into the family of God, a human, even in his natural, fallen state, is the descendant of a mighty prince, Adam, Viceroy of Earth. This is why we treat people with respect, regardless of belief, skin colour or sex. We are each one of us related.

And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us... Acts 17: 26-27

Top photo: St Mary's Parish Church, Lancaster, and the aisle down which the married couple walked.

Above: Over Wyresdale.