Family Lessons 131: Out of Darbyshire

Submitted by Alan Marsden on Sat, 26/10/2024 - 00:00

My 8x great-grandfather was Peter Darbyshire (born 1702), the son of Thomas and Sarah Darbyshire. I was bemused to read that he was born in the Lancashire village of Upholland, rather than Derbyshire, despite its variant spelling. His son, Thomas, was born in Shevington, Lancashire, while his son, also Thomas, was born in Heath Charnock, near Chorley in Lancashire, as was his daughter Margaret, my 5x great-grandma. Lancashire born and Lancashire bred! Yet what of that peculiar name?

Doubtless, Thomas Darbyshire the first, or one of his forbears, hailed from that county of Derbyshire, though no extant records prove this. To differentiate him from other Thomases in the vicinity, he would have been called Tom of Derbyshire or Derbyshire Tom, and that became a surname. Surnames often tell us where an ancestor came from, rather than where he ended up.

Our consciences often remind us of where we were, what we have done, and what we were like. To those sensible of spiritual truth, these are depressing recollections. In Christ, however, we can leave our past behind and rejoice in a new name, a new identity, a new character and a new hope which He gives us. In John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, we read:

Christian: I am come from the City of Destruction, and am going to Mount Zion; but because the sun is now set, I desire, if I may, to lodge here to-night.

Porter: What is your name?

Christian: My name is now Christian, but my name at the first was Graceless; I came of the race of Japheth, whom God will persuade to dwell in the tents of Shem.

Well might a gracious God have renamed Abram, Jacob, Simon and Saul. Never mind where you are from: where are you going? Never mind what you have done, what are you now doing? Whom do you now serve?

Him that overcometh, will I make a pillar in the Temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the Name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is the new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God, and I will write upon him my new Name. Revelation 3:12, Geneva Bible