Welcome to www.CloseAncestry.com
 

Thanks to links from our main tree into America, Australia, Canada and New Zealand we've now opened these up with their own set of people. Some of these are a bit skimpy, so if you can find someone here who is an ancestor of yours in foreign parts please let us know and eventually we'll conquer the world!

For those of you who have sent us updates, information, images and corrections, many thanks. Please bear with us because we will get around to it eventually... and please keep them coming.

We're continually dripping smaller updates onto the site. These can be anything from clarifications to photographs, so please visit us regularly.
 
Last Major Update: February 2010
What started out again as another small interesting update turned into another mega update... 334 new people occupying the Grinton Registers. This is the whole lot from the 17th Century up to the 1840's recorded in Grinton.

The problem here is that there are huge gaps, some as big as 12 years. Couple that with the sheer number of James Close's around at any given time and it becomes just about impossible to tell who belongs to who. Any hoo ... what you see is what you get. If you spot any obvious howlers (and there will be some!) then please let us know.
 
The Swaledale Wood-Cuts Calendars
A fabulous selection of wood-cuts depicting Swaledale from the West to the East. Based in the 1950's but you can't help feeling that it could easily be a hundred years earlier. 'Characterful, disciplined, yet fully expressive; ideally suited to interpret the austere beauty of Swaledale'.

We've tried to keep the price down, so these will make great gifts and stocking fillers, particularly if you're looking for something a bit off the beaten track.

There are a number of options available, more details here ... or see the shop.
 
The Poet Close Calendars
It had to happen. We've put together a couple of one-month per page calendars based on the writings of our favourite ancestral poet.

Each one has a selection of original poems and images taken from one of his published books. We've tried to keep the price down, so these will make great gifts and stocking fillers, particularly if you're looking for something a bit off the beaten track.

There are a number of options available, more details here ... or see the shop.
 
Close Ancestry Shop

The site's turned into a bit of a monster and unfortunately so have the costs of keeping it going. So, to try to cover some of these we've put together a few goodies in our online shop that we hope will tempt you into adding a few pounds into our coffers, ... and it's as easy as we can make it.

We're not here to make money and anything left over will be used to buy Birth, Death and Marriage Certificates ... or anything else that adds value.

The site started as a free resource, and that's the way it's going to stay. However, all contributions will be very gratefully received.

For anyone who simply wants to send us a donation, we have a "donation" item in the shop for this purpose. Just add it to your shopping basket as if you're buying something real and pay online as you would do for real stuff... or if you have a PayPal account you can send us a donation direct to sales@closeancestry.com - just remember to make it a "personal" transfer, otherwise they nick a percentage.


Many thanks to all who have helped us out so far.

 
Parish Registers
We've managed to find a number of parish registers from the Swaledale and Wensleydale areas.

They contain Baptisms, Marriages and Burials varying from the 1500's up to the 1800's. Please note that these are not purely Close-related, they are the entire registers for the parish and as such are relevant to anyone researching the area.
 
Click here for more on the Bowes Parish Registers
 
Click here for more on the Grinton Parish Registers
 
Click here for more on the Wensley Parish Registers
 
Poet Close Books
We have a couple of Poet Close's books available as .PDF files in the shop. Even though they are 140 years old they are in brilliant condition inside (unfortunately the covers have suffered). He wasn't short of words, so these are fantastic value. Click here for more on Poet Close's Books ... the quality of image below is a meagre fraction of the full high-res scans on offer. The actual books are completely legible.
 

Click here for the full picture
 
The Guild of One-Name Studies
Margaret Southgate (nee Close), one of our contributors, has taken up the mantle of a "One-Namer" of the Close surname. She would like anybody who is researching Close ancestors to provide whatever they can towards her endeavour. Given that we're a prolific bunch of breeders she's set herself a mammoth task!

Click here to see what she's up to and how you can help
 
The Church of St Andrew, Grinton
See the East Window at the Church of St Andrew, Grinton which is a dedication to members of the Close family. Click the image below to see it in all its glory.

Photograph of the east window of The Church of St Andrew at Grinton, Yorkshire. It was dedicated to John Close (1796), Barbara Close (1820) and their son John Close (1849).

We haven't managed to fit them into the family jigsaw yet, but they are the subject of one our unattached trees.

The dedication reads:

In honour of Christ crucified, and in memory of John Close of Low Whita, who died Oct. 7th 1872 aged 76 years; and Barbara Close widow of the same who died at Leeds April 14th 1894 aged 74 years; and John Close, their son, who died at Leeds Nov 6th 1879 aged 30 years; Susanna their daughter dedicates this window.
 
Unattached Trees
We've published a few unattached trees. These are "unattached" from the point-of-view of not linking into our main tree. However, what they all have in common (ish) is that they start in Grinton. Given that Grinton is not exactly large, and had a smallish finite set of Closes living there at any one time, it's almost inevitable that the tops of these trees are related to each other in some way (brothers, cousins, uncles, etc) - we just haven't found the link yet.

If anybody can provide a link for any of these back into our main tree, or joining two together,  we'd be very interested. Please drop us a line.
 
So far we've found:
our very own poet ... who was so bad he's starred in a "Worst of ..." book ... but we love him!
(at least) 5 bona fide lunatics
a whole bunch of people who really should be calling themselves Close ... rather than Metcalfe
a whole bunch of people who probably should be calling themselves Smethurst ... rather than Close
we've lost track of the number of illegitimate children
... and we're a bit concerned about the number of times a Close has married a Close ...
 
The Story So Far

This seems to be pretty much where it all started ... or at least as far we've got up to now!
 
Other Stuff
We're also offering a number of other resources that you would normally have to dig around for, such as locale maps, glossary and supporting documentation. There are a lot of image files which are pretty big. To keep the page loads down to a reasonable time we reduce these to thumbnails which tend to open in a new browser window. You can see many of these in our Galleries and they also turn up in the Trees.

Feel free to have a look around and help yourself. We don't charge anything for this but your participation would be much appreciated, and if you find us useful please spread the word. Also, if you have anything that may validate or fill in some of our gaps (we have lots) then drop us a mail - we'll be more than happy to slot it in.

Please make use of our Message Boards to request information on aspects of your own research. These are freely available to anyone who is prepared to register.

Also, if you would like automatic notifications on our updates, have a look at the News Feeds options. These will keep you up-to-date with changes and/or additions to the site, particularly people.

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