Welcome to the Close Ancestry Trees
5 December 2011 - 3:30:01pm

Hello, and welcome to the Close Ancestry trees.

There's a lot of stuff around but hopefully most of it is self-explanatory. Just click around to see what's there. If you're not sure where to start then stick a name into the Search box at the top of the page and hit the Search button. You'll be presented with a list of people who match, and from there just pick the one you want.

Generally speaking if you hover your mouse over something and it turns a different colour, there's a link to something else.

We have a Clippings Cart which lets you download information in the Gedcom format, and then import into your family tree software. You can find the option for adding into the cart on the Other option of the menus that appear for individuals.

There are a whole load of charts and stuff to help you visualise your trees and navigate around. If you see the cursor turn into a cross-hair then you can click, hold, and drag the tree. With several thousand people in the trees there's no easy way of showing all the data, so bear with it and have a go. You can't break anything ... ? ... damn, wish I hadn't said that.

See our Help / FAQ List for ‎(some of the)‎ answers surrounding the site... and scroll down here because there's a whole load of stuff below.

Please help us

This is a free site which now contains the details thousands of people, and thousands of images. Putting aside the number of hours work involved in producing it, it costs money to pay for the web hosting and keep the site on-line.

If you have found the site useful then please help us out by donating a few pounds towards the upkeep. Anything you donate will go towards keeping the site free to use, we do not do this to make money.

Just select the Donate button on the right. Donations can be made by Debit card, Credit card, or PayPal. Anything you can spare will be gratefully received.

What's New: December 2011
5 December 2011 - 3:29:14pm

A smallish tree ‎(depending on how you look at it)‎ originating in Bradford, Yorkshire with 149 new people and 250 new images.

These all stem from a certain John Close ‎(sigh)‎ ‎(1791)‎ who seems to have been responsible for the Bradford Closes. Not sure where he came from, but there are a number of possibilities ... none of which are conclusive, so he's hanging around waiting for a link back. This seems to have flushed Bradford out, so to speak, with the usual exceptions of those that fell between the Census cracks. If you can fill in any gaps then please let me know.

This tree contains one Dennis Brian Close ... renowned Yorkshire, Somerset and England cricketer - youngest cricketer ever to play for England.

What's New: September 2011
1 September 2011 - 2:14:28pm

We've had an unvalidated Irish / Canadian tree sat here for some time, and this update fills in the detail. Not a huge release in terms of new people ‎(around 50)‎, but around 100 new images, mainly census records in Canada and the USA.

The main culprit was Thomas Close ‎(c 1770)‎ from Ireland into Canada, and from there into America... and in some cases back into Canada.

What's New: July 2011
12 July 2011 - 8:10:53pm

Finally! The last flush of Durham!

At least 393 new people sprawling mainly over Durham, Northumberland and Yorkshire. This doesn't mean the full set is there since there are probably dozens of children who died between census records, for instance. However, we're reasonably sure the main percentage has been tracked down ... until they disappeared, presumably to foreign parts.

The now usual unattached tree oddments, with the main ones being:

John Close ‎(< 1727)‎
John Close ‎(c 1783)‎
John Close ‎(c 1786)‎

While some of these may be "unattached", it looks as though one at least may actually fit into an existing Aycliffe tree. Unfortunately, there's not enough evidence to be conclusive.

What's New: May 2011
3 May 2011 - 11:09:08pm

03/05/2011

Yet another monster update, this time originating in Durham, with at least 873 new people split across half-a-dozen trees. The main ones are:

Ralph Close ‎(c 1715)‎

Thomas Close ‎(< 1762)‎

Ralph Close ‎(< 1764)‎

William Close ‎(c 1780)‎

The first one, Ralph Close ‎(c 1715)‎, originates in Durham but then spreads into Canada and from there into America. It's a huge tree, and contains references to just about every piece of documentation you can think of.

As well as creating more trees, this release has also allowed some of the existing ones to snap into place on others. So, some trees have pushed back by several generations as a result.

What's New: January 2011
23 January 2011 - 2:14:44pm

Following a trip to Easby, just outside Richmond in Yorkshire, I did a random search to see if anything showed up since it was an unfamiliar area to me. Unbelievably it appears that a John Close owned Easby Hall, which overlooks the Abbey and the river Swale.

Unfortunately he appears to have died suddenly on the night before he was due to move into the hall, but his family seemed to have been there for a while. So, this set of updates is dedicated to him, and his family. His 3 daughters all married into various landed gentry, and appear frequently in the books of Burke.