For visitors to this site interested in the evolving Duggleby Family Tree, starting around the time of the Domesday book (1086), please see the special page by clicking here where you will find a copy of the latest update to the tree.
I have also provided some information about examples of the very old documents used to produce the family tree. If you are interested in these please take a look at my blog entries by clicking here, here and here.
Duggleby, in addition to being a rather unusual family name is also the name of a village in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was mentioned in the Domesday Book as ‘Difgelibi‘ when detailing the lands and holding of Beringer of Cosney. The Domesday Book was a land survey and census from 1086. It was commissioned by William the Conqueror to assess the extent of the land and resources owned in England to determine what taxes he could raise.
The history of Duggleby can physically be traced back to about 3000 BC because it is the location of Duggleby Howe, one of the largest Round Barrows in Britain. The Barrow or burial mound is presumed to date from the late Neolithic period. It is 37 metres in diameter and aerial photographs show it is surrounded by a circular enclosure, 370 metres in diameter. There are two concentric bronze-age ditches one inside and one outside this enclosure. The origins of the Duggleby Howe are steeped in mystery. Its location is close to the source of the Gypsey Race, a ‘magical’ stream which rises through a series of springs and flows intermittently. This may well have influenced our ancestors’ decision to build Duggleby Howe. Folklore predicts that when the Gypsey race flows bad fortune is likely. Apparently it flowed in the year before the great plague of 1664!
A series of excavations were performed on the mound in the late 19th century revealing some of its secrets. It would appear that Duggleby Howe was used as a cemetery for a long period of time since the Late Neolithic. Some of the burials appear to have been of important people like chieftains who had flint weapons and ceramic articles buried alongside their bodies as well as tools and artefacts made from from flint, antlers, bones, boar tusk and beaver tooth. Other burials were cremations and the lack of any surrounding vessel or enclosure indicated they may well have been sacrificial offerings, possibly accompanying the burial of local chieftains. The broken bones of the ox, roebuck, red deer, fox, goat, and pig found at the site indicate the burials involved big ceremonial feasts. Interestingly among these were also human bones which had been broken and cooked. It would appear that at least some of the ancient English folk were cannibals (I have included a link for photos and more information about Duggleby Howe in the links section on the right hand side of the archives page).
Moving swiftly on from cannibals to my own ‘Duggleby’ history – it has been possible to trace my ancestors back to just after the time when the village of Duggleby was mentioned in the Domesday Book. The most notable early figure was Sir Henry Duggleby (born 1145). To give this some historical perspective this was around the time of the reign of King Richard 1 of England (Richard the Lion Heart, 1157-1199) and the third crusade. Sir Henry Duggleby was my GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT GRANDFATHER (23 ‘greats’). A major acknowledgement is due here to Ellen Reid for her painstaking work and dedication in uncovering much of the documentary basis for this trail.
Clearly some of the earlier dates are approximations. You will also see the variations in spellings of the name as it was registered in the documents over the centuries: it is not just today that people struggle to spell the name Duggleby correctly. A lot of the early information came from Last Will and Testaments. All except the last three generations lived either in Duggleby or villages nearby. The lineage from Sir Henry to myself appears to be as follows (for more detail take a look at the PDF version of the tree available from here):
Duggleby (possibly Difgelibi, first name unknown): Born approx. 1115 – died ? Wife’s name unknown?
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Sir Henry de Duggleby (de Dingelby) Born approx. 1145 – died ? (Brother Jollan): Wife’s name unknown?
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Adam Duggleby Born 1195 –? Wife?
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Adam Duggleby (de Dugleby) 1250 – 1300 (Brother Hugh): Wife Joan
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Ralph Duggleby (de Dugleby) 1275 –? (Siblings: John, Robert, Adam): Wife?
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William Duggleby (Willelmo de Dugelbi) 1305 –? (Siblings: John, Walter): Wife?
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John Duggleby (Dyngelby) 1345 –? (Siblings: William, Robert): Wife?
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John Duggleby (de Duggylby) 1370 –? (One unknown brother): Wife?
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William Duggleby (Willim Dogilby) 1402 –? Wife?
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Duggleby (first name unknown): 1424 –? Wife?
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Thomas Duggleby (Doggleby of Thornholme) 1460 – 1503 Wife Margaret
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Walter Duggleby (Doggleby) 1485 –? (Siblings: Joan, Alice): Wife?
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William Duggleby (Douglebi of North Dalton) 1510 – 1561 (Siblings: Cuthbert, John): Wife?
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Robert Duggleby (Dugleby, Dougelbe of North Dalton) 1535 – 1589 (Siblings: Roger, Ann): Wife Mabel
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William Duggleby (Dougilbie) 1575 – 1620 (Siblings: John, Matthew, Richard, John, Audrey, Issabel) Wife Margaret
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Robert Duggleby 1605 – 1678 (Siblings: William, Thomas, Isabel): Wife Elizabeth
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John Duggleby 1675 – 1728 (Siblings: Nickolas, Elisabeth, Margaret, Beatrice): Wife Elizabeth
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David Duggleby 1723 – 1806 (Siblings: John, Rachel, Ann): Wife Elizabeth
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William Duggleby 1750 – 1794 (Sibling: Rebecca): Wife Elizabeth
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John Duggleby 1775 – 1830 (Siblings: Michael, William, Mary, Betty, Rebecca): Wife Jane
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William Duggleby 1804 – 1876 (Siblings: John, David, Bryan, Mary, Elizabeth, Mary, Anne): Wife Ann
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John Duggleby 1834 – 1911 (Siblings: George, William, Mary, Ann, Elizabeth, Jane, Matilda, Hannah): Wife Ann
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John William Duggleby 1879 – 1950 (Siblings: Seth, Wilson, Fred, Seth, Tom, George, Barbara, Mary, Frances, Ada): Wife Annie
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Leslie Duggleby 1907 – 1943 (Siblings: George, Maude, Adeline, Annie): Wife Elizabeth
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John Leslie Duggleby Born 1937 (Sibling: June): Wife Christine Helen
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Christopher Leslie Duggleby Born 1958 (Siblings: Matthew John, Helen Louise): Wife Monika
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Alexander Duggleby Born 1983 and Pascal Duggleby Born 1989
Chris Duggleby 
Hello Vincent, Chris, and all. I have resent 2 emails to Vincent regarding the Ohio and Texas dugglebys. I also sent him an email with a photo of Mary Hannah Simpson and her family in front of their farm house in Davenport Iowa. There is a portrait on the wall behind Mary Hannah of Alfred. Chris, please forward my email address to Vincent. I suspect my emails have gone to his spam folder.
Bonny
Hi Folks,
I am sure you have already noticed but I have added a link at the top of the Duggleby History page which will take you to an evolving Family Tree chart. So far I have just included the first 500 years after the Domesday Book entry to test the approach. My intention would be to expand this up to the present day – a number of you will appreciate that this is something of a mammoth task (we have a huge number of Dugglebys to include, some in batches due to gaps in records). However if we have a single central framework it should facilitate things when we want discuss individual entries: we just need to give the family tree page number then we all have the same reference point. This is clearly not an overnight task but let’s see if I can stick with it. In addition I have also added a bit more info on some of the old documents used to create the early tree entries in this weeks blog.
Hope this will help!
Kind regards,
Chris
Hello Chris
with regard to the DNA testing I had carried out can you send me your customer ID and I will try and retrieve the results. To make things more complicated the company destroyed all samples and sold the results to a new company XXXXXX. This has meant that I had to get another sample when I wanted more tests on my Dad. I established back then that my Dad is not a Duggleby, well certainly not from the Beswick line, and recently that he may be a Coverdale. Although there may be Duggleby half-relatives from way back then.
As for the website Duggleby.info the software hosting company went bankrupt and yes I could have used another and rebuilt it but life (thankfully) got in the way.
I do feel I have done more than enough to help the Duggleby family history but on a casual ad hoc basis would be willing to help out in the future.
Certainly I can let you have the DNA test results and I do feel that to tie up the loose ends in the whole Duggleby family tree this is the way to go.
I, myself was not able to persuade any other people to partake unless I funded the testing. Perhaps you might have better luck. I do feel that testing of people from the Beswick line is a bit of a waste of time and money as this line is well documented and generally agreed as being correct.
kind regards
Ellen
Hi Ellen,
Well! First of all let me express a big welcome to a lady who I can truly describe as a VIP guest of the Duggleby History site. I believe I can speak on behalf of the global Duggleby community when I express our gratitude to you for the diligent work you did on uncovering so much of the Duggleby family records and history. You only have to read some of the comments expressing sadness at the loss of the Duggleby.info site to realise how much you have been missed.
By now you will have my DNA customer ID and a copy of my analysis results for your collation.
Let me once again confirm our discussion today that I will be only too happy to host on this site any of the other information pertaining to the Dugglebys that you still have and would be prepared to share with our other visitors. There are some gaps in my own information regarding the origins of some of the overseas Duggleby community and any information you have in this regard will be added to the growing family tree (as quickly as my day job and my somewhat ‘challenged’ formatting skills allow).
Thanks for getting in touch and kind regards,
Summer has just got a little brighter!
Chris.
My father Peter Seymour Charnley is trying to contact you from South Africa. He is a great great grandson of Hannah I think but not sure. He would love to email you the details if you can give me your address? Dad is 89 this year but takes a great interest in his roots.
I really hope to hear from you – these are my contact details below
Thanks
Julia
No problem Julia,
Great hearing from you. My details are on the way. Don’t hesitate if I can be of further help to you or Peter,
kind regards,
Chris.
You are correct on this, Vincent. I have a hand written bio of John Taylor Duggleby written by his daughter, Blanche Ruth. His parents were John Duggleby and Mary Taylor. He was born on December 5, 1887 in Arram. He was baptised in the Arram Weslyan Methodist chapel on Jan 3, 1888. This was near Lockington. John was known as Jack and had two brothers, Edgar and Douglas. The family lived at Riding Hill Farm in arram. In 1910 he went to Cliff College and in 1912 he went to Australia to join the Home Mission Department of the Methodist church in Victoria. December 1915 he enlisted in the Australian Medical Corps of the AIF.
Bonny