Background

I've always been interested in history, particularly family history. When my first child was born I determined to make a start. Although both paternal and maternal sides of the family had intriguing stories, I decided to first follow up the maternal side of the family as the name was unusual and I felt I would have more success with research.

I began by trying to find out what members of the family could recall; taking copies of births/marriage/death certificates and so on. Basically, that was all I initially managed. By the time my interest in family history had developed (and I had time to pursue the 'hobby'), senior family members had died.

Gathering information

I began at the Records Office in Liverpool's Central Library - looking at the I.G.I. for Lancashire, Liverpool parish registers and cemetery records. I tried to reconcile the information I recalled with the records. I remember the first time I found something in a parish register - it was the baptism of my grandfather and it gave his parents name and address. It was a piece of the jig-saw I had started. I was so excited and wanted to tell everyone around me about my good fortune. Many family historians will smile knowingly as they identify with those feelings. I also began to look at the 'St. Catherines' Indexes to births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales. It was at this point I realised just how uncommon a surname it was and felt that as it was so uncommon, surely they must all be related somehow, however distant it may be. So I decided to make a note of all references I came across - and that began the interest in all things to do with RODENHURST. Over the following months I gathered details of all of the Rodenhurst births, marriages and deaths for the years which were available at the time (Click here for further details).

Armed with dates, data from parish register entries and so on, I turned to the census. In Liverpool the 1851 census has been indexed on surname and I was able to use this to then find the entry on microfilm. When I had addresses from parish registers and birth/marriage/death certifcates obtained from the register office, I searched those areas in the appropriate census, looking for the family name.

As time went on (and my own personal research became more frustrating - just where did John Rodenhurst disappear to in the 1840's?) I started to look at indexes to wills, and again collected all references to the surname.

Origins

Looking at the spread of events for the surname, I believe that the name originates in the area of Shropshire (or Salop as was) and the Welsh border. I've made a couple of trips to various villages, cemeteries in the area and even located a farm called Rodenhurst Hall.

Statistics

I have collated

281 Rodenhurst births registered in England and Wales between 1837 and 1940,

170 Rodenhurst marriages between 1837 and 1937, and

178 Rodenhurst deaths between 1837 and 1940