The Priestley Family of Collingham and Newark

The Parish Church of Saint John the Baptist, South Collingham, Nottinghamshire introduces this website.  The photograph was taken from the location of the gravestone of John Priestley, born 1791, son of John Priestley, a key individual named below.

The church registers of North and South Collingham, Newark, North Clifton and Spalford revealed so many Priestleys baptized with the same Christian names, I decided to record them all and sort out the families later.  Contacts with other researchers filled in some gaps and helped to identify family groups.

The Priestley family trees were reduced  to 3, starting in the middle of the 18th Century.  It is probable that two of the families merge at an earlier date; but the South Collingham registers for that time are illegible.  There is also a gap in the North Collingham registers between 1753 and 1772, losing a generation.  Other evidence shows there were at least two families at the time of the Protestation of 1641.  Further back, a William Priestley married in South Collingham in 1570.  These earlier Priestleys are included in the database; but have no proven links to later generations.

I hope the site proves useful to the descendants of the 3 Priestley key individuals listed below.  Click on a link and it will take you to the head of that family tree.  Alternatively, click on the 'Index of Names' to find a link to everyone in the database.

This will always be a work in progress and mistakes will be found.  Where assumptions have been made about relationships, these are explained.  Anyone who has an interest is welcome to contact me at the email address at the foot of the page.  The data is now maintained in Family Tree Builder and the website is generated by GEDmill.  If you have a correction, addition, comment or image to contribute, please send it and I shall be happy to include it in the next update.  Note that, for privacy reasons, there  should be no details of living persons.

I should like to place on record the work of fellow researchers.  Their welcome correspondence has helped to confirm or confound my own assumptions, and extended the recorded generations into the 20th Century    Some are listed below:-

Chris Allam
Linda Barber
Norma Beeby
Gillian Breese
Charles Case
Jacky Clark
Clive Holton
Linda Hutton
Barbara Moody
Susannah Priestley-Child
Jean Tweddle

I am also pleased to acknowledge the help and support of Gavin Priestley, the son of my late cousin Michael.  Apart from his research, Gavin is now hosting this website, enabling its expansion.

This website was first published on the 17th July 2006.  It required no technical expertise, thanks to the GEDmill Pro software which converts Gedcom to HTML.

Version1 - 16 July 2006
Version2 - 27 September 2006
Version3 - 1 January 2007
Version4 - 10 February 2007
Version5 - 23 November 2007
Version6 - 11 March 2008
Version7 - 18 November 2008
Version8 - 15 July 2009
Version9 - 25 February 2011
Version10 - 17 July 2013
Version11 - 18 February 2015
Version12 - 15 October 2015
This version includes additions and corrections for the past year and, for the first time, a branch of the Priestley name in the USA.  Please contact me if you find any anomalies

This website contains records on 1506 individuals, cross-referenced to 98 sources. There are links to 61 images.

Website created by ian.priestley@hotmail.com using GEDmill.

Created on 29 October 2015.