Early UK families: Cauldon and Grindon

Cauldon and Alstonefield are the  two earliest locations where Tittertons are recorded as living.  Details of the Cauldon families come from two sources. One source is from a survey of the families in the Archdeaconry of Staffordshire made about 1532/3. This records two families but one cannot tell if they are  brothers, or father and son, or cousins or even unrelated.  This last option is most unlikely.  Families at Alstonefield go back earlier, 1397/8 than Cauldon and information about Astonefield is found on the Early UK families: Alstonefield and Narrowdale Farm page.

The other Cauldon source is the wills of several Tittertons between 1561 and 1607, which are for successive generations of the same family. The wills show that one member of the family moved to Handsworth near Birmingham and another (d. 1557) moved to Mayfield near Ashbourne. The family in Cauldon seem to fail in the male line as did the Handsworth.  The possible future of the Mayfiled family is discussed below.

However one family member, George, moved to Grindon.  George Titterton appears in Cauldon wills. We know that he has moved to Grindon from the will of a Henry Lonesdale, d. 1586, which refers to a number of Cauldon Tittertons and also to George of Grindon. The Tittertons are probably Henry Lonesdale’s nephews and great-nephews.

There are references to George Titterton of Grindon in 1586, 1607/8, 1631 and 1654. The George of 1586 must have been born about 1530. The 1631 reference is on a map of Grindon showing the tenements the family used and lived in. These tenements are highlighted in red on the map shown and can be identified by the initials G T for George Titterton. (However they are not  living at Deepdale Farm yet. The first reference to Deepdale, which is in the south of the village on a track going to Waterfall today, is in 1705.)  Click here for a larger image of map.

The reference to George Titterton of 1654 was as father of a bride. He would have been born about 1600, so it is possible that these are references to three successive generations.  There is no evidence that any of them had surviving brothers with families. George with the daughter marrying in 1654 was probably the grandfather of a George was born about the same year.who married 1678, with William Titterton who had three hearths in the 1666 Hearth Tax as the intervening generation.

There are wills for John Titterton of Grindon, (a Joiner), who died in 1699 and George of Ipstones who died in 1715.  The latter was childless. These two people can be shown to be  Uncles of George who married in 1678 and thus brothers of Hearth Tax William .   Details of the family and connections of John the Joiner are found on a separate  webpage.  No descendants of John have been traced beyond his grandchildren.  George who married in 1678 is called George ‘the Founder’ of the Grindon family who accounts for perhaps one third of the Tittertons worldwide.  His story is continued on the Grindon 1600 onwards – Deepdale Farm page.  Click here to open up Cauldon and Early Grindon pedigree.