My Lancaster Family Line

My maternal Great Grandfather, Stephen Lancaster was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, in 1833. In 1856 he migrated to Wellington, New Zealand and led a successful life. He was mayor of Karori and held other civic office in hospital and harbour boards etc. Stephen died at Karori in 1899.

Historically, Stephen's Lancaster antecedants appear to have originated in the parishes of Gisburn and Paythorne in the Ribble Valley, (now partly in Yorkshire and Lancashire). An examination of the early records shows that several distinct Lancaster family lines existed before c1600 in the Ribble Valley area.

The family moved to Slaidburn before 1750 and then to Dunsop Bridge about 1800. Later they were also found domiciled in Blackburn, Accrington, and as far away as Liverpool, Lancashire. Today there are known branches of my line in Lancashire, Australia and New Zealand. Thus we get the following family line:

Descendants of William Lancaster (bc1540) of the Ribble Valley

I would appreciate learning of any of our family details you know of that are not described here.

Please email me: Keith Vautier

Note: I personally have done very little work on the earlier Lancaster family lines other than descendants of John Lancaster of Blackburn (born Slaidburn).

Other Lancaster Family Lines

Plenty of collaborative work on Lancaster families in this area can be found on Craig Thornber's website. The main contributors have included Rick Lancaster, Craig Thornber, Pat Gaskin, Bob Dodgson, Beth Mead, Patsy Mellor, Tricia Coll, and Andrew Lancaster. See: The Lancasters of Paythorne in Gisburn


Page last updated 23 Feb 2018