This surname page revised March 2017 (and again a little on occasions up to July 2019) - I am currently adding associated pages so please excuse some non-functioning links
This line comes from Cumberland in the north of England. It seems that for centuries the family stayed in a fairly small area of western Cumberland. They also all seem to have been yeoman farmers / landowners.
For many generations they were members of the religious Society of Friends (Quakers), which strongly influenced their marriages etc.
This page covers eight generations of Williamsons. More recent generations are not included to protect the privacy of living people.
There are some potential earlier Williamsons, possible ancestors of Jonathan who heads the line below, from the parish of Crosthwaite in the 16th and 17th centuries. I have done a separate page about them here.
I got started on family history with an inherited family tree for this line, which I'll discuss much more on the research notes page, but it was printed in about 1935 by a Cumberland Quaker genealogist called James Gorton Brooker, so I will call it the Brooker tree or just Brooker when I have occasion to refer to it on this page.
10. Jonathan (died 1675) and Mary (died 1715) of Tallentire in the parish of Bridekirk, married probably early 1650s. Mary was born a BOWES of Tallentire.
Brief story below - more on their own page.
9. William (1669-1712) and Mary (d1726) of Allonby in the parish of Bromfield, married probably end of the 1600s. Mary may have been born a BEEBY.
Brief story below - more on their own page
8. Jonathan (1699-1779) and Rebecca (1707-68) of Allonby, married 1735. Rebecca was previously a WILSON of Graythwaite.
Brief story below - more on their own page
7. Thomas (1736-1820) and Hannah (abt 1746 - 1813) of Allonby, married 1766. Hannah was previously a ROBSON of Thurstonfield.
Brief story below - more on their own page
6. William (1777-1860) and Ann (1786-1819) of Allonby, married 1815. Ann was previously a BEEBY of Allonby.
Brief story below - more on their own page
5. Thomas (1815-87) and Deborah (1808-77) of Allonby, married 1838. Deborah was previously a ROBINSON of Pardshaw.
Brief story below - more on their own page
4. Joseph Robinson (1842-80) and Sarah Jane (1846-88) WILLIAMSON of Pardshaw, married 1868. Sarah Jane was previously a TOMLINSON of Whitehaven.
Brief story below - more on their own page
3. Thomas Edward (1874-1950) and Sarah (1875-1935) WILLIAMSON of Pardshaw, married 1904. Sarah was previously a PATTINSON of Blennerhasset.
Brief story below - more on their own page
WILLIAMSON 1 research notes
index of surnames
Jonathan and Mary Williamson lived in Tallentire in the parish of Bridekirk in Cumberland, from the 1650s onward. Mary was born about 1633 to William and Mary BOWES of Tallentire. Brooker says Jonathan was the son of Humphrey who was in turn son of John WILLIAMSON of Newhall - if true, this would mean Jonathan was born about 1625 in the parish of Crosthwaite in Cumberland, parents Humphrey and Dorothy WILLIAMSON. See the Crosthwaite Williamson page here.
Jonathan and Mary look to have had the following children, baptised on the following dates:
Mary, 4 August 1654
Jane, 15 November 1656
Dorothy, 30 January 1659/60
Thomas, 30 September 1662
maybe Ann, no baptism record but born possibly 1663 or 64 (or possibly early 1770s)
Agnes, 4 June 1665
Isabel, 6 October 1667
William, 31 October 1669
John, 23 February 1670/71
There is discussion of the uncertainties over the children and their dating on the family page.
Jonathan was buried on 2 February 1674/5; Mary had a long widowhood, being buried on 16 November 1715, probably aged over 80.
Around or soon after 1700, William joined the Religious Society of Friends, the Quakers, in which Williamson descendants of his have remained ever since. He had also moved to the coastal village of Allonby (in the parish of Bromfield, also in Cumberland) and married a woman called Mary. I suspect these events may all have been related and Mary may have been from a family attending the Allonby Quaker meeting, possibly BEEBY. Their children were:
Jonathan, 2 January 1699/1700
Sarah, 13 May 1702
Mary, 19 June 1704
William had both land and business premises in and around Allonby; he was described as a yeoman (a working farm-owner) and a dyer.
William was buried on 10 April 1712 in Friends' Burying Ground in Allonby (he was only in his early 40s); Mary likewise on 16 March 1725/26
Jonathan apparently married Rebecca WILSON of Graythwaite in 1735.
Their children were:
Thomas, 16 October 1736
Sarah, 27 April 1740
Anne, 4 October 1743
Jonathan, 6 June 1747
William, 10 July 1749
Jonathan still had his father's dyehouse, and was also described as a yeoman.
Rebecca died aged about 61 in 1768; Jonathan her husband survived her until 1779, dying aged about 80.
On 6 November 1766 Thomas married Hannah ROBSON of Thurstonfield - a Quaker marriage at the meeting in Kirkbride.
They had 11 children over the next 21 years, though some of them died young.
Jonathan, 2 September 1767
Fanny, 23 October 1768 (died 2 August 1769)
Fanny, 8 April 1770
Rebecca, 2 July 1772
Sarah, 1 January 1775
Hannah, 30 June 1776 (died 31 July the same year)
William, 18 October 1777
Joseph, 17 November 1779
Hannah, 30 April 1782
Thomas, 26 November 1783
John, 12 February 1787
While having these children, he was described as a husbandman - a livestock farmer. As an old man he's described as a yeoman.
Hannah died aged about 73 in 1819 and Thomas aged about 84 the following year.
William married Ann BEEBY in 1815 at the Quaker meeting at Allonby.
Their children were
Thomas, 17 December 1815
Mary, 28 February 1817
Ann Hannah, and a still-born twin brother, March 1819
After Thomas and Mary married, William (a yeoman or in his old age a 'landed proprietor') lived with just a housekeeper. He died of dropsy in 1860, aged 83.
Thomas married in 1838 Deborah ROBINSON, at her Quaker meeting of Pardshaw.
Thomas and Deborah lived at Allonby and had four sons:
William, 29 November 1840
Joseph Robinson, 7 September 1842
Jonathan, 3 March 1844
John, 6 June 1846
Thomas was initially a farmer (ie he rented land), later inheriting his father's property to become a yeoman. In his older years he claimed 'gentleman' but I guess that was more to do with retirement from daily farm labour than with real upper class wealth - he owned less than 500 acres of land.
In 1877, aged 69, Deborah died of rheumatic heart disease and bronchitis.
Thomas remarried in 1878, to a Norwegian woman called Anbjor BYDNESEN. They had a daughter:
Serena Ann, 15 February 1879
Thomas died in 1887, of chronic gastritis aged 71. Anna in turn remarried later the same year, to a countryman of hers called Gorgen ENGE - the two of them and Serena later emigrated to Iowa, USA.
Named after his mother's father, Joseph Robinson WILLIAMSON went to live in the area where she came from, at Pardshaw on the fringe of the Lake District in Cumberland. He was already living there, a yeoman farmer, when he married, in the Quaker meeting house at Whitehaven, a woman from that port - Sarah Jane TOMLINSON.
Joseph and Sarah had six children:
Deborah, 7 December 1869
Sarah Edith, 19 January 1871 (died 3 August 1872)
Mabel, 10 January 1873
Thomas Edward, 12 November 1874
William Henry, 18 November 1876
Joseph John, 23 May 1879
Joseph John was only a year old when Joseph Robinson died of pneumonia aged 38. Sarah Jane herself died of cancer in 1888, aged 41, leaving her children orphaned aged between 18 and 8. Some of them, at least Thomas Edward, went to live with their uncle William at Allonby.
Family tradition has it that Thomas Edward went back to Pardshaw 'when he was old enough to take over the farm'.
In 1904, he married Sarah PATTINSON, also 29, of Blennerhasset. That small village is in the parish of Torpenhow, and the marriage took place in the parish church there. This would have resulted in Thomas' being 'disowned' (suspended from membership) by the Quakers as they did not believe in the practice of couples being married by a priest.
Thomas and Sarah had four children in their first three years of marriage. I'm not posting any personal details of this generation to protect the privacy of living people. I don't have any early death dates for any of them and at least two outlived both their parents.
Sarah died of a heart attack on Christmas Day 1935 aged 60, at the Croft. After this Thomas retired to a nearby cottage known as the Borrans or Borrans Villa, while his son took over the farm. He died in 1957 of a gastric ulcer, at Roseacre in Allonby where he was then living with his unmarried grown-up daughter. He is buried in the ground of the Quaker meeting house at Pardshaw Hall.
If you are interested in this line I'll be very pleased indeed to hear from you. Email me at deletethis.ianwilliamson161@gmail.com but delete everything up to and including the first dot, leaving just my name and number @ service provider.