Hi I thought I would just re-post my interest in the surnames HIRST & RUSSELL in the Northallerton area. I have the RUSSELLs beginning in about 1670ish in Hawnby, then they appear to move into the Ingleby Arncliffe & Osmotherly areas and later on into Northallerton. Nathaniel Russell owned Russells Grocer's shop and Café in the High Street Northallerton. Besides Nathaniel the grocer the Russells had amongst them, Flax Dressers, Linen Manufacturers, Plumbers & Braziers HIRSTs I have beginning in West Yorkshire until about 1770 when a Godfrey Hirst married a girl from Pontefract, my 4 x Gt. Grandparents, and they moved to Northallerton to run the Golden Lion Inn in the High Street there for about 30 years. Godfrey died in 1807 and one of his sons Francis took over the running of the inn until his own death in the 1830s. Another two sons of Godfrey, called Richard & Jonathan, both seem to have gone to Kingston on Hull and the Sculcoates area, East Riding, where they had an Ironmongery business. Richard was back in Northallerton by 1833 when he died at Bank Close there, but Jonathan died in Hull in 1862. I am descended from one of Godfrey's other sons, named Edwin who himself had a son called Godfrey. This later Godfrey married an Ann Russell in 1841, they were my 2 x Gt. grandparents. They had several children in Romanby and Northallerton. Godfrey died in 1878 in Northallerton I believe, but I am not sure & need to check this. I have just discovered that Annie Hirst, widow of the latter Godfrey, died in the Heaton area of Newcastle Upon Tyne in 1887 and that several of her children had gone to live in this part of Northumberland whilst one or two others lived around Gateshead County Durham. One of Ann and Godfrey's sons was also named Godfrey and he was a Jet manufacturer at Whitby in 1881-1891, apparently he was famous for Jet Mosaics, or so I have been told. He also died in the Heaton area of Newcastle in 1901, it was this death that led me to Newcastle with this family and the finding of Annie's death. Has anyone else come across Hirst ancestors who moved to the Newcastle or Gateshead areas and who might be related to mine back in Northallerton? Or the Russell family who seem to have stayed put as far as I can tell. Regards Jenny DeAngelis. Spain.