Bradshaw Family History



Welcome

Greetings to family, friends, visitors and other genealogists! This website is created with hopes of preserving the memories and history of my families ancestors. Many of these people we know about, but several are forgotten because their records have been destroyed or misplaced over the years. I've tried to put together any information that I and others have complied over the years in this free-to-use website. Please feel free to use any of the information and to share with me any updates (errors, omissions, etc.) that you would like to see. I hope this website provides you with an opportunity to learn something new about your heritage.


With warm regards, Larry Allen Bradshaw


I am needing more information on the following lines:

  • Bradshaw - my paternal side
  • Bentley - my maternal grandfathers paternal side
  • Link - my maternal grandmothers paternal side
  • Kiziah - my paternal grandmothers paternal side













Foreword - A Brief History Lesson on Our Names

Bradshaw:

Research seems to show that the earliest Bradshaws all lived in Lancashire, England along with the families of Standishes, Strangwayes, Lawrences, Radcliffes, and Gerards. Beginning in the late 1500s , some of them made their way to London, a very long and dangerous trip during this period of time. In London, they married Penns, Hinchmans, Robinsons, and the Markhams, before they immigrated to Virginia. They were apparently ladies and gentlemen of means; otherwise they would have not bought land in Virginia or even had surnames. The name Bradshaw ( Bradshawe) has an early English origin and means "broad or vast woods". The estates of the Bradshaws in Cheshire, Derbyshire and Buckingham shire were large and wooded.

Bentley:

Bentley was one of the earliest surnames in England. The word Bent, Bente, Bently, or Bentley all originated with bent, which was a plain or hill covered with bentgrass or rushes. Bentley means "field of rushes" from "bent" (grass, rushes) and "ley" (a field or meadow). In the earliest times the name was spelled "Benetleigh" which meant the "Field of Benedick" or "The First Occupiers."

Link:

The surname Link (or Linck - modern German spelling) is from an the old high German word Linch, which means Linx, the animal. It appears that the Links came to America from that part of Germany situated between the River Rhyne and the Swiss border known as the Palatinate. They came to escape the terrible religious and political persecution inflicted on themselves and other reformers after the revocation on the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. The family fled to have the right to worship in their own way.

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