My Idle Mellors 

My Mellors lived in the Idle, Windhill, Baildon, Shipley and Bradford areas of Yorkshire and this site is dedicated to them and their related families. I grew up to believe that my maternal Great Grandfather was the local squire and they lived in a big house with servants. My Dad used to tell me they came from Mellor Brook near Blackburn and the Mellor Steps there were named after them. I also thought my paternal Grandfather was born in Cork, Ireland. My brother and I vaguely planned to go to Mellor Brook to find out about them but never managed to get there. Then when we got a PC my daughter suggested I try to find out about them. Stupidly I expected to type in my Grandmothers name and get a family tree full of juicy apples, this of course was in the days when a reference to "engines" had me turning my nose up as I had no interest in trains and when I saw "wallpaper" I wondered how after you'd printed it you'd get it on the wall! As I said stupid! 

We caught the genealogy bug and eventually found that both my grandparents were born in Bradford, Yorkshire (where we still live) and not a local squire in sight, as my maternal great grandfather was a stuff warehouseman! The Mellor Steps however are supposedly in the Rawdon area where for a few years he lived with his family as a youngster. My brother wasn't a happy bunny when I told him as he'd sneaked off to Mellor Brook one day without me! 

The Mellors have always fascinated me and it is them we have mainly concentrated on although we have found many names through marriages and have researched them as well. Right or wrong we thought we might find something out through these other families and have found a few details through them. We have since found out quite a lot about the Mellors and their related families, finding two Parkers in Australia, one Skirrow in America,  and one Rycroft, a staff sergeant stationed in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight! Oh how that impressed me! Some of his grandchildren were born in Malta as his sons were also in the army.

I hope you find something to help you on this site or if not at least to interest you. You are more than welcome to any information that helps you and please contact me if you know anything else, or have any queries. We have had several "hunches" most of which we have proved and some are still pending. We have searched the internet, scrutinised records for hours in the library and visited graveyards in our search. I get that gleam in my eye when I see one and have to be urged gently away! My son-in-law says we're like grave robbers and my husband just thinks we're totally mad and can't see the point in it! He's stopped asking "David who?" or "Walter who?" or "Whoever who?" I think it was the withering looks before continuing the conversation that did it!

We have sent and received emails across the world and have received quite a lot of useful information. We still keep in contact occasionally with some of them and I will be eternally grateful to Neil in Australia for all the information he sent me about the Parkers. 

To the best of our knowledge the details are true but like most researchers we have had to fit the jigsaw together and hopefully have got it right. We always check out anything we find, sometimes on the internet or in Bradford Central Library where there are a host of records. Good luck in your endeavours and if you can add anything to ours we'd be very grateful.

                              Sites we have found to be very useful

www.rootsweb.com All kinds of records and hosted sites

www.genesreunited.co.uk I've had lots of contacts from this since I joined and usually get replies within a few days. It's well worth becoming a member in order to send messages as we have had so much information from other members.

www.familysearch.org  IGI Index, full 1881 Census details and more and best of all it's all free!

www.freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~hughwallis/IGIindexBatchNumbers.htm A way to search the IGI by batch numbers, they are listed by the town or village. Just type in a surname or if you want to see the whole batch leave the search box blank, useful if you're looking for several names. This link doesn't seem to work whenever I type it out so put a search in for "hugh wallis" if it doesn't.   

www.calverley.info Parish and census records and lots more and a forum for posting messages. It's a must if you're researching the Calverley, Idle and nearby areas.

www.freebmd.org.uk Births, marriages and deaths, it doesn't give parents names but has mother's or spouse's surname from about 1912.

www.yorkshirebmd.org.uk Gives names of both partners and church for marriages, good if you're not sure of date, it only gives the year though.

www.ancestry.com Lots of records but not all free, they allow free searches of certain census records sometimes. You don't get an address or occupation but everything else is there including the parish which could be very useful to know when searching the parish records.

www.genuki.org.uk Various records, I use the Towns and parishes pages mostly.

www.historicaldirectories.org Original images of trades directories, I was fascinated when I found it and was on it for hours.