Merrill

My 4x G-Grandfather Joseph Merryl was born in Tideswell, Derbyshire in 1793, the first of six children born to Joseph and Ellen Merryl.

On 19th October 1818, he married Mary Lomas at Tideswell Parish Church and they had four children. Ellen (1821), Joseph (1823), Mary Walker Merrill (1826) and George Walker Merrill (1828).

Death dates aren't known.

Tideswell, Eyam and High Peak (and most of the Peak District villages near Sheffield) contains lots of Merrills and Walkers, who seemed to marry each other a lot!

Josephs father, my 5x G-Grandfather, Joseph Merryl was born about 1770 in Tideswell.

On 9th November 1788, he married Ellen Higgenbothem, also of Tideswell, in Bakewell Parish Church. They had six children, Joseph (1793), Ellen (1795), Hannah (1797), William (1800) and twins James and Susannah (1803).

Again death dates aren't known.

The name Merrill, in whatever guise, has a long history with Tideswell.

In Bray’s “Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire,” (published 1777), the village of Tidswell (now spelled Tideswell) in Derbyshire is described thus.

In the chancel of the large parish church, “there is also a raised tomb (on which bread is given away every Sunday) for Sampson Meurrill, with a date of 1388.” This was probably the year of Sampson Meurrill’s birth, for Guillim, in “A Display of Heraldry” (6^th edit., 1724, page 266), tells of “Sir Sampson Meverell, Knight who died Anno 1462, and was buried in the Church of Tydeswall in the County of Derby.”

Over in neighbouring Eyam there is a house, oddly enough called Merrill House, in which Humphrey Merrill died of the plague in 1665.

 It does not seem improbable that the Merrills of all the Peak villages were related in some way.