The current banner shows Alnwick Castle, in Northumberland - a county in the far north east of England, bordering Scotland. This region is home to a number of Appleby lines - and our DNA project has confirmed genetic connections between several of these, which also match lines in Canada, USA and Ireland.
the Appleby one-name study and DNA project
the Appleby one-name study and DNA project
Surnames covered in our DNA project:
APPLEBY, APPLEBEE,
APPELBY, APPELBE
plus any other variants
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LINKS
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GROUP ONE
GROUP TWO
UNTESTED (or test results pending)
Appleby/Applebee families from Northern England
The pages below are listed according to the DNA group to which they belong. It is very satisfying to see that all but three of the descendants of Northern Appleby lines that have taken a yDNA test fall into one of the following two groups
CURRENTLY UNGROUPED
A number of Appleby lines are known to have originated from the northern counties of England, particularly in Northumberland, County Durham and North Yorkshire, where many were involved in the coal and shipping industries of Tynemouth and Teesside. I am very grateful to Colin Appleby, who has contributed charts for several major lines of Applebys.
Scarborough Applebys, Yorkshire - we now have test results from one of the Appleby lines that ended up in Scarborough, but they do not match anyone in either of the above groups, nor any results from other regions in the country. As this line all seem to be seagoing, they could actually have originated elsewhere up or down the East coast: hopefully we will soon find a match to tell us more.
Appleby Blacksmiths of Ellingstring, Yorkshire - we have now received the results for a descendant of this line, but they also are not a match for any other Appleby results received to date. Is this another line with a different origin to the other Northern lines? Certainly our tester belongs to an unusual R Haplogroup - I am trying to discover more about this and will report here in due course.
Appleby miners of Durham - we have received a set of yDNA results from a tester for this line which do not match any other Appleby test results, but as a bonus we have now uncovered a whole new branch which emigrated to Pennsylvania in the 1860s.
Henry Appleby of Kirkby Malzeard, Yorkshire
Henry Appleby of Barningham, Yorkshire - whose descendants migrated from the Tees Valley to Tyneside in Northumberland
James Appleby of Hurworth-on-Tees, County Durham (great-grandson of Henry Appleby of Kirkby Malzeard)
Robert Appleby of Eryholme, Yorkshire - with descendants in Thornaby-on-Tees, Yorkshire
Thomas Appleby of Leeds, Yorkshire - one branch of his family lived in India for several generations, another emigrated to California, USA
William Appleby of Framwellgate, County Durham
John Appleby, exciseman of Corbridge, Northumberland - this line is more closely related to the Framwellgate line than the Yorkshire lines, but there does seem to be a distant connection
John Appleby of Kelloe, County Durham - whose descendants migrated to California and Pennsylvania, USA
John Appleby of Brompton, Yorkshire - whose descendants moved to County Durham, Tees Valley and Ohio, USA, and we also know of descendants in Australia
Cramlington Applebys - miners from Durham
Adam Appleby of Easby - this line originates from Easby by Richmond, and we believe it may be linked to the Kirkby Fleetham line
Wylam branch of Corbridge line - when we first started to research this line, it led back to a couple who already appeared in the Corbridge line. I am pleased to report that yDNA has confirmed an exact match between the testers of the two lines!
Applebys of Alnwick, Northumberland
Applebys of Osmotherley, Yorkshire. NEW Updated with new information about numerous family members who emigrated to the USA
Appleby clothiers of Leeds, Yorkshire
Applebys of Malton, North Yorkshire - some members of this line emigrated to Quebec
Barnabas Appleby of South Shields, County Durham - some of his descendants emigrated to Australia and some to Wisconsin, USA
Cowton Applebys - John Appleby married Mary Cowton in Scarborough in 1799, but the couple moved to Derbyshire and subsequently most of their descendants lived in Sheffield
George Walton Appleby, Captain of 31st Durham Regiment, born Durham, - with descendants in British Columbia, Iowa and Bermuda (Note: this line may be a branch of that for Robert Appleby of Barnard Castle - see below)
Hyons Wood line of Applebys. this line is probably closely linked to the Wylam branch and is likely to share ancestors with the Corbridge line
Jonathan Kidd Appleby - we think he was born in Egypt where his father was working as an engineer on the Egyptian railways - but the family originated in Gateshead. This line is a branch of the John of Corbridge line
Joseph Appleby of Cumberland and Durham
Margaret and George Appleby of Sunderland, County Durham
Robert Appleby, coalminer of County Durham
Robert Appleby of Barnard Castle, County Durham (this line updated March 2020)
Salvation Army Applebys, of Brompton by Northallerton and Thornaby on Tees
Thomas Appleby of Tynemouth, Northumberland
Thomas Appleby of Whitby, Yorkshire - whose descendants emigrated to Argentina and Chile
Thomas Appleby of Neasham, County Durham (we believe that Thomas was the great-grandson of Henry Appleby of Kirkby Malzeard, but need a DNA test to prove this conclusively)
William and Margarite Apleby of Bishopwearmouth, County Durham
William and Ellen Apleby of Bishopwearmouth, County Durham
William Appleby of Kirkby Fleetham and West Rounton, Yorkshire[Note: the charts will open in your Adobe browser - some will need to be enlarged to over 100% to be legible, and then you will need to scroll across and down to view all details]
If you believe you are also descended from any of the above families - do please get in touch and share details of the more recent generations (though we will not publish any details of living generations on this site).
With your help, I hope to add further family trees and resource data for this part of England to the website - please use the Contact Form to let me know if you would be prepared to contribute details of your own family trees and Birth, Marriage and Death data for inclusion on the site.
When I receive each tree (GEDCOM format is most straightforward, though I am happy to receive details as Descendancy reports or even hand drawn trees), I always go through them locating as many individuals as possible on the 1841-1911 censuses, to add to the Northern Resources section. I also check for Parish Records on the excellent Durham Records Online website and other available online records, to include on the BMD spreadsheets for Northern Applebys too, but if you have parish record data to contribute, that would also be very helpful!
DNA
Our most exciting results from the DNA programme have been for Northern Appleby lines, where we have been able to link together a number of the lines into one of two clear DNA groups, each of which is descended from a shared Appleby ancestor (who has yet to be identified!)
We still need to look for volunteers to represent other Appleby lines from Northumberland, Durham and Yorkshire. If you are a male Appleby and would like to volunteer to take a DNA test as part of this project, please use the contact form to discuss this.
Thomas and Frances Appleby of Embleton, Northumberland
Applebys of Haswell, County Durham
Walter Charles Appleby of St Pancras LONDON! this was a surprise result, but we MAY have discovered a member of the Haswell line (who our London line tester matched exactly) who could be the founder of the London line - watch this space to see if we do find written evidence to support this theory.
Lancs and Northumberland line - our tester from this newly added line is VERY closely related to the Haswell line and that of Walter Charles Appleby of London ... at present we can only trace the new line back to Lancashire but within two generations they were living in Hexham (was this a return to their roots?)
Acklington Applebys, Northumberland
John Appleby stonemason of Acklington, Northumberland (we have two sets of results from this line)
Also in this cluster are the following lines, which may also have their roots in Northumberland:
William Appleby of Pennsylvania - arrived in America in about 1770 (two testers from this line)
Gabriel Appleby of New Brunswick, Canada (tree pending)
Applebys of Kirkcaldy, Scotland
Applebys of Roscommon and Middlesbrough - we have now linked this line to the Scottish line above