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I have been researching my family history and have been able through
2 paths of research to come up with ancestory to William de Twist Stone
around 1500 and he has a connection to Richard de Roos some time before.

Eve McLaughlin...

A highly unlikely name in 1500 (or any other early date. Did it come

Lesley Robertson...

Ah, but what's there now is not relevant to the question. What was there

roy.stockdill...

Nothing, I suspect! Twiston was a township in the parish of Whalley,
according to the relevant page at Genuki. There's a Twiston Moor and a
Manor house marked on modern maps but little else.

Anyway, we only have the OP's word for it that William de Twist (I think
that was his name) had anything to do with Twiston. It doesn't
necessarily follow, since surname dictionaries give different derivations
for the name - and they are not always reliable anyway.

Lesley Robertson...

All true. I just liked the idea that Twiston might have become Twist
Stone......

The OP would be better off following the advice I gave him and do his
own research correctly, rather than just picking something up from a

Charani...

That's true enough but if it's valid, I'll pick it up from a more
reliable source.

One bit of information he's submitted, I haven't been able to verify.
I don't know his source and as far as I'm aware the marriage records
haven't existed for a number of years. I don't know where it's come
from, so I won't use it. The wife's given name is correct because
I've ascertained that from other sources. The husband is probably
right but has been given an extra given name but I don't know if they
are the parents of the children. They might be because the father's
name is right but when I have two Williams both born in London and
both with sons name Joseph, I'm not about to believe my cousin, on the
basis of his known errors.

book and assuming that a medieval somebody was his ancestor.

Lesley Robertson...

True.
However, my point in reply to John (rather than the OP) was aimed to remind
people that just because a place is down to a couple of houses now, that
doesn't mean it was always so. A number of villages shrank or vanished, some
because of disease, and others because of changing agricultural practises.
For example, it was the latter that turned my 1-place study parish from a
centre with 3 master blacksmiths, a library, 2 merchants and 2 inns to a
sleepy ribbon village with nothing but a part time shop in a porta-cabin....

andrew...

A couple of further examples from East Anglia. Norwich was once the
second largest town in the country, and Dunwich, (where it is said
bells can still be heard tolling from many churches now beneath the sea)
a great port and ship building centre. (Best fish and chips in the
country in 'The Hut' just by the beach there, forget about Harry
Ramsden. I always take visitors from the US there, they love it).

Yours Aye. Andrew Sellon

John Cartmell...

I don't think there was ever much at Twiston in the last 500 years - though
your point is well-taken. Two of my friends and I each coincidentally did some
research on the history of settlements and field patterns in central
Lancashire (Hoghton and Ribchester) for our degrees and I've looked at
Ribchester (to the west of Twiston) on a number of occasions to clarify family
history links. I've always been surprised at how little reduction there was in
the number of dwelling places in the country compared with the increase in the
towns (ie at the start of the 19th century). The number of people living in
the countryside did fall as did the number of habitable dwellings. There are
abandoned buildings in the area; but not *that* many. Having walked over the
area quite extensively (but that was mainly in the 1960s!) I'm pretty certain
that there aren't many signs of one-house 'settlements' in the area once being
thriving villages.

But you're right to urge caution and I'd want to do the field-walking again
before I'd 'sign-off' the above. ;-)

And in any case I'd bet the place was quite busy 1800 years ago (and very
distinctly not busy just 900 years ago. Things change.

Lesley Robertson

about 500 years ago?

John Cartmell...

Dunno - but about 1800 years ago there could be Sarmatians. Five thousand five
hundred of them. ;-)

Frank Erskine...

I read that as "Martians" :-)

John Cartmell...

I'll bet they seemed like that to the locals! More at home on horseback than
on foot, the women having a full say in all matters - and taking their turn at
riding and drawing the bow (they were the origin of the Greek myth of the
Amazons). The Sarmatian cavalry had a dragon as their standard and designed
their dragon's head to hold a flexible hollow tube that wailed when they rode
into battle (and probably also in practice just to frighten those locals! ;-)

but I bet they used Pendle Hill as a lookout so passing Twiston on a regular
basis.>

Lesley Robertson

from the IGI. The double forename is impossible, not to mention the
construction of the name.

I can not seem to trace the lineage.
Any help appreciated.
Terry Stone, USA