Hebden Family Genealogy
Family Trees and data for Hebden, Hebdon, Hebdin,
Hibden, Hepton, Ebden. Ebdon and Webden,
Collectively known as The Hebden Clan
Copyright 2018 Hebdens.com
William Hebden 1903 - 1973
The only son of Harry Hebden and Margaret Richardson, William Richardson
Hebden was born in the Yorkshire woollen town of Halifax in 1902. His three
sisters, Marjorie, Kathleen and Mary married, but William remained a bachelor all
his life. His job as a commercial traveller took him from one end of the country to
the other "rubbing shoulders with people of every sort and steeping myself in the
historical details of English towns and villages" as he himself described it.
His interests in genealogy were wide-ranging, and he was the honorary secretary
of the Yorkshire Parish Register Society from 1947 to 1951, remaining on the
council until 1957 when he resigned due to ill health. As well as writing books on
a variety of Yorkshire topics, he lectured widely as a speaker of the Royal Society
of St. George. Between the Wars he pioneered research into the Medieval period
of the Hebden family and the Ripon, Grimwith, Appleton-le-Street and Burwash
(Sussex) families as well as his own Halifax line. He lived in Burnsall for twenty
years, and died in 1973. He is buried in the churchyard of St Wilfrid's in Burnsall.
Thomas Peter Hebden was born in Nelson, Lancashire in 1930, one of two sons of
Frank Hebden and Elizabeth Thorpe and a cousin of John R.Hebden (see below). On
retirement from his post as harbourmaster in Bahrain, he resumed his research
into his own Raisgill and Oughtershawe line, and in doing so amassed a wealth of
information on other Hebden family lines, The information he collected became
known to his daughter Janet as “The Big Book of Hebdens”. Peter died in 1995.
Janet Elizabeth Hebden 1957 - 2005
After her father’s death, Janet continued his research into the Hebden family. She
realised that personal computers and the World Wide Web enabled people all over
the world to access and contribute data to “The Big Book”. In addition to researching
her own branch of the family, she developed a website covering the lineage of many
of the larger Hebden families lines. The site paved the way for future expansion at a time
when family history was becoming a popular hobby, and commercial websites such as
“Ancestry” and “Find My Past” gave access to data which was previously beyond the
reach of most amateurs. Her website is still available at http://angelfire.com/hi5/hebden/
but because the passwords were never found it has not been updated since her sudden
death in July 2005.
Thomas Peter Hebden 1903 - 1973
John Reid Hebden 1924 - 2011
John’s research into his branch of the family began in 1957 when he joined the
Society of Genealogists, as a result of a contact from Mrs. De Hebden Sutherland,
who drew his attention to the work of her late uncle, William Hebden of Halifax
(above).
Over the next few years he was joined by Graham Pratten from the Braisty Woods
branch of the Ripon Family, and the Rev. David Jackson. From William Hebden’s
papers and other material, they developed a searchable chronological database
of Hebden Clan events. He joined the Guild of One-Name Studies in 1980, and was
Vice-President of the Guild for several years. His membership of the Guild brought
him into contact with Hebden family history enthusiasts from all over the world.
He died on the 24th June 2011.
Stuart Hebden: Webmaster
I certainly wouldn’t class myself as a pioneer in any way. I started researching my
own family in 2001 and soon found out that my branch of the famiiy had successfully
avoided all previous research.
It was John Hebden, Graham Pratten and David Jackson who led the way in
making Hebden data available to a wider audience with their Hebden “Timeline”
Database designed to run on an Amstrad 1520 computer in the mid-1980’s. As far as I
know, Janet Hebden produced the first generalised Hebden website, and on Jan’s death,
contact with John Hebden made me realise how useful Hebden famly data could be if it
was available on-line. All the main Hebden family tree charts have now been digitised,
and the range has been expanded from the original 24 trees to 60, together with indexes
of nearly 30,000 names and datasets covering Births, Marriages and deaths, probate,
emigration, census, and Hebden Clan data around the globe.
In addition to the people named above, I would like to thank all those idividuals who have
given their time, knowledge and technical advice (sometimes unknowingly!) without
which constructing and maintaining this site would have been so much more difficult.
It was Jan Hebden’s idea to develope a website which would be a “One-stop Shop” for the
Hebden Clan - so please email me at http://www.stuart@hebdens.com if you are in any way
connected with The Clan, or have material that you would like to contribute - or have any
questions or comments!
The Pioneers: Hebden Family Research
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