About THE CUMBERLAND TUNSTALLS
Please sign in to see more. I am Alan Tunstall and on my website I am aiming to link all of the Tunstalls from Cumberland who are descended from Moses Tunstall, born Burslem, Staffordshire in 1700. The Tunstalls of Burslem intermarried many times with the Wedgwood family of pottery fame, and Moses, whose mother was a Wedgwood, arrived in Cumberland in the 18th century to work as a potter. He operated his pottery at Greysouthen, a village near Cockermouth and also, for a short time, from Dearham, a village near Maryport. His aunt, Margaret Tunstall, who was married to Aaron Wedgwood, had arrived in Cumberland before Moses, in around 1697, and it is my belief that it was she who had encouraged her brother's son to follow her north to the county of Cumberland. All of the Wedgwoods in Cumbria descend from the Aaron Wedgwood/Margaret Tunstall union.
When the Cumberland potting trade of the Tunstall family came to an end, in around 1846, almost every male Tunstall pre-1901 was, according to local census records, a coalminer. There were a couple of policemen, one or two farmers, a joiner, a lime burner, and a few publicans, but in the main, all had found work in the local mines.
Interestingly there are three women in the Tunstall ancestry who all share the distinction of having had the most children - 12 each! They are Ann Fletcher, who was married to John Tunstall; Rachel Gribbins who was firstly married to Matthew Tunstall and then (following Matthew's death) became the wife of his half-cousin, John Tunstall; and Rona Rowland, who married William Tunstall in New Zealand, and whose offspring are, at the time of writing (July 2010) all still living.
So this strong, proud lineage continues. I am indebted to all those who have contributed to this site and honoured to dedicate it to all those who have gone before. Without doubt their genes, and their spirit, live on. |