Broadhurst of Ashby de la Zouch

This is the history of the Broadhurst family that had its origins in the medieval market town of Ashby de la Zouch in Leicestershire, England in the middle of the 17^th Century.  Broadhurst is an old English name.   We have traced its origins back to its earliest appearances in England in the medieval period.  

The literal meaning of the Broadhurst surname is “dweller in the broad woods.”   Hurst comes from Old English, the Anglo-Saxon word hyrst, which carries the connotation of “woodland” or “heavily-wooded land.” 

The surname Broadhurst appears in several different places in England.   We do not know if all those with the surname originated in one place and are descended from a single “Adam” Broadhurst, but we doubt it.   It is both reasonable and likely to suppose that the name arose independently in different places, although for those inclined to pursue this issue it is now possible through DNA analysis to settle that question definitively.  

While we know the names and relationships of our Broadhurst ancestors back to the middle of the 1600s, the earliest ancestor in our line about whom we have more than just names, dates and places is my great-grandfather Colour Sergeant James Broadhurst, a British soldier who enlisted in the 17th Leicestershire Regiment of Foot [e.g., infantry], left England for a duty post with the Regiment in Canada, married while he was on station at Camp Hill in Nova Scotia, and eventually left His Majesty’s military service to begin life as an immigrant settler in Canada. Anything like a real history of the family begins with him. We have information about his military service, his later occupations and residences, and his children (whose relationship to me is that of “grandfather” and "great" aunts and uncles).

We know a bit about James' father John Broadhurst and John's extended family in England.   We have some names, places, relationships and key dates of ancestors a few generations earlier than James but as we go back much further in time our facts are less certain and our data is more speculative than proven--and in any event is not really history so much as a list of ancestral names and dates.

This book can be obtained at Amazon by clicking here.

Childhood Remembered: The War Years and Beyond

Childhood Remembered – The War Years and Beyond is a collection of stories from the author’s childhood growing up in Washington, D.C. from the mid-1930s through the 1950s, a time of innocence and naivete that is very different from the pseudo-sophisticated world of today. There is intrigue, historical detective work and mystery as the author uncovers some of his mother’s and stepfather’s secrets.

The origin of this memoir was a series of “Grandpa Stories” told to his young grandsons at bedtime that proved more interesting to them than the traditional bedtime stories told to children because they were real stories about the boyhood of their grandfather.  After the young boys were past the age when their grandfather read them stories in bed when he was visiting them he concluded that these stories should be expanded and retold as autobiography and social history for anyone interested in an era long gone. [click here to see at Amazon]