Broyhill Family History

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Broughall English Parish Records

    The Church of Latter Day Saints (the Mormon Church) has been making microfilm copies of civil and church records for genealogical use for a great many years. As computers began revolutionizing data processing, the Mormons began abstracting these records, entered the information into a data base and sorted the results. Among their greatest achievements is the publication of old church parish records. They contain marriages and christenings (but not deaths) from the 1500s through the mid 1800s. There is a separate publication for each county. The entries consist of date, parish, event, and names of participants.
     Photocopies were obtained of the pages on which the Broughall/Broughill name would appear for every county in England, Ireland and Wales. Only four entries were found for Ireland and only two for Wales, both after 1800, suggesting no widespread distribution of the name in these countries. However, the lack of abstracts from Ireland may be misleading as many early Irish records have been destroyed. English Parish records contain some 900 entries relating to the Broughall-Broughill surname. This may seem like a great many, but they represent over 250 years. They contain a wealth of information, but unfortunately they are not complete, as approximately half of the original records have been lost or destroyed. A marriage may be listed in one parish, but then the family disappears from the records because they moved to a new parish, one whose records have been lost.
    These abstracts were entered into a data base, then sorted by several criteria. This revealed several very early Broughall families:

The Broughalls of Stafford County

    The earliest record of the Broughall name appears not in Shropshire County, the home of the ancient village of Broughall, but a few dozen miles to the north in Newcastle Upon Lyme, Stafford County, which lies between Shropshire and Liverpool. It was there that Radulphi or Radi Broughall christened two sons Radulphus and Roberti during the 1560's. Contemporary to them were Johnis and Thomas Broughall, who also lived at Newcastle Upon Lyme. They may have been sons of Radulphi.

The Broughills of Lancashire

     Johnis (also spelled Johannes, Johanni, Johis and John) Broughill married a Jennetta (last name unknown) at Preston in 1614. He may have been the son of Johis Broughall of Newcastle Upon Lyme, who was christened in 1583 and 1586, and thus the grandson of Radulphi of Stafford County. During the next 15 years following his 1614 marriage, he christened five sons at the Preston Church. Significant is that his name was often spelled "Broughill."

The Broughalls of Cheshire

    Thomas Broughall appears here in 1599 when he christened his daughter Ann and in 1602 when he christened his son Thomas, both in Nanwich. He may also be a son of Radulphi from Stafford.

The Broughalls of London

  Regardless of origin, just about every English family had a member or two trek off to the big city, London. It was here that a ----- Brughole married Susan in 1572 at Bermondsey, St. Mary. The variation in spelling is so great that this entry might have been overlooked if it were not for William Browghall marrying Margaret Powell at the same church in 1588. The name appears four times in the next generation, then disappears for a century. 

The Broughalls of Shropshire

    Wem is only about ten miles south of the ancient village of Broughall. It was here that Margaret Broughall married Adam Cartwright in 1593 and William Broughall married Ann Higginson in 1603.  The family then disappears from Wem Parish records only to reappear at Whitchurch, less than three miles from the village of Broughall.
     In the next generation, Whitchurch parish records list John, George, Robert and Thomas Broughall. Broughalls remained in Whitchurch for the next century, but by 1700, several of its members migrated to the nearby villages of Newport, Sutton Maddock, Madeley and Wellington. Most of the entries appear in Shropshire near the village of Broughall.

Shropshire and surrounding counties.
Many of the Parishes which contain Broughall-Broughill records are shown.