© 2016 David E. Spencer
Note - Interest in Mitton family history
It is my wife who is a Mitton descendant rather than me. During our research into the Mitton family we have come across a lot of other Mitton reseachers especially from Canada and, to a lesser extent, the United States because several family members emigrated across the Atlantic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The number of researchers has meant that we have a broad knowledge base for a large extended family. Some modern day Mitton researchers have linked the family that lived in the Craven area of North West Yorkshire, from whom my wife is descended, with the Mitton family of Mitton, near Clitheroe in the Ribble Valley on the Lancashire / Yorkshire border. This gives possible linkage with the early Norman rulers based at Clitheroe Castle, the early history of Stonyhurst College and with my own Mitton ancestry. A further point which is interesting to me personally is that one of my Paley kinsmen married one of my wife's Mitton kinswomen - this is the only definite link that we have found linking our two genealogies.
My wife's Mitton ancestry
My wife's great great grandmother was Elizabeth Mitton who was born at Horton-in-Ribblesdale in 1826, the daughter of William Mitton and Mary Calvert who farmed at Nether Lodge, Horton-in-Ribblesdale. Elizabeth married Francis Capstick, a farmer from Dent(then in Yorkshire, now in Cumbria) in 1848 at Horton-in-Ribblesdale parish church.
Horton-in-Ribblesdale Church circa 2000
Click here to read about Francis and Elizabeth Capstick and their family.
Elizabeth's mother, the daughter of Thomas Calvert and Margaret (nee Greenbank) who farmed at Snaiseholme, Yorkshire, died shortly after Elizabeth's marriage. Her father continued to farm at Nether Lodge for a time but he eventually "downsized" to Town End Farm in Horton. William died in 1879 at Brackenbotton, Horton-in-Ribblesdale and was buried at Chapel-le-Dale. Several of William and Mary's grandchildren are among those Mittons who emigrated to the USA.
Elizabeth's father, William was himself the son of Robert and Jane (nee Blenkhorn) Mitton. Click here to read about William Mitton's ancestry.
My own possible Mitton ancestry
In the Distant cousins page of the Calverley family section of my website I conjectured that it was possible that my Calverley and Bailey lines shared a common ancestry in a man called John de Bayley. It is a matter of historic record that he was a descendant of Jordan de Mitton who was the son of "Ralph the Red", the first "Lord of the Manor of Mitton", in the Ribble Valley on the Lancashire / Yorkshire former boundary not long after the Norman Conquest.
The de Mitton family's holdings were split into two - each half being held by one of two brothers. "My" branch held land at Bailey rather than at Mitton and used "de Bayley" as their family name rather than "de Mitton". The Bayleys stayed in the area, changing their surname to Shireburn or Sherburne. Eventually the Mitton holdings reverted to the Earl of Lancaster and the Mitton family moved from Mitton to the Craven area near Kettlewell and other nearby places in the 14th and 15th centuries.