Eltonhead/Norreys Genealogy

ElTONHEAD/NORREYS / info / Genealogy

In the 1200's the family of NORRES were the owners of the manor of ELTONHEAD and the family became both NORRES/ELTONHEAD. The family appears to be of Anglo-Saxon origin. The family begins in Sutton in Lancashire, England before the reign of Henry III.

It appears that HENRY ELTONHEAD was the first to take the ELTONHEAD surname. Many of the family stayed with the surname NORRES which in time became NORRIS while others took up the surname of ELTONHEAD.

Sir William Norres of Speke upheld the validity that there were families in Sutton who once took the surname of NORRES but had given it up and took on the surname of ELTONHEAD. He mentioned his cousin RICHARD ILTONHED. Henry Eltonhead was a le Norreys before taking the Eltonhead surname. He was married to Margey de Ireland. He was born Abt.1245 and died Aft 1320. He held lands in Daresbury, Eltonhead, Eccleston, Rainhill, Formby, and Lancashire, England.

The ELTONHEADS coat of arms is described as : "The shield is quarterly ar. and gu. in the second and fourth quarters a fret or. overall a fease, az. The original crest was on a window in Chidwell Church, Lancastershire, England. It displayed an eagle rising from a mount vertical." The crest is the same as the one that was use by Sir Henry Norres who married Alice of Chester, who was the daughter of ROGER de ERNYS.

William Eltonhead (d. 1607) was in possession of Eltonhead in 1600 but died shortly thereafter. He was married to Anne Bowers, the daughter of James Bowers of Brierley, Yorkshire. William Eltonhead and Anne Bowers are the parents of Richard Eltonhead that married Ann Sutton and whose children came to Virginia which includes my 9th great grandmother, Martha Eltonhead, that Edwin Conway, Sr. brought to Virginia as a headright in 1652. Thomas Eltonhead (d. 1609) succeeded his brothers Richard and William at Eltonhead, but also died shortly after doing so.

WILLIAM ELTONHEAD had these children: Richard, John, William, Nicholas, Henry, Ralph, Edward, Susan, and Eleanor. The estate of Eltonhead eventually passed to William's son, Richard, since William was dead at the death of Thomas Eltonhead.

RICHARD ELTONHEAD (b. 1582; d. after 1664), in 1664, was Lord of Eltonhead. He was married to Anne Sutton, the daughter of Edward Sutton of Rushton Spencer, Staffordshire and Anne Stanley. Their daughter Martha married Edwin Conway, Sr. of Worcestershire, England who came to Virginia about 1640. Edwin Conway, Sr. was third clerk of Northampton County, Virginia. He made four trips to England bringing others to the colony in which he received vast amounts of land in Northampton, Middlesex, Lancaster counties in Virginia as well as Richmond County. Edwin Conway. Sr. and Martha Eltonhead gave birth to Edwin Conway, Jr. and Eltonhead Conway. Eltonhead Conway married Henry Thacker, Sr. who is this resarcher's next grandparents. Other children of William Eltonhead and Anne Bowers that came to Virginia and Maryland besides Martha, were William and Jane who went to Maryland, Agatha, Alice, Eleanor to Virginia. Richard Eltonhead also had a son Richard who married Ann Massey.

SOURCES: "Some Scott Ancestors" by William R. Scott; " The Kay-Pendleton-Neel Families by George and Margaret Rose, 1969; Parrin, in his "Register of Maryland Heraldic Families"; Lancashire Visitations"; "Genealogy of the Glassell Family of Scotland, Virginia and Maryland" by Rev. Horace Edwin Hayden.

Marianne Dillow Worldteam ID 9267980