Leonard Origins Part 2, Research on English Records
This section represents the compilation from multiple sources on Leonard families and individuals in England and Wales in the 1600s and early 1700s. Sources range from detailed research such as the books from Brian Awty and Robert Bowman on the ironworkers, to simple listings from towns and churches on births, marriages and deaths and census records on some families. It was not possible to determine a larger genealogical picture, so this section contains persons' names and places, sometimes with marriage and children. A lot more research needs to be done if records can be found to group people into a larger family structure. And it will also take a dedicated researcher to jump in and attempt it.
This section is subdivided by locations in England and Wales.
Fanny Leonard Koster based her Leonard genealogy on the assumption that all Lennards/Leonards were related through a common ancestor. In fact, there were many different Leonard lines, each with its own ancestry, in England in the 1500s and 1600s. The variety of unrelated ancestries is evident in the variety of y-dnas in currently living Leonards in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, and elsewhere.
The following initially came from indexes to English Parish Records on CD, many of which originally came from LDS collections of church records on microfilm and now accessible online. through Ancestry.com, myheritage.com, and findmypast.com familysearch’s International Genealogical Index, also now online. None of these are a complete listing for the county – there are lots of gaps. Since most of these are from transcribed indexes, there may be more detailed records available at sources. Indeed, the original records, which are sometimes posted online, do sometimes include additional information.