Place:Bigby, Lincolnshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Bigby is a village and civil parish in the West Lindsey District of Lincolnshire, England.

The village is situated about 10 miles (20 km) south from the Humber Bridge, and 4 miles (6 km) east from the town of Brigg. The village lies in the Lincolnshire Wolds and close to the administrative border with North Lincolnshire. The hamlets of Kettleby and Kettleby Thorpe lie within the parish, and that of Somerby almost immediately to the south.

According to the 2001 UK census Bigby had a population of 234.

The local Anglican parish church is a Grade I listed building dedicated to All Saints. It dates from the 12th century, with later additions and restorations in 1779 and 1878. On the north side of the chancel is a large alabaster tomb to Sir Robert Tyrwhit of Kettleby hamlet, who died in 1581, and his wife. To the east is a monument to Sir Robert Tyrwhit of Kettleby, who died in 1617, and Lady Bridget Manners his wife who died in 1604.

Kettleby

The hamlet of Kettleby lies about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) west of Bigby village. The deserted medieval village of Kettleby was first recorded in a will of 1066. Domesday records two manors: Kettleby, whose Lord of the Manor was Ralph, nephew of Geoffrey Alselin, and Kettleby Thorpe, whose Lord was listed only as Gilbert. Thereafter Kettleby merged with Kettleby Thorpe, also a deserted settlement. Kettleby is mentioned in 1334. Today the area is occupied by the earthworks of Kettleby Hall.

Kettleby Hall was reputedly a moated hunting lodge built in the reign of James I and later the chief seat of the Tyrwhitt family. The last male heir sold-up in 1648 because of debts, and the building was demolished in 1696-97. The present farmhouse on the site dates from the 19th century.

Research Tips

Lincolnshire is very low-lying and land had to be drained for agriculture to be successful. The larger drainage channels, many of which are parallel to each other, became boundaries between parishes. Many parishes are long and thin for this reason.

There is much fenland in Lincolnshire, particularly in the Boston and Horncastle areas. Fenlands tended to be extraparochial before the mid 1850s, and although many sections were identified with names and given the title "civil parish", little information has been found about them. Many appear to be abolished in 1906, but the parish which adopts them is not given in A Vision of Britain through Time. Note the WR category Lincolnshire Fenland Settlements which is an attempt to organize them into one list.

From 1889 until 1974 Lincolnshire was divided into three administrative counties: Parts of Holland, Parts of Kesteven and Parts of Lindsey. These formal names do not fit with modern grammatical usage, but that is what they were, nonetheless. In 1974 the northern section of Lindsey, along with the East Riding of Yorkshire, became the short-lived county of Humberside. In 1996 Humberside was abolished and the area previously in Lincolnshire was made into the two "unitary authorities" of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. The remainder of Lincolnshire was divided into "non-metropolitan districts" or "district municipalities" in 1974. Towns, villages and parishes are all listed under Lincolnshire, but the present-day districts are also given so that places in this large county can more easily be located and linked to their wider neighbourhoods. See the WR placepage Lincolnshire, England and the smaller divisions for further explanation.

• Maps provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time show all the parishes and many villages and hamlets. (Small local reorganization of parishes took place in the 1930s led to differences between the latter two maps.):

• Lincolnshire Ordnance Survey Map of 1888 with Poor Law Union divisions
• Lincolnshire Ordnance Survey Map of 1900 with early Rural District divisions
• Lincolnshire Ordnance Survey Map, revised 1937 with later Rural District divisions

• FindMyPast now has a large collection of Lincolnshire baptisms, banns, marriages and burials now available to search by name, year, place and parent's names. This is a pay website. (blog dated 16 Sep 2016)
• GENUKI's page on Lincolnshire's Archive Service gives addresses, phone numbers, webpages for all archive offices, museums and libraries in Lincolnshire which may store old records and also presents a list entitled "Hints for the new researcher" which may include details of which you are not aware. These suggestions are becoming more and more outdated, but there's no telling what may be expected in a small library.
• GENUKI also has pages of information on individual parishes, particularly ecclesiastical parishes. The author may just come up with morsels not supplied in other internet-available sources.
• Deceased Online now has records for 11 cemeteries and two crematoria in Lincolnshire. This includes Grimsby's Scartho Road cemetery, Scartho Road crematorium, and Cleethorpes cemetery, council records for the City of Lincoln and Gainsborough, and older church records from The National Archives for St Michael's in Stamford, and St Mark's in Lincoln, dating back to 1707. This is a pay website.