These pages deal with my father's CAKEBREAD / HOWE roots and the HARRISON and SMITHs on my mother's side and many other Family names before them.

There is an Index of all names discovered in my research, together with details of where they fit into my history. There are also Family Trees and Descendant Charts of the main names together with links to Profiles of some individuals.
If there is little information on the person you are interested in, please email me as I have may have more available.

My earliest roots are around 1600 at Mancetter in north Warwickshire with Thomas ISON on my father's side of the family, this line continuing through the nearby rural areas of Over Whitacre, Ansley, Bedworth and finally Coventry.

The known records of my line of the name CAKEBREAD begin for sure in the village of Bloxham, near Banbury, Oxfordshire with Robert CAKEBREAD who was probably born about 1776. Later in 1839, his sons William and Robert, both Plush Weavers in the Banbury Workhouse, and both with young families, decided to move, with their brother George, to Coventry a city about 30 miles away.

They settled in the city and many of their descendants still live in Coventry.

Other than the CAKEBREADs all my father's ancestry seems to be from Coventry and North Warwickshire areas for many generations.

On my mother's paternal side, the main HARRISON name is traced for 200 years to Exhall, then a rural area about 5 miles to the north of Coventry. All my mother's family lines on her father's side come from the same vicinity of Exhall, Bedworth, and Foleshill.
There is an interesting account of 19th century life in Foleshill on my Foleshill page.

On my mother's maternal side my grandmother's SMITH roots are much more difficult to trace as she was abandoned as a baby.
I now know that her natural father was not SMITH, (it is unknown), and that name has not been researched. Her mother's maiden name was Mary CORT and her background was in the cotton towns of Lancashire, and the city of Manchester. Her CORT family were bleachers in the valleys north of Bolton and there are pages about the early Bleachers. Mary Cort's story makes interesting reading. Find it by following the link to CORT and then click on the link to Mary Cort. A few generations earlier my roots are in the famous AINSWORTH family of Bolton area.