Place:Kirkby Overblow, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Kirkby Overblow is now a civil parish and a village in the Harrogate District of North Yorkshire, England. It is situated between Wetherby and Harrogate and lies to the west of Sicklinghall and east of Leeds Bradford International Airport.

The first written reference to Kirkby Overblow appears in the Domesday Book, where it appears as Cherchebi. The Kirkby part of the name is a common prefix, simply meaning a settlement by a church, while Overblow is a corruption of Oreblow, a reference to the village's iron-smelting past.

end of Wikipedia contribution

Historically, Kirkby Overblow was an ancient and ecclesiastical parish in the Upper Division of the Claro Wapentake. The ancient parish contained the townships of Kearby with Netherby, North Rigton, Sicklinghall, and Stainburn.

From 1894 until 1974, Kirkby Overblow was located in Wetherby Rural District. In 1974 the area became part of the Harrogate District of North Yorkshire.

Research Tips

• GENUKI on Kirkby Overblow. The GENUKI page gives numerous references to local bodies providing genealogical assistance.
• The FamilySearch wiki on the ecclesiastical parish of Kirkby Overblow provides a list of useful resources for the local area.
• A Vision of Britain through Time on Kirkby Overblow.
• A Vision of Britain through Time also provides links to maps of the West Riding, produced by the United Kingdom Ordnance Survey, illustrating the boundaries between the civil parishes and the rural districts at various dates. Those listed here provide data for the part of the West Riding that transferred to North Yorkshire in 1974 plus the northern parts of Leeds and Bradford. These maps all blow up to a scale that will illustrate small villages and large farms or estates.

• Ordnance Survey West Riding 1888. The "Sanitary Districts (which preceded the rural districts) for the whole of the West Riding.
• Ordnance Survey Northern part of the West Riding 1900 The rural and urban districts, not long after their introduction. (rural districts of Sedbergh, Settle, Skipton, Pateley Bridge, Ripon, Knaresborough, Great Ouseburn, Clitheroe, Wharfedale, Wetherby, York, Bishopthorpe, Keighley, the northern part of Bradford, the northern part of Leeds, the northern part of Hunslet Urban District, the northern part of Tadcaster Rural District, the northern part of Selby Rural District). [Note: this map appears to be no longer available on the Vision of Britain website. This is unfortunate because the equivalent map from 1931-44 was redrawn after the 1938 reorganization of the rural districts in the northern part of the West Riding.]
• Ordnance Survey Northern part of the West Riding 1944. The urban and rural districts of the northern part of the West Riding (mostly Settle, Skipton, Ripon and Pateley Bridge, and Nidderdale, with sections of Wharfedale and Wetherby) after the revisions of 1938.
• Ordnance Survey Southern part of the West Riding 1944 shows the southern part of the West Riding (including the southern part of Wetherby Rural District).