Place:Towthorpe (near Driffield), East Riding of Yorkshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Towthorpe (near Driffield) is now a hamlet in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England and forms part of the civil parish of Fimber. It is situated in the Yorkshire Wolds just north of the B1248 road, approximately 8 miles (13 km) north-west of Driffield and 2 miles (3 km) south-west of Sledmere.

end of Wikipedia contribution

Towthorpe was originally a township in the ancient parish of Wharram Percy in the Buckrose Wapentake of the East Riding of Yorkshire. Towthorpe was made a civil parish in 1866 and in 1894 it became part of the Driffield Rural District. In 1935 it was merged into the civil parish of Fimber.

Humberside 1974-1996

In 1974 most of what had been the East Riding of Yorkshire was joined with the northern part of Lincolnshire to became a new English county named Humberside. The urban and rural districts of the former counties were abolished and Humberside was divided into non-metropolitan districts. The new organization did not meet with the pleasure of the local citizenry and Humberside was wound up in 1996. The area north of the River Humber was separated into two "unitary authorities"—Kingston upon Hull covering the former City of Hull and its closest environs, and the less urban section to the west and to the north which, once again, named itself the East Riding of Yorkshire.

The phrase "Yorkshire and the Humber" serves no purpose in WeRelate. It refers to one of a series of basically economic regions established in 1994 and abolished for most purposes in 2011. See the Wikipedia article entited "Regions of England").

Research Tips

• GENUKI on Towthorpe. The GENUKI page gives numerous references to local bodies providing genealogical assistance.
• The FamilySearch wiki on the ecclesiastical parish of Wharram Percy provides a list of useful resources for the local area.
• A Vision of Britain through Time on Towthorpe.
• A Vision of Britain through Time provides links to three maps of the East Riding, produced by the United Kingdom Ordnance Survey, illustrating the boundaries between the civil parishes and the rural districts at various dates. These maps all expand to a scale that will illustrate small villages and large farms or estates.

• Ordnance Survey 1888. The "Sanitary Districts (which preceded the rural districts).
• Ordnance Survey 1900 The rural districts, not long after their introduction.
• Ordnance Survey 1944. The rural districts after the revisions of 1935.

• For a discussion of where to find Archive Offices in Yorkshire, see GENUKI.
• Yorkshire has a large number of family history and genealogical societies. A list of the societies will be found on the Yorkshire, England page.