Place:Hessay, West 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

Hessay is now a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of the City of York in North Yorkshire, England about 5 miles (8 km) west of York. Prior to 1996 it had been part of the Harrogate District. According to the 2001 UK census the parish had a population of 181. There are approximately sixty houses in Hessay of which about 15 have been built in the last 4 years.

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Historically, Hessay was in the ecclesiastical parish of Moor Monkton in the Ainsty Wapentake or district, northwest of York. From 1894 until 1938, Hessay was located in Great Ouseburn Rural District and from 1938 until 1974 in Nidderdale Rural District. In 1974 the area became part of the Harrogate District of North Yorkshire.

The page, Great Ouseburn Rural District, has an outline map of all the civil parishes in the district.

Research Tips

• GENUKI on Hessay. The GENUKI page gives numerous references to local bodies providing genealogical assistance.
• The FamilySearch wiki on the ecclesiastical parish of Moor Monkton provides a list of useful resources for the local area.
• A Vision of Britain through Time on Hessay.
• 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.