Introduction

I am not a Quaker. I am not an expert in Quaker history. But I have Quaker roots. For several years I have stumbled in their history which I found confusing but fascinating. Through studying them I have come to understand more of the world today. For such a small group of people they went on to influence local, national and world history. As I keep going back to the records and piecing a bit more of the puzzle together I thought I should put some of it down here so I can refer back to what I have already done. As small communities all the people are interesting to us - if not our ancestors they were their neighbours and their friends. They had a common way of life which separated them from others, the writings of the Quakers can show us how our ancestors were living and thinking.
It is not the intention to provide a detailed history, or coherent record, I am too disorganised for that. I shall point in the direction of where I found useful information to my understanding, again not comprehensive - I have not looked at everything online or offline and the search continues.
As the basis is my Quaker roots most of this concerns the Quakers from the northwest of England - in particular Lancashire, Westmorland and a little Cheshire. Westmorland is considered as the birthplace of the Quakers and the period I am at present exploring is the early Quakers.
As some of my family will be looking at this - our relations will be identified using colour and numbers in brackets [] refer to an ancestor tree I have devised.