This fabulous old family photo I bought at the North Petherton Festival of Cards back in March. (The Venue @ Junction24, Market Way, North Petherton, nr. Bridgwater, Somerset TA6 6DF).

Always an excellent fair, and they don’t just sell Postcards, you can also buy Cigarette Cards and lots of other Ephemera. I got quite a few Old Photos.

But not only is this a beautiful family photo, but someone wrote all these names on the back, what a find.

Second row, left to right: Violet (2nd D’ter) Eva Leithead (nee Howes, 3rd D’ter, wife of Tom, holding young son Thomas Norman Leithead, born 1 February 1900) Mary Howes, Florence Peall th Howes (Florence Alice Peall married Charles Thornton Howes , son of Hannah, in Feb 1897)

Marjorie Leithead (Florence Marjorie Leithead born 1895, D’ter of Eva & Tom). Doris Leithead (Eva Doris Leithead born 1893, D’ter of Eva & Tom)

As there were two main surnames, I first searched for marriages between the two on FreeBMD, and it came up with these two, both registered in Howden, Yorkshire, so that looked very promising.

Eva Howes m Thomas Harris Leithead Sep 1892.

Florence Howes m Ralph James Leithead June 1907.

I decided to start the family tree with the couple in the earliest marriage, as I estimated the old photo to have been taken around 1900, before the second marriage.

I was correct with the family and gradually built up the couple’s wider family, and as I did, the names were all there from the back of the photo.

It also became clear that Eva and Florence Howes were sisters who had married two brothers, Thomas and Ralph Liethead.

Florence and Ralph married on 15 June 1907. A report of their wedding was in the newspapers.

A double family bond when two of the Howes sisters married two Leithead brothers.

Among the many fascinating patterns that emerge from family history, is when two families become connected not once, but twice.

Such was the story of the Howes and Leithead families, whose lives became intertwined through the marriages of two sisters to two brothers.

Their story spans the shipbuilding communities of Sunderland and the farming villages of Yorkshire, linking two very different parts of northern England into one extended family.

The Sunderland Leithead.

The story begins with Andrew Leithead, born in Sunderland on 3 November 1837 to Andrew Leithead and Alice Collin. Like many young men growing up in the bustling industrial town, Andrew learned a practical trade, becoming a joiner. The 1851 census finds him in Southwick as a fourteen-year-old apprentice, already beginning the working life that would support his future family.

In July 1859 Andrew married Harriet Boyce Harris, herself born in Sunderland just a few weeks before him, on 30 September 1837, to Thomas Harris and Catherine. They would spend nearly half a century together.

Their household steadily grew. First came Andrew in 1861, followed by Catherine in 1863, Thomas Harris in 1865, Ann in 1871, Bertha in 1875 and finally Ralph James in 1879.

Like so many Victorian families, they also experienced heartbreak. Their daughter Catherine died in 1876 at only thirteen years of age, a reminder that even prosperous, hardworking families were never immune from tragedy.

Throughout successive censuses the family remained rooted around Sunderland and Bishopwearmouth. Andrew worked as a joiner while Harriet managed their growing household.

By 1881 Andrew was recorded as head of the family and a skilled craftsman, providing stability during Sunderland’s years of rapid industrial growth.

Andrew died on 20 February 1906 aged sixty-eight and was buried in Sunderland.

Harriet survived him by almost ten years, living to see many of her children establish families of their own before dying on Christmas Day 1915.

The Yorkshire Howes Family.

Around the same time another family was flourishing nearly one hundred miles to the south in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

Charles Howes was born in 1843 at Reymerston, Norfolk, before eventually settling in Holme upon Spalding Moor. On 7 July 1867 he married Hannah Poole, who had been born in the village on 6 January 1844.

Charles became both a shopkeeper and a farmer, cultivating eight acres while Hannah contributed to the family income as a milliner. Together they raised an impressive family of eleven children:

Clara 1864-1931, she never married but was helping her parents, her father being described as a Shopkeeper and a Farmer of 8 acres, her mother Hannah a Milliner, later by 1911, she was a Draper, so had likely taken over the family business.

Eva 1868-1951, she married Tom Leithead who was in 1911 a Gas Fitting Saleman, and an Ironmonger in 1921. The couple had three daughters, Eva Doris, Florence Marjorie, and Ruth Marian, sadly she passed away as a baby, and one son Thomas Norman. The two daughters were Elementary Teachers in 1921 and Thomas was working as an Accountant for the Ministry of Health in London.

Charles Thornton 1869-1946, married Florence Alice Peall, they had three children and he became the Superintendent of an Industrial School in Cockermouth, Cumberland and his wife Florence was Matron. They were there for many years.

Mary Elizabeth 1871-1958, she became a School Teacher, she never married.

Caroline 1873-1935, she married Thomas Ibbotson and they had two daughters and one son. Thomas was a Farmer.

Harold 1875-1951, married Elizabeth Jane Oxtoby, the couple had two daughters. Harold was also a Farmer.

William Arthur 1877-1944, married Minnie Florence Millard, William was a Schoolmaster, in 1912 the couple emigrated to Canada. They had one daughter. The family lived in Vulcan, Alberta, Canada.

Florence 1878-1962, married Ralph James Leithead, he was a Clerk in the Shipyards, the couple had two boys and two girls.

Hannah 1880-1881, was just a baby when she died.

Dora Valentine (born on 14 February 1882-1940) married Robert Paterson Hay. Robert had been born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was a Farmer and emigrated to Canada in 1904, and Dora emigrated to Canada in 1910. They married there in 1912 and had four daughters. The family lived in Bow River, Alberta, Canada. So only about 60 miles away from Dora’s brother William and family.

Then Violet, 1883-1964, who married Simeon Scott in 1913, North Cave, Yorkshire. Simeon was a Farmer; the couple had three daughters and a son.

First marriage to unite the families.

As with the Leitheads, happiness was accompanied by sorrow. Little Hannah died in 1881 before reaching her second birthday.

The family remained centred on Holme upon Spalding Moor before later moving to North Cliffe, where Charles continued farming.

Their children grew up in a close-knit rural community surrounded by fields, village life and family connections.

Charles died in September 1914 after forty-seven years of marriage.

Hannah survived until March 1920, leaving behind a remarkable family whose descendants would spread across Yorkshire, Durham, London and even Canada.

It was almost certainly through Yorkshire that the two families first became acquainted.

Andrew and Harriet’s second son, Thomas Harris Leithead, had grown up in Sunderland and by sixteen was already working as an ironmonger.

Whether employment or family contacts brought him to Yorkshire is unknown, but by the early 1890s he had settled there.

On 22 September 1892, at Holme upon Spalding Moor, Thomas married Eva Howes, the second daughter of Charles and Hannah.

For Eva it meant leaving the large farming household in which she had grown up to begin married life with a Durham-born husband.

For Thomas, it meant becoming part of one of Yorkshire’s best established local families.

Their first child, Eva Doris, was born in Holme upon Spalding Moor in 1893. Soon afterwards the family moved to Harrogate, where daughters Florence Marjorie and Ruth Marian were born. Sadly, little Ruth died before her first birthday in 1898.

Their son Thomas Norman Leithead arrived in 1900, completing the family.

Thomas’s career developed steadily. Census returns record him first as an ironmonger and later as a furnishing ironmonger before retirement.

By 1911 he was described as a gas fitting salesman, illustrating the varied commercial work available during the Edwardian period.

Thomas and Eva spent the remainder of their lives in Harrogate. Their marriage lasted fifty-six years until Thomas died in August 1949. Eva followed him less than two years later in April 1951.

A second marriage strengthens the connections.

The relationship between the two families might have ended there, but fate had another surprise.

Eva’s younger sister Florence Howes, born in 1878, spent time in Harrogate and appears in the 1901 census as a sister-in-law in Thomas and Eva’s household.

Sister-in-laws, Sister, and Eva, with an assistant, were running a confectionery/Bakery from home while Thomas was out working.

It is easy to imagine visits from Thomas’s younger brother Ralph James Leithead, born in Sunderland in 1879.

Whether Ralph met Florence through family gatherings or while visiting his brother and sister-in-law, the result was another marriage between the same two families.

On 8 June 1907, at North Cave, Yorkshire, Ralph James Leithead married Florence Howes.

It was an extraordinary family connection:

Thomas Harris Leithead married Eva Howes.

Thomas’s younger brother Ralph James Leithead married Eva’s younger sister Florence.

The Leithead brothers became brothers-in-law twice over, while the Howes sisters also became sisters-in-law in two different ways.

Their children would be first cousins through both the Leithead and Howes families, a particularly close family bond.

Life after Marriage.

Unlike Thomas and Eva, Ralph and Florence settled in Sunderland, returning the Yorkshire bride to her husband’s native county.

Ralph worked first as a clerk and later as a shipyard clerk, reflecting Sunderland’s enormous shipbuilding industry during the early twentieth century.

Their four children were: Andrew (1909), Hannah (1913), Florence (1914) and Charles Howes Leithead (1918)

The choice of Charles Howes as a middle name was almost certainly a tribute to Florence’s father, demonstrating that the Yorkshire connection remained important even after moving to County Durham.

The sisters maintained different lives geographically, Eva in Harrogate and Florence in Sunderland, but family ties undoubtedly remained strong. Visits, letters and shared family news would have connected the two households for decades.

Joys and Sorrows.

The intertwined families experienced many of the same milestones.

Both sisters lost their father Charles in 1914 and their mother Hannah in 1920.

Thomas and Ralph both mourned the deaths of their parents, Andrew and Harriet, and later watched many of their siblings pass away.

The families also shared painful losses among their own children. Thomas and Eva lost baby Ruth Marian in infancy. Ralph and Florence later endured the death of their eldest son Andrew in 1957.

The 1901 census is the key piece of evidence. Florence Howes, aged 23, is living in Harrogate as the sister-in-law of Thomas Harris Leithead and Eva (Howes) Leithead.

Across both branches, several members lived long lives. Thomas reached eighty-four, Eva eighty-three,

Florence eighty-four and Ralph eighty-three. Their long marriages, fifty-six years for Thomas and Eva, fifty-five for Ralph and Florence, spoke of remarkable stability through two World Wars and enormous social change.

You can see more of their family history on the public tree I have compiled on Ancestry: Howes Leithead Family Tree

What began with Andrew Leithead, the Sunderland joiner, and Charles Howes, the Yorkshire farmer and shopkeeper, became something much larger than either could have imagined.

Through two marriages, their descendants inherited not one shared family story but two. Yorkshire and Durham became permanently connected.

Farming villages and industrial towns became part of the same family narrative.

Today, descendants of Thomas and Eva, and of Ralph and Florence, are related through both the Leithead and the Howes bloodlines, a rare and fascinating example of two families choosing each other twice.

For family historians, such connections are especially rewarding to discover. They remind us that family trees are not merely collections of names and dates, but networks of relationships, friendships and shared lives.

Family visits were a major part of Victorian and Edwardian life, especially when siblings lived some distance apart. Florence was already part of Thomas and Eva’s household, making introductions almost inevitable.

It isn’t about wealth or famous ancestors; it’s about two ordinary families whose lives became so closely intertwined that the children of Thomas and Eva and the children of Ralph and Florence were first cousins on both sides of the family.

That’s quite uncommon and makes for a memorable chapter in a family history.

You can contact me either by commenting here or via email at lynnswaffles@gmail.com 

Till next time then………