It is 1546, the last year of the reign of Henry VIII. While Catherine Parr is counting the days until she becomes a widow, a family of HEBDEN, is mourning the loss of it’s father.

In Langstrothdale Chase, on the edge of the Yorkshire dales, GEOFFREY HEBDEN of RAISGILL, near Hubberholme, has just died. He was likely at least 50 years old and would have lived his life sheep farming in the Yorkshire dales.

Geoffrey and his widow JANE had five surviving children AGNES, ELIZABETH, JAMES, JOHN (of Oughtershaw) and LEONARD.

This JAMES is likely to have been JAMES HEBDEN of RAISGILL, whose will, in 1570, showed he had surviving children.

LEONARD presumably moved further towards Burnsall as that is where he was buried in 1563.

JOHN HEBDEN of OUGHTERSHAW died in 1588 and had children GEOFFREY of OUGHTERSHAW , James, Jenet, Mable, Margaret & Robert. (Oughtershaw is near Raisgill, deeper into Langstrothdale, almost equidistant between Marsett to the north east and Hubberholme to the south east.)

The son James was possibly "James the priest of Wath" ( near Pateley Bridge) who left a will in 1572
Robert was probably also the father of James Hebden of Bainbridge
GEOFFREY of OUGHTERSHAW married Jane and had children Adam, LAWRENCE, Leonard and William. As Geoffrey remained sheep farming in Oughtershaw, perhaps he was the oldest son.
Nothing more is known of Adam.
To be expected of the times, nothing is known of the daughters Jennet, Mabel, or Margaret either. If they didn’t marry then they would have most likely lived with their brothers, helping out of the farms or keeping house for any brother who had not married.

LAWRENCE, son of Geoffrey of Oughtershaw, was administrator of his fathers will in 1612 which meant that he was likely to have been the eldest surviving son. He was also the most likely ancestor of the HEBDENS of OUGHTERSHAW.

By now the reign of the House of Tudor was over. Queen Elizabeth I had died and her cousin’s son, James VI of Scotland had been crowned James I of England. The future King Charles I was a young boy of about 5. None of this probably affected the life of the Yorkshire dales farmer over much, except as a topic of conversation when discussions about the price of wool had grown tiresome.

This LAWRENCE had a son JEFFREY HEBDEN, named after his grandfather. JEFFREY married a girl from Ingleton, ELIZABETH LOUDGE, in 1617.
JEFFREY died in 1674, which would have made him nearly 80 when he died.
We know little about his children, except for a son LAWRENCE HEBDEN who died in 1701.

However, it is likely that another of his sons was Jeffrey and James of the Hubberholme line is a contender for being another son of Jeffrey.