Riches Genealogy

In an attempt to trace the ancestry and possible relatives of my ancestor, William Riches of Long Stratton (born c.1705, died before 1771), I have researched all the Riches families in the parishes in the district of Depwade, Co Norfolk, along with neighbouring parishes in adjacent districts. Available transcripts for parish records for almost all Depwade parishes only date back to the early to mid 1700's. Combined with the relative abundance of the surname elsewhere in Co Norfolk, this would have made researching the name across the entire county both a daunting task and probably of little relevance to my own Riches connection. Transcripts for the parishes in northern Co Suffolk, bordering the southern side of the Depwade district are unavailable, which is regrettable since there is evidence of considerable migrations between Depwade and northern Suffolk (see the charts on the "Other Riches of Depwade" page). Whilst sufficient detail to construct family groups is not available, there is evidence to indicate that the Riches surname was fairly widespread across Depwade as early as the 1600's from wills & deeds indexed in the Norfolk Records Office online catalogue. Access to these wills and the original parish records (which generally date back to the early 1500's for Depwade parishes) would be quite fruitful in the study of Riches in the Depwade district, unfortunately these records are for the most part only accessible in person in Co Norfolk, not a feasible prospect from here in distant Australia. Should anyone be interested in doing that research (or has done so), I would certainly appreciate the sharing of the fruits of that research, whether it be my own line or other Riches families from Depwade. Included on the "Other Riches of Depwade" page are those Riches families who settled in the Depwade district, having come from elsewhere, even if only for a single generation. This research is, of course, not complete. Apart from the restriction placed by the limited transcriptions available, there were a number of records, both ecclesiastical and secular, which I have not been able to be place into any of the trees listed on this site.

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