If your Brettle ancestors came from the Black Country they would have lived in an industrial, heavily polluted environment, probably employed in hard and dangerous work, poor by modern day standards, with life experiences very different from today. Remember Samuel Sidney's words earlier. This is why information on the Black Country features so prominently in this website. I hope that you might find it useful in its own right, particularly if you are interested in the Black Country, but also because I believe that the Brettles originated from the Black Country and so some knowledge of the geography of the area is necessary to understand the source of the name and its distribution. I also think that the environmental, social and political conditions the people of this area lived in are relevant to how their family history developed. The late 18th and 19th Centuries was a time of great national change due to the industrial revolution, no more so than in the Black Country which was in effect created by these changes. When you look at the birth, marriage, death and census information of your 19th century ancestors you may find it very different from what you might expect today: infant deaths, very large families, widowhood, remarriages, illegitimacy, lack of education and short lifespans due to death in childbirth or industrial accidents were all common and an appreciation of the social conditions in the Black Country at that time helps to understand why this was so.
The subsequent pages listed here have genealogical and family history information on the name Brettle, Brettell and its other name variants (Throughout I use the name Brettle for simplicity but it should be taken as covering Brettell and these other variants.) . This may be of use to others who are similarly researching this rather unusual name as well as information on the origin of the name and its distribution both in the UK and more widely around the world. The earlier information on the area around Rowley Regis, Halesowen, Old Hill, Cradley Heath, Stourbridge and Dudley may be of particular interest to Brettles from outside the UK who are unfamiliar with this area, from where their ancestors probably originated before later emigrating.
Also there is a more detailed history of just one Brettle family line (mine) and information on searching for Brettle ancestors i.e. sources which may be useful to others performing similar searches; this then brings up other Black Country families who intermarried with the Brettles, the most significant of which are Priest, Nock, Astbury, Cartwright, Cooper, Faulkner, Griffiths, Hackett, Hardeman, Harris, Johnson, Lowe, Morris, Moy, Oldfield, Page, Parks, Perry, Poole, Shilvock, Tromans, Wallis, Willetts and York; so if you bear these family names you might be particularly interested in these pages.
Brettles are still largely concentrated in the Black Country with some spread of the name due to emigration particularly to Australia and the United States. On further pages there is information on how you may go about searching for your own Brettle line, mostly using free genealogy internet sites. Finally there is information on some of my own Brettle family history.
You can find all of this from the pages below:
A final note: if you are looking for Brettles associated with George Brettles Hosiery and Stocking Co. in Belper, and some of its history you have come to the wrong place. I am afraid that I can't trace any connection of my Brettle line with that of the rather more famous Victorian clothing manufacturer. However to help: you can find more information on the history of the Brettles company here (1). If you are looking for more recent information the company now trades under the Slenderella (2) name.
(1) https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/search/archives/b8d927f7-2a23-352b-b7c7-2b9e38519dc9 Archives Hub Record Archives Hub / Jisc
(2) https://www.slenderella.co.uk/ Slenderella