Interested in the Black Country or the names Brettle and Brettell and how they are related? I have been researching the family history of the Brettle side of my family for some time and it became clear that the name is intertwined with the history of the Black Country itself. As a result this website begins by covering the location of the Black Country, competing ideas on the origin of the name, followed by some information on the Black Country's history and culture. It was central to the development of the industrial revolution following from the discovery of easily accessed coal deposits which led to its rapid growth in mining and metal working in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Following on from this is information on the name Brettle, Brettell and its other name variants: this may be of use to others who are similarly researching this rather unusual name. (Throughout I use the name Brettle for simplicity but it should be taken as covering Brettell and these other variants.) These webpages have information on the origin of the name and its distribution both in the UK and more widely around the world. Information on the area around Rowley Regis, Halesowen, 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.
Finally there is a more detailed history of just one Brettle/Brettell 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.
Note: To navigate this site just click on the sidebar headings to move between the pages. References, if they are available on the internet, are shown as underlined hypertext links or as buttons. References are also shown in the "References" at the end of a page, there are also the occasional "Bibliography" entries for more general background information.
A disclaimer: I am not a genealogist or historian, just an amateur family history researcher. Much of the information contained here is obtained from internet searches and I can offer no guarantee of the accuracy of the original or my interpretation of it. This is particularly so where I have tracked a particular Brettle line as far as the late 18th century (see the "My Brettle Family History" page) where the easily searchable and reliable online information peters out and I have had to use a little more guesswork. Wherever possible I include warnings where I believe the information is particularly uncertain.