There are three competing theories about Sykes origins which can be found in print or on various family history websites. One is a myth, one based on documentary evidence recent and the other a theory. Interestingly however they all contain a key common element – Sykes has only one source of origin. This section assesses each of them and poses some alternatives.
Brian, George, Mr Sykes & DNA
“There’s Only One Mr Sykes””[1] proclaimed the title of a BBC Radio 4 series broadcast in 2001. It suggested all Sykes males could trace their ancestry back to a single male alive in the village of Slaithwaite, West Yorkshire, in the mid-fifteenth century[2]. This remarkable conclusion was drawn by a leading Oxford University geneticist, Professor Brian Sykes, who had recently published ground-breaking research tracing family descendants through DNA. This was newly emerging bio-chemistry, but it seemed to confirm a controversial (but often dismissed) theory long advocated by two eminent academic local historians, Dr Gorge Redmonds and Professor David Hey, who both believed that many relatively common names could have a single source of origin[3]. The Sykes surname acquired great significance among genealogists after Redmonds and Brian Sykes teamed up to consolidate their theories into one composite package which attempted to marry some apparently contradictory profiles between the documentary and DNA evidence. Redmonds, a diligent empiricist, constructed a documentary trail based on “first mention” dates to suggest Sykes emerged in Flockton before 1300, moved westwards into the Holme Valley by 1386 and by 1491 had skipped over the ridge into the Colne Valley and settled in Slaithwaite, from where they ramified almost exponentially before spreading their wings across Yorkshire.
Brian Sykes tested the Slaithwaite hypothosis by DNA testing a group of Slaithwaite Sykes men and comparing them to a random group of non-Slaithwaite Sykes men. From this he identified a common gene with markers taking them back to the fifteenth century. Bingo, the two speculative theories became one.
Professor Sykes later nuanced his pioneering DNA work and since then other geneticists have questioned both his methodology and conclusions to suggest the existence of several variant clusters is more likely[4]. This profile would be a better fit with the documentary evidence. Nonetheless numerous family history websites still adhere to the single origin theory and the “evidence” trail associated with it.
Both Brian Sykes and George Redmonds are now unfortunately deceased, but before Redmond’s death in 2018 I had several conversations with him in which he was generously supportive of my attempts to question some of his long held assumptions and gave me several leads for consideration[5]. I shall leave the DNA assessment to others, but my analysis of Redmond’s evidence is set out below in the section 1400-1550.
Antiquarians, Ambition & Veracity
(Mystery Nobleman of the North)
The official guide to Sledmere House in East Yorkshire, home of a wealthy branch of the Sykes family since 1748, claims their origins are lost in the mystery of William de Sykes, a nobleman from Sykes Dyke near Carlisle who arrived in Leeds in the sixteenth century and founded their line. This version is repeated on many family history web sites and is confidently put forward in an introduction to the Sykes papers at the Hull History Centre. Unfortunately however attractive this story may be, it was dismissed as fanciful as long ago as 1860. To understand how and why it started and continues to have currency we need to examine its context.
The sixteenth and seventeenth century were a dynamic time economically and socially as the grips of feudalism gave way to a rising class of tradesmen-cum-merchants, transforming their industries and creating new urban trading areas that surpassed more established market towns and district centres. Leeds was one such place, developing a thriving cloth market and using inland ports on the River Aire to enable continental trade via the port of Hull. There is hard evidence that a Sykes family were trading as clothiers in Leeds by the mid-sixteenth century, but it was one of their sons, Richard (died 1645), who effectively became the leading light of Leeds as a commercial centre. He was an Alderman, allegedly Leeds’ first mayor, the financier and founder of Leeds Workhouse and the city’s wealthiest merchant. Rising stars like Richard lacked only the credentials of ancestry to stand shoulder to shoulder with the landed aristocracy. The restoration government, equally keen to establish the ancestry of potential upstarts who were rapidly changing national politics, commissioned antiquarians to visit the provincial counties and compile pedigrees of these emerging families. Such is the background to the first “authoritative” pedigree of Sykes, compiled by the herald William Dugdale during his “visitations” to the county in the 1665-6[1]. He drew upon the notes of Yorkshire’s own antiquarian scholar Roger Dodsworth and, crucially, supplemented this by testaments from the Sykes family themselves. Dugdale’s pedigree focussed only on the ancestry of Sykes of Leeds, no other Sykes received this honour. The draft pedigree was subsequently modified by Ralph Thoresby, another prominent Yorkshire antiquarian and coincidentally married to a daughter of Sykes of Leeds[2]. Thoresby’s pedigree was subsequently endorsed by Rev Joseph Hunter, Deputy Keeper of Public Records in the 1860’s and substantially expanded by Foster (1874) who used parish registers, wills, deeds and the oral testimony of Sykes descendants, to verify or amend Thoresby’s version[3]. In all three versions pre-sixteenth century origins are dealt with in a sweeping, unattributed sentence claiming the original descent was from an ancient noble Cumberland family, de Syke of Sykes Dyke, Carlisle, one of whom Richard or William, migrated to Leeds[4].
The Sykes pedigree was subject to correspondence between Dr John Sykes of Doncaster (a founder member of the Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Society) and Rev Hunter in the pages of Heraldry between 1859-62[5]. Hunter defended the Dugdale/Thoresby version whilst conceding many pedigrees of that period were “setting forth descents quite fictious” and both men agreed there was no evidence that either William de Syke or Sykes Dyke, near Carlisle ever existed. Dr Sykes went further, he was aware Sykes was a relatively numerous name in parts of the West Riding, particularly in the Wapentake of Agbrigg. He proposed an alternative, that Leeds Sykes were more likely descendants of William del Syke who lived in mid-thirteenth century Flockton township, Wapentake of Agbrigg, near Wakefield. He defiantly proclaimed the evidence for this was contained in unpublished manuscripts in Hunter’s own collection, comprising in the main copies of deeds from the papers of Allendale (West Bretton) and Wilson (Broomhead, Sheffield) which confirm Sykes were present in Flockton from the late thirteenth century. Most of these early deeds were subsequently published in the Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series “Early Deeds” volumes, although a handful remain elusive[6]. There is no doubting the veracity of these deeds, but whilst they prove Sykes were in Flockton and neighbouring townships they do demonstrate no connection whatsoever to Leeds.
Summary of Myths & Theories
Dr Sykes took a diligent empiricist approach to transcribing the Allendale/Wilson deeds, dismissing the Cumbrian myth and and promoting the case for Flockton, however he appears to have been unaware or unconcerned that the numerical concentration of Sykes had shifted to Slaithwaite and the Colne Valley, and never considered this location as a potential alternative source. Redmonds applied his own discipline and skills to forge a seemingly plausible link between these two centres, but that too excluded some evidence that earlier Sykes were spread wider than just Flockton.
We can only speculate on the reasons behind the invention of a Cumbrian noble ancestry, but the obvious one is the desire of a middle class entrepreneurial family to establish credibility. There may be a slightly more devious reason too. No researcher has yet cemented a link between Leeds Sykes and anywhere else, which raises the possibility the Leeds cousins were not proud of their past and sought to hide it. Further discussion in the sections on Flockton and Leeds Sykes examine this question in more detail.
[1] Dugdale (1696), Dodsworth
[2] Thoresby
[3] Foster, Sykes of Sledmere pedigree
[4] Papers of the Sykes family of Sledmere – Hull History Centre Catalogue
[5] Nichols, 349-363 and 459-463. Dr Sykes was an early member of YAS and regular contributor to YAS journals. Modern internet searches confirm Dr Sykes’s conclusion.
[6] YASRS Flockton Deeds Vols 5 & 8
[1] Dyson, Place Names and Surnames 38
[2] Redmonds & Sykes There’s Only One Mr Sykes; Sykes & Irven, Surnames & the Y Chromosone
[3] Redmonds, King & Hey Surnames, DNA & Family History 72-74; Redmonds, Names and Surnames 28-32
[4] Article in ONS
[5] Private conversations 2016-18. George Redmonds generously encouraged me to pursue the tentative lines I suggested to him. I am grateful for his encouragement.