Leather origins and Leather Family History Society
I have folllowed the various Leather correspondence with interest and am surprised that noen of you have contacted the Leather Family History Society which has existed since 1991 and fosters research into Leathers worldwide.We have copious amounst of information inclduing IGI indexes, PRO records etc etc.The name Leather appears to have originated from one part of Britain , near Wigan, and most Leathers can trace their ancestry to that part of the world unless they are from mainland Europe, in which case they are really Lethers!
You can find out more about the LFHS from the Federation of Family History Societies of which we are a member.If you follow ths ilink you will find us.
http://www.ffhs.org.uk/General/Members/One-Name.htm#Lhttp://www.ffhs.org.uk/General/Members/One-Name.htm#L
Below is an article from our web site that might prove interesting
LETHER, LEATHER, LEATHERS
As you probably all know, one of the variants that we as a society are supposed to be researching is Lether.If you look at the older records pertaining to the family you will see that in the days before spelling became as fixed as it is now the name Leather was very frequently spelt Lether.For example, one of our older Parish Records entries notes the marriage of Ales Lether (Alice Leather as we would say nowadays) to Ryc Ryder in Frodsham Parish Church on 3 November 1560.There are many examples of this nature during the 16th century, and even in the early 17th century entries such as the christening of Simon Lether son of Simon Lether on 16 March 1688 in Birmingham St Martin are not uncommon.However, by the 18th century most Leathers were being recorded as Leather, although some of the less literate Leathers are recorded as being married or christened with the surname Lether, despite being the children of parents called Leather.In most cases the name reverts to Leather at death or the next generation.However, a significant proportion of Lethers do exist in England today, albeit much fewer than the conventional spelling.I have contacted some of the Lether branch and, interestingly, those I have spoken to pronounce their name to rhyme with weaver rather than feather i.e. Lee-ther.This is interesting in itself as one branch of the Leather family began to pronounce their name in that way during the early part of the last century (see David Leather=s interesting book Samuel Petty Leather: Gas Engineer of Burnley for more details).Being fairly busy with work and mainstream Leather research I left my investigations into the less common variants at that stage.
In January this year I was surprised to be contacted by a Frank Lether of Bunschoten in The Netherlands, which is about 20 minutes= drive from Amsterdam.He is a family tree addict, and two or three years ago he started researching his ancestry and began to produce a quarterly newsletter.He informed me that the name Lether is not uncommon in The Netherlands and Germany.He has in fact listed 159 Dutch Lethers and 128 American Lethers.He traces his family back to Heinrich Daniel Löther born in 1750 or thereabouts in Nassau Weilburg in Germany.He notes that in Germany Löther is also spelt Leuther.Heinrich Löther joined the Hessian Army and perhaps served in The Netherlands when the Houses of Orange and Nassau became united.Whatever the reason, he married Aelberdina Reijs in Brummen near Arnhem in The Netherlands in 1789 and changed his name to Leether. However, his eldest son Caesar Christoph Leether, although married as a Leether, registered all his children as Lether and thus founded the branch to which Frank belongs.
Frank sent me a lot of information relating to his research, including that done in the USA.This was of great interest to me as we have long had a >problem= Leather branch in the USA.A family descended from John and Susan Leather settled in Frederick, Maryland in about 1820.This is an area traditionally colonised by German immigrants and John Leather is purported to have being a soldier in Germany before his arrival in the USA.He and his descendants were members of the Lutheran church and married into the many German families in the area and gave their children names such as Frederick, Christian and Louis.John Leather was thus very possibly of German origin himself.Unlike the other Leathers that we have contacted in the USA and Canada, all of whom have definite connections with England, usually Lancashire or Yorkshire, I have never been able to trace John Leatherin the English records.My working hypothesis at the moment is that the numerous Leathers descended from John Leather of Frederick were either Lethers or Leethers who anglicised the spelling of their name on arrival in America as many other mainland European immigrants did at this time.
On the other hand, the Lethers in England are almost certainly all part of the Leather family originating from the Cheshire/Lancashire border, but the Lethers in America may have a much more diverse origin.I am sure that this will provide much frustrating research in the future!
What about Leathers?I had not really considered Leathers to be a true variant of Leather/Lether, as when I started family history research the name appeared to be confined to the south-east of England and to be a family of some substance; you may have heard of Viscount Leathers, for example.I did once get very excited when, looking for a will of my great great great great grandfather George Leather senior (1748-1818), I was sent a will for what appeared to be George Leather but turned out to be George Leathers who had died at about the same time.Interestingly enough the names of his children were almost identical to those of George Leather, which might have indicated a common heritage.However, I decided that there was no link and put the Leathers to one side.That was not the end of the story however.I was contacted a couple of years ago by a Harry Leathers who had recently stopped pursuing family history research and he told me that the Leathers family was actually an off-shoot of the Leather family and promised to send me his material.Frustratingly the material never materialised and as he had contacted me by telephone and omitted to give me his address I have not as yet been able to trace him and find out the truth of the matter.This could be a nice little job for someone out there with time on their hands!
Finally, and also by way of Frank Lether of Bunschoten.One of the rarer variants of the Leather name in England is Leether.Frank was contacted by an Alan Leether from Birmingham who claimed that his name came from Lethar an ancient first name.This is interesting, because as many of you will remember, the late Ron Leather, in an article he wrote in 1992 (Leather Lines Vol 2 No 4), also mooted this as the possible origin of the name Leather.I have written to Alan Leether but as yet have received no reply.I will of course update you all when I do hear something.
There are of course two more variants of the name that I have not mentioned, Lethere and Leither, but as I have absolutely no information on them I will leave them to the rest of you to follow up!
Simon R Leather