Hi Emma,

Even when some Manx Museum library records go online I doubt that they would include personal letters.

This Radcliffe family didn't live at Ballaradcliffe. Although their first traceable IOM ancestors were there in the 1500s, their son/grandson left in the early 1600s to form the Belfast and Crot-e-Lough Radcliffe branches. The eldest son from the Crot-e-Lough branch was identified as ”Radcliffe y Vayr".

Constance Radcliffe wrote "Alice Radcliffe, second daughter of John Belfast and his wife Jane Teare married Thomas Radcliffe her second cousin in 1717.The description "y Vayr" (of the road) applied to Thomas has puzzled many, and has been variously interpreted as meaning one who lived by the road, or who was overseer of the parish highways (such as they were in the early eighteenth century)”.

R.CUNLIFFE SHAW wrote “…This Thomas Radcliffe had a son Thomas, born 1690-95, and married Alice the daughter of John Radcliffe of Old Belfast, in 1718. He and many of his descendants were known as 'y Vair' or 'y Voar'. Thomas Radcliffe…. had seven children, one of whom, Thomas, shoemaker and weaver, purchased the Cronk Breck in Ballachurry quarterland. By Ann Sayle, his wife, he had a younger son James born in 1760 who lived at the Lhen Moar and was a noted codfisher and weaver. He built the cottage in which he lived by his own hands. His great grandson was the well-known schoolmaster of Andreas, William Radcliffe, whose patronymic "Billy-Harry-Jemmy-Jem-Hom-Voar-y Sundher", is a remarkable example of how the country people preserved the long records of their descent and incidentally proves the connection of the 'Voar' branch with the other Sundher families. George Radcliffe, uncle to William the Schoolmaster, emigrated to the U.S.A. and was one of the pioneer house builders in Cleveland, Ohio. Another brother James became a farmer in the U.S.A. and the descendants of John, the eldest of this generation, emigrated to Australia.”

Thomas Radcliffe & Ann Sayle's son James Radcliffe bapt 8 June 1760, d.1821, The Llen, married 1786 Ann KNEALE d.1821.

“Hom Mooar's second son James (1760-1821) married Ann Kneale (d. 1821), and lived at the Lhen. His two surviving sons James (1788-1858), a weaver and fisherman, and John (1789-1863) had between them eleven sons, several of whom emigrated to the United States or Australia.” [CR]

John 28 July 1789-1863 married 1816 Jane SCARFF [last message].

Sue