In maintaining and expanding the study of the Hebden surname, I follow several dedicated researchers whose work forms the basis of this study. The pioneering work was done by William Hebden of Halifax, who between the wars researched the medieval family; the Ripon line; and those of Grimwith above Burnsall, Appleton-le-Street/Scarborough and the Hepden family of Burwash, Sussex.

When William Hebden died in 1973, the material he had collected was taken over by John Reid Hebden. In the years following, he was joined by Graham Pratten from the the Braisty Woods branch of the Ripon family and the Rev David Jackson who was also interested in the same family. Much of the written material was computerised and Graham Pratten created a simple but extensive chronological database of Hebden family events, searchable by date, forename and other variables.

John R.Hebden was joined by a previously unknown cousin, Peter Hebden. Sadly he died in 1995 but his daughter, Janet (Jan) took over. She died suddenly in 2005 having created a website with a narrative description for each of the Hebden families known at the time. This still exists and the web address can be found in the links section below. Unfortunately she told no-one her password so her site cannot be edited or corrected in any way.

Stuart Hebden started researching his own branch of the family in 2002 and soon amassed a considerable amount of material relating to other family branches. Correspondence with John Hebden and Janet Hebden developed into an interest in the wider family, and he converted the 25 original hand drawn tree charts into web graphics. This series now comprises 50 indexed charts and is still growing. An additional website (www.hebdens.info) with improved navigation has been launched, and this may be merged with the original at some stage. The study is ongoing, and we are very interested in any trees or research covering the Hebden family or its variants and welcome any enquiries, comments or suggestions.