MY FAMILY TREE - FROM HALIFAX, 1436 - by ROBERT GENE WOOD, USA.  In 1635 my ancestor, Edmund Wood, emigrated to America, along with two sons,  a nephew, and their pastor, Rev. Richard Denton.  After spending three months  at sea, they came to Roxbury Massachusetts in New England.  Edmund had come  from the little hamlet of Shelf, in the Parish of Halifax in West Yorkshire.   The family made several moves with Rev. Denton.  First to Springfield and  Wethersfield, then to Stamford,Connecticut in 1641.
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 By 1644 the Wood family was located in Hempstead, Long Island, NY.   I am Robert Gene Wood the Great great great great great great great great great  great great great great great grandson of Mr Wood of Halifax West Yorkshire  U.K.  I hope and pray that the information here presented on our Wood family  history and heritage will bless and encourage each reader.  I am always open to  corrections and/or additions to these pages.  If you "stumble" into this  history, please drop me a note by email, by using the Guest Book.  Thank You,  in advance, for spending some time with the "Wood Clan," and for any help you  may be able to offer.
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 HALIFAX, WEST YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND, WHERE OUR STORY BEGINS ....  (THE FOLLOWING WAS WRITTEN BY PETER WOOD, A VERY DEAR FRIEND OF  ROBERT GENE WOOD, BUT WAS NOT KNOWN TO BE A RELATIVE.  
 PETER, WHO LIVED IN THE HALIFAX AREA OF ENGLAND, 
 HAS PASSED AWAY SINCE THESE WORDS WERE WRITTEN.)
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 Halifax is located south west of Bradford where the Hebble valley flows south  to join the Calder. It was a town that grew because of the cloth trade and even  its name derives from Haly Flex Field meaning the place where holy banners were  made from flax. In 1175 Halifax was called Haliflex.
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 Halifax has a spectacular location in among the hills and one of the best views  can be obtained from neighbouring Beacon Hill. Nearby is Shibden Hall in  Shibden Dale which was the fifteenth century home of the Otes family. For the  next 300 years it was owned by the Listers who lived there until 1933. Halifax is a busy town, well known for its shopping arcades and markets.  Notable buildings in Halifax include the old Piece Hall a quadrangled hall with  315 rooms dating from 1779. Here cloth merchants displayed pieces of cloth for  sale on market days. In 1871 the open space within the massive hall became the  site of a fruit and vegetable market. The Town Hall of 1863 was built by  Charles Barry who built the Houses of Parliament. Wainhouse tower , an  elaborate factory chimney built for a dye house that was never used, dates from  1871. 
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 Two churches of note in Halifax are All Souls, built by Sir Gilbert Scott  and the fourteenth century Church of St John the Baptist where a lifesize  wooden figure of a seventeenth century Halifax beggar called "Old Tristram" can  be seen. There are some Georgian houses in Halifax including Somorset House on  George Street, while older buildings include the Union Cross Inn , first  mentioned in 1535.
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 The remains of the Halifax Gibbet (guillotine) can be seen in Gibbet Street.  Relinquished in the seventeenth century, the gibbet was originally used to  protect cloth makers from theft. Anyone found guilty of stealing cloth had  their heads cut off at the guillotine-like gibbet. Fifty people were executed  here between 1550 and 1650.
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 Local museums in Halifax include the Bankfield Museum, with a collection of  textiles, the Calderdale Industrial Museum and a Museum of Childhood. -
 During May of 2005, Bob and Gloria Wood, along with their adult son, Jeremy  Robert Wood, visited the Halifax area, spending several long and full days  visiting the places undoubtedly visited by their Wood ancestors.