However, the earliest Sagars that I have in my tree are in the form of my 9 x great grandfather JAMES SAGAR ( born around 1690) and his wife Mary HITCHEN.

Their son was a JOHN SAGAR (b 1714 in Accrington) who married MARY HOWARTH of Altham.

They had sons John, William and James. John was buried in St Leonards Padiham at the age of 84.

JAMES SAGAR was a yeoman farmer of Fearn Gore, Accrington and he married a MARY OMEROD.

Of their six children, their son JAMES married GRACE HOULDING of Church.
One of their children, a daughter MARY, married GEORGE HOULDING (probably a cousin) of Church and from here my HOLDEN line begins.

I have been very fortunate in being given details of the Sagar descendants of great grandpa James and his wife Mary Hitchen and it covers several pages of names and dates. My descent from them only comes down about five generations before it links in with the Holden line through Mary Sagars marriage.
It is interesting to note that within the family the name Sagar continued as a Christian name through to the 1900s with my great uncle Sagar Jackson. In one generation of Holdens there is a Sharples Holden, Sagar Holden and an Omerod Holden. The name Omerod clearly comes form Mary Omerod though the origin of Sharples is unclear. One can only wonder whether people trawled through old family bibles for names or, with high levels of illiteracy at the time, they heard of the names through anecdotes. In the full Sagar line I have come across many surnames of my Burnley ancestors – Whittam, Wood, Holden, Aspden, Heyworth, Pilkington etc which on the surface do not appear to have close links though it is not too surprising if the families were all linked together though marriage in previous generations. As examples, Pilkington, Heyworth and Aspden can be found in my maternal great grandmothers line and Wood & Whittam on my maternal line through my grandfather.