Connection to The Story of England

This evening I watched two episodes of The Story of England by Michael Wood.  It was more the history of the common people than of the landed gentry, so it was very interesting.  I have spent more time researching family here in the New World, but I'm aware of the great amount of English ancestry that I have and know that is also a part of me. 

I have such a diverse family tree it's embarassing.  I joke that I can tell someone to wait a minute and I'll find someone connected to whatever group of people they're discussing.  It took until the end of the program, but I found a family that came from the general area under discussion.  Thomas John Tilton was born 1359 in Narborough, Leicestershire, England, between waves of the Black Death, bubonic plague.  I recall Wood saying that people moved from Kibworth to Leicester  (within the circle of expressways in the picture) because it was more prosperous. 

Narborough is northwest of Kibworth.  They are less than thirteen miles apart, but I have the feeling that way back then, during the time of the Little Ice Age and the Black Death, the distance between the two places mattered more.

According to The Morford World Connect Project, the family name came from the location where it lived, a hill on which the remains of a Roman fortication was found.  The Town of Tilton existed in 1066 at the time of William the Conqueror and Sir John Tilton lived during the reign of King Henry II (1145-1189). 

Here is Tilton on the Hill, from where the family name Tilton came from.

Here is Tilton in relation to Kibworth and Narborough.

Can you tell as a kid I liked maps?  I still do.
Now I can see that the Danelaw, the Little Ice Age and the Black Death were important factors in my mother's family history, as they probably were for many of my English ancestors.