It's very rare now to discover a complete new family of Gidleys, but it was nice surprise to discover this particular family, who were well concealed in the United States under the name Yeldig. It took a little while for the penny to drop (Gidley spelled backwards of course) and their existence was no surprise to Ancestry who had linked them to their Gidley originator, nor to the transcriber who had entered the details on the Find My Grave website and also found the original name. I had assumed Yeldig was just a mis-transcription of Gidley from a particularly poorly hand written entry, but no, it was clearly Yeldig, So I investigated. As the descendants of the man who originally changed his name still use the name Yeldig, I shan't go into great detail of the more recent family members..
William Albert Gidley born in Masschusetts in 1889 was the son of Charles Gidley, a house painter, and Sarah Simmons. They parted, and both married again. By 1910 their son William was living in Providence, Rhode Island, with his widowed mother. He was a jewellery polisher, having apparently been fascinated by jewellery from a young age. He married that year Charlotte Tew, a few years older than himself, and it seems the marriage was not happy. According to his obituary he moved to Indianapolis, Indiana (approximately 900 miles away from Providence) in 1918, although he is found in the 1920 census still in Providence, Rhode Island, still called William Gidley and still with Charlotte (she died in New York in 1931). But a daughter was born that same year of 1920 in Indianapolis to William, who was now using the name Yeldig, and Annie Elizabeth Todd, who came from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Two sons followed.
William and Annie also seemed to have problems, as by the following census in 1930 Annie has moved 50 miles away from Indianapolis to keep house for a man she later married. William Yeldig is a divorced roomer (we would probably call him a lodger in the UK), still living in Indianapolis. There is no sign of the children. By 1940 there is a happier outcome: William has married Lillian Whitehurst and has the children living with him. Their mother Annie had died in 1935.
William kept his occupation of jewellery polisher and plater until his retirement. His obituary in an Indianapolis newspaper in 1954 records he worked for Reis & Co. Inc. for 30 years. His descendants in the male line still use the name Yeldig.
Obituary for William Albert Yeldig in the Indianapolis News 26 Jan 1954.
