The Gidley family history blog

Another new family - Nicholas Gidley of Dunsford

2011-04-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

I've just returned from three days of research in the Devon Record Office, and the supply of Gidleys in the parish registers is starting to dry up. But I still came across another previously undocumented family, that of Nicholas Gidley of Dunsford, Devon, in the 17th century. I had come across Nicholas himself before, and know where he fits in. He was the son of George Gidley by his wife Grace, nee Coleridge. They married in 1637 at St Olave's in Exeter, and I believe that George was the younger brother of Bartholomew Gidley, the supporter of Charles II. George, however, died in about 1639, and left a son, Nicholas, named after Grace's father, Nicholas Coleridge. An abstract of Nicholas Coleridge's will exists in Olive Moger's series of will abstracts in the DRO. The will was proved in 1650. There is mention of Samuel Gidley (Grace's brother) and Samuel's brother-in-law, Thomas Jeffery, who are to oversee the arrangements. All did not go smoothly and in 1673 the will was exhibited in the cause May or Bishopp als Gidley. Grace Gidley had now remarried, to William Bishopp. Samuel Gidley's receipt dated 3 Jun 1653 for the sum of £66 paid him by William Bishopp of Dunsford "being a half part of the marriage portion with his wife Ursilowe [Ursula]", and another receipt by Samuel Gidley for a legacy to his wife "Urselowe", witnessed by Bartholomew Gidley, Thomas Jeffry and Richard Dunning were both documents exhibited in the case.
I have omitted all the complicated property details (including a fascinating story about Nicholas Coleridge's ride to London to procure from the Lord Great Almoner of England the rightful inheritance of his grandchildren by his other daughter. Their property had been forfeited to the King as their other grandfather, Scipio Heywood, had "become felo de se" i.e. had committed suicide, whilst holding the land in their names).
Nicholas Gidley's children are listed in the Dunsford parish registers as follows: George baptised 1669, Joane 1671, Mary 1675, John 1677, Bartholomew 1680, Samuel 1684 and Elizabeth 1685. Another son John was buried in 1674. I have concluded that Nicholas married Mary Collihall in 1669 at Exeter St Petrock (Boyd's Marriage Index). Unfortunately there is no further trace of any of the family in the Dunsford registers, and so far I can't find where they went. It is possible that Bartholomew married Wilmot Tozer in South Tawton in about 1702. There is no record of the marriage in the South Tawton parish register, but a Marriage Licence allegation exists for these two names in the Gidley family file pedigree held at the West Country Studies library in Exeter. Bartholomew is described as a gentleman. A Bartholomew Gidley was buried at South Tawton in 1728, and a daughter was born to the couple in 1703 in South Tawton.

The Palk Arms, Christow, Devon

2011-02-12T07:24:00.000-08:00

Recently I was contacted by Tricia King, nee Wreford, who kindly shared her memories of the Palk Arms in Christow, where she was brought up. This pub was run by George Gidley and his wife Elizabeth Browning, who became the innkeepers certainly by 1881. George died in 1885, when his widow took over the lease until her own death in 1909. They had six sons, and the fifth, Arthur, then became the landlord. His war service record in 1918 records his address as The Palk Arms. He died in 1938, but it is not known when the Palk Arms ceased to be a pub.
The name "Gidleys" is clearly visible over the doorway in the photo. Elizabeth Gidley is presumably the older lady, and her son Arthur, who was the barman in the 1901 census, is possibly the man. The younger woman is not known. Arthur did not marry Emily Hill until 1909 in Scotland, but Elizabeth Gidley had at least one daughter by her previous marriage.
Tricia recounts "I was brought up in Christow and we lived at Hillcrest Bakery, formerly The Palk Arms.
At the time I lived there, 1949-1960, we shared the house with another family - the two fathers were in partnership for the bakery business. When we lived there, there were still signs that it had been a pub - a ledge where our phone was, by a hatch that led into the previous bar shown on the right hand side of the house, and swing doors, exactly as in western films!, inside the front door. Occasionally ramblers used to knock, assuming it was still a pub.
The photograph may be from a book on the history of Christow by Stafford Clark which I saw once.
I will always be willing to chat to anyone who is interested in the house".

William Mann Gidley's emigration to the US in 1842

2011-01-03T11:53:00.000-08:00

Recently Bryan Flack of Macclesfield contacted me about his great-great grandmother, Elizabeth Gidley, daughter of Samuel Gidley and his wife, nee Susanna Mann. Elizabeth’s baptism has seemingly not been recorded anywhere, but in a much later census she said she was born in Blackawton in about 1805.This places her on the tree of the Buckfastleigh Gidleys. Bryan offered to forward to me some letters that had survived in his family, which related to William Mann Gidley, Elizabeth’s brother, who emigrated with other family members, including their mother, to the United States in 1842. They were to join William’s father, Samuel Gidley, who had been in Madison County, New York State since 1834.
It seems the family stayed in New York State for a little while after arriving in 1842, and one of William’s sisters, Ann Maria Gidley, died there later that year, but by 1848 they had joined the great move westwards, and by 1850 were well established in Drury precinct, Rock Island County, Illinois.

What was happening in Devon in the early part of the 19th century to make it attractive to go so far from home? I’ve only done a little research into the background, but it does seem as though conditions in the countryside were far from being a rural idyll. The depression in agriculture after the Napoleonic Wars is well documented nationally, as are the Luddites and the Swing Riots. Riots in Devon took place in 1795, and 1800 – 1801. Thomas Campion of Ilsington was hanged at Bovey Tracey in 1797 as a ringleader of a mob which damaged machinery at Bellamarsh Mill, near Chudleigh, and Henry Penney from Harberton was a leader of the 1795 riot (was he the inspiration behind the name of Henry Penny Gidley born in 1869?) . Wages remained low whilst prices rose, and inflation meant that starvation was a real possibility. Crops failed because of the weather in 1846 and 1847; the price of wheat soared, and bread riots continued in Devon right up until 1854 in Exeter, when the Rifle Volunteers and coastguards were brought in to subdue the mob, and 1867 in Torquay. The woollen industry in Devon was also decaying, as it couldn’t compete with the mills in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and those who depended on the wool trade were also poverty stricken.

In 1850 William Mann Gidley, now settled in the Mid West, writes to inform his uncle, William Mann of Down Broadhempston in Devon, that his father, Samuel Gidley, has died, and adds details of life in the Mid West, which he obviously prefers to England:

“I will try to give you some account of this part of the country. I bought 160 acres of land here two years ago. I sold 80 again, one eighty being as much as I can farm. The land is good; all the timber on it is Oak or Hickory. Hickory is wild wall nut [walnut]. We live 3 and a half miles from the Mississippi River which is here almost a mile wide and we are 1650 miles above the mouth. Land can be bought in lots of 40 or 80 or of 160 or of 320 acres and so on upwards for five shillings and sixpence an acre of English money. The buyers can pick his lot where he chooses. This part is fruitfull in wheat, barley, oats, rye, potato, apples, and so forth and is one of the best countries in the world for Indian Corn. Some of our farmers this year have 70 bushels to the acre, but 50 is more general. We have neither King, Church nor Poor Tax to pay to. The poor are generally supported by their friends though there is a good law for their support. My whole Taxes do not amount to 15 shillings a year. To you the prices of the Produce of Farms will seem low, yet industrious farmers do well. Wheat is at present 4 and sixpence a bag, barley 3 shillings, potatoes 2 shillings. There is no Cider made here yet. This country has not been settled more than 12 or 13 years, yet the town of Muscatine contains 4 thousand inhabitants. It is on the opposite bank of the River in state of Iowa.”

The following year, 1851, William is writing home again, as the family back in Devon is being remiss in forwarding his mother’s marriage deed. This would entitle her to her late husband’s rents from three fields “known as part of late Endecottes at Wotton in the parish of Buckfastleigh”. She also requested an advance on a year’s rent from those same fields, although she thought it wouldn’t be a great deal “as it has been sacked out”. William Gidley, now recently married, is obviously still enamoured of his American way of life:

“I like this country and know that it is much better for an industrious person than England, very little taxes to pay, no tithe. The system of renting farms here is extremely favourable – the landowner provides horses, wagons or carts, ploughs, harrows, seeds of all kinds and in return he gets in the sheaf but gets nothing from cows nor stock cattle pigs nor sheep because they range through the wild land and receive nothing from the farm. The above is one rule, there is another, when the tenant finds utensils and horse and seed, the owner receives one third of the crop. In all cases the owner pays the land tax and is bound to keep the fences up and gets no benefit from the garden, dairy or poultry. Yet under these circumstances, money invested in farms pays good interest.”

The following year, 1852, William Gidley is now settling his mother’s affairs following her death, and writes home again to his Mann relatives in Devon. His address in Illinois is now Copper Creek. He instructs his cousin not to wait for any rise in the price of land, blaming “the free trade in corn” for depressing the price, but to sell his mother’s fields immediately “in order to have done with it” and to pay off the legacies to his brother and sisters.

The letters give a good picture of life in the newly settled Mid West of the United States, and certainly extended my knowledge of this particular family, mentioning several so far unknown members, such as another of William’s brothers, Samuel Gidley, again with no known baptismal entry, who was in 1842 apparently a coastguard in “Ballycollon, County Tyrone” (this place hasn’t been identified with any certainty yet). It seems there was yet another brother, Nicholas Gidley, whose baptism in England was also unrecorded, and the only reference I had to him was in the 1850 American census where he was a miller in Bath, Greene County, Ohio. According to William in one of the 1852 letters, “brother Nicholas made me a visit last March and liked the country so well that he has concluded to settle here. We are going to build a grist mill in partnership, we have bought the land and water right and are now getting the materials to commence building”. But later American censuses have no further trace of this Nicholas Gidley. Incidentally, in this letter William warns his English family that “It is known that I am expecting money in letters from England, and of the two last I had from you one was broken and the other torn so much that someone had tried to open and read it”.

The end of the story: was the emigration worth it?
By the 1860 census William Mann Gidley’s real estate in Drury, Rock island, Illinois, is valued at $1960 and his personal estate at $125; by the 1870 census this has risen to $3010, and $800 respectively.
So, yes, it probably was worth it. William Mann Gidley’s family was not amongst the poorest in Devon, as they were landowners in a small way, and the small injection of cash from the sale of his mother’s land at Endecotte’s may well have contributed to his successful life in the US.
William Mann Gidley died in 1886, by which time he had moved his family to Dodge, Guthrie County in Iowa. Although he had two sons, I can only find female descendants for him.

Many thanks to Bryan Flack for permission to publish the letters

Richard Hamlyn Gidley of New Zealand

2010-06-03T09:03:00.000-07:00

The death of Richard Hamlyn Gidley was reported as follows in the Ashburton [NZ] Guardian, 22 July 1913:
"Palmerston North July 21
Richard Howlin [sic] Gidley, 40 years of age from Devon, committed suicide at Pamerston North in a family hotel by shooting himself in the mouth with a revolver. Papers on the deceased indicated that he had recently arrived from Home. He had realised on some property there, but no money was found on the body. He had a wife and 2 children in England. No cause is assigned for the deed. Today at the inquest a verdict of "Suicide" was returned."
Richard Hamlyn Gidley was the eighth and last child of George Wills Gidley and Elizabeth Hamlyn. George was born in Chagford, but became a reasonably prosperous farmer in Whitchurch, Tavistock and Lamerton, Devon. He died in 1912, the previous year. Doubtless this was the meaning of the phrase "realised on some property there", as George's estate was valued at over £575. Richard had married in 1902 Alice Ann Hodge, a widow, who in 1901 was an innkeeper at the Cattle Market Inn in Tavistock. They had two daughters. In 1911 the family was living at Trebarwith, Glanville Road, Tavistock, where Richard, who had previously worked on his father's farm, was a farm bailiff.
Richard's will was proved in Palmerston North in September 1913. He was described as a labourer.
Alice Ann Gidley remained in Devon with her two daughters. She died in 1927 in the Exeter area, where her older daughter Kathleen also married. The younger daughter, Vera, I have not been able to trace after 1911.

The family of William and Ruth Gidley of Marylebone

2010-04-16T09:08:00.000-07:00

Whether William Gidley who married Ruth Ames was the foundling child or not (see previous posting), his death in 1842 left the family destitute, as papers in the London Metropolitan Archives show.
I have found five children of the marriage, although the only boy, George, the oldest, who was baptised in St John's, Lambeth, died 17 months later when the family had moved to Marylebone. The four girls, Mary Ann, Grace, Emma and Susannah, followed in quick succession, and were all baptised together on 13 June 1841 in Christ Church, Marylebone. Their mother Ruth described herself in 1841 as being a British subject born in Spain, but in 1851 her birthplace had changed to "North Walson, Norfolk". In 1841 William was a servant, living in Little Carlisle Street, Marylebone. When their daughter Emma married in 1862 she gave her father's occupation as "stockbroker's apprentice". Disaster struck on 18th July 1845 when William died of dropsy in the Middlesex Hospital, and only a month later Ruth Gidley found herself undergoing a settlement examination at the Police Court in Marylebone, on August 20th 1842. She had obviously approached the parish of St Marylebone for parish relief, and the Board of Guardians were keen to offload the family to another parish.
The examination ran as follows: "Ruth Gidley of Little Carlisle Street, aged 37 years, her daughters Mary Ann Gidley aged 5 years, Grace Gidley aged 4 years, Emma Gidley aged 3 years, and Susannah Gidley aged 2 years. That she married William Gidley in St Martin in the Fields 8 September 1833, and that he died on 18th July last. That in 1832, then a single man, he hired himself as a yearly servant to Mr Carrick of Southgate, Edmonton at yearly wages of £30, that he served one whole year, and boarded and slept in the house of the said master, and did no act since to acquire a subsequent settlement."
The judgement was that "Ruth Gidley and her four lawful children had intruded and have lately become chargeable to St Marylebone and that they should therefore be removed to Edmonton as their last legal settlement".
The parish of Edmonton felt themselves aggrieved about this offloading of responsibility, and it seems odd to us nowadays that the fate of a whole family should hang on the basis of one year's work by a dead person, which took place ten years previously, before his children were born, and even before his marriage. Presumably none of the surviving family had even been to Edmonton, where it was proposed to dump them. The parish of Edmonton gave notice of appeal and requested a hearing at the next Quarter Sessions in January, but failed to provide any evidence and made no enquiries. The clerk to the Board of Guardians of St Marylebone requested information from Edmonton by return of post, but that is where the file at the London Metropolitan Archives ends. Presumably the family was taken to Edmonton, where there would be no support network awaiting them.
By 1848 Ruth Gidley had returned to London where she married Robert Derrick Smith, a gas labourer. There the whole family was found in 1851, and her second husband had taken on the family. The three younger girls were still at school, and Mary Ann was a dressmaker. By 1861 Ruth was a monthly nurse, away from home about her duties; in 1871 she was now widowed for the second time. Of the girls, Mary Ann married in 1884 at the age of about 48, Grace in 1861 (after which she vanishes), and Emma in 1862 to the presumed father of her illegitimate child aged 2. The fate of Susanna (or Susan) is not known. I can find no reference to her after 1871, when she was a needlewoman, living with her mother in St Pancras. The oldest, Mary Ann, was in the St George's Hanover Square Workhouse in Mayfair by 1891, already widowed, and in 1901 was living in St Pancras, "kept by friends". She probably died in St Pancras in 1908.

William Gidley christened 1794 in the Foundling Hospital

2010-04-16T07:37:00.001-07:00

William Gidley appears in the IGI, christened in the Foundling Hospital Church, St Pancras on February 18th 1794. I've just spent a morning in the London Metropolitan Archives investigating him. It was an interesting search, although not strictly necessary to the One Name Study in the end, as what I didn't know was that all the foundlings' names were changed on baptism. William wasn't, strictly speaking, a Gidley at all.
From the Petitions Books for the relevant year, I discovered that the petitioner was his mother, Martha Hillyard. By the time he was admitted in February 1794, as child number 18168, he was 14 weeks old, and was immediately "sent to nurse". I didn't check the nursery books for exactly where he was sent, but Chertsey, Dorking, Harlow, and Odiham were all places where the foundlings were taken. Martha Hillyard's petition to the general Committee was a sad and familiar story. It ran as follows, "Martha Hillyard was delivered of a male child about 11 weeks ago, and was obliged to quit a very reputable family where she was a servant. By her indiscretion she has disobliged the few friends she had, and was left to herself. Expenses attending her lying-in and confinement have nearly caused her to expend the small sum of money she has saved in servitude and is therefore unable to provide for her child's sustenance, and she should be sorry and grieved to see it suffer on that account."
Martha left no token with the child, as a few mothers did - I saw a small piece of paper with a Latin motto and a symbol attached to one child's record, and another where a silver threepence had been attached. I tried to find out what happened to Martha after William had gone, but it wasn't easy. The IGI provided a possible Martha Hillyard or Hillierd, baptised in 1774 at St Michael, Crooked Lane in the City of London, but a likely marriage for a Martha Hillyard on the IGI turned out to be for another Martha Hillyard born, according to the 1851 census, in Sutton Courtenay, Berks. Either or neither of them could be the correct Martha. Ancestry's London burials' index didn't turn up a likely Martha Hillyard either, but deaths before 1813 haven't been indexed yet, and the London marriages' index came up with a Martha Hillyard, who didn't quite fit the bill, as she was a widow.
As for William Gidley - what happened to him? The Foundling Hospital apprenticeship registers record he was apprenticed on 10 December 1806 to John Mackenzie of Welwyn, Herts. to be instructed in the household business, though this was a standard phrase, and I haven't found yet what the Mackenzie business was. The William Gidley who died on 18 July 1842 in the Middlesex Hospital is of an age to be William the Foundling. (However, there was another William of similar age, baptised in 1793 in St James' Westminster to John and Elizabeth Gidley, and this could also be the William who died in 1842.) The occupation of the William who died in 1842 was a servant, therefore he was the same William who had married Ruth Ames and had 4 daughters (1841 census - Little Carlisle St, Marylebone, William, servant, born in Middlesex, aged 47). There are no other likely deaths that I can see, but if this was the same William the Foundling, then he seems to have left no descendants in the male line.
I also investigated the family of William and Ruth, and this will be my next posting.

2010-01-27T08:10:00.000-08:00

The Gidley Arms
Situated on the B3137 south of Meshaw, Devon, at Gidley Cross, is the old house once known as the Gidley Arms, now called Gidley House. The owner has been investigating its history, and has provided some interesting information on it:
"Between the years of 1826 (when it was built) and about 1960, it was a pub and known as the Gidley Arms Inn. I believe it was named by the owner, Robert Preston of Leigh House, Chumleigh, after his Gidley relatives. In his will he states that his great grandfather Gidley was buried at Winkleigh. He clearly thought a lot of the Gidley family as he used their name for this building. However he must have fallen out with them later, as in his will dated 1843 he attached a codicil in which he cut all Gidley relatives out of his will as follows: “As I have been most unjustly deprived of the family pictures of the Gidleys, I recall and cancel the recommendations in favour of that family by way of advice not of trust…”.
The old pub sign, which was fixed above the door of the pub and is present in a photograph dated 1907 but not easily visible, has now long been destroyed."

Many thanks to the current owner of the house for the above information, and to Pete Gidley for the photograph.

James Gidley, jeweller of Plymouth, 1824 - 1910

2009-10-31T08:50:00.000-07:00

Having just returned from another visit to the Devon County Record Office, I'm pleased that a marriage entry I was checking for its additional notes proved so informative that I can now say that the family of James the jeweller of Plymouth, one of the small "orphan" trees, can be added with some certainty to the Gidley of Dean Prior tree.
Susanna Gidley married John Brand in Plymouth St Andrew on 6 January 1811. The extra notes in the parish register contain the information that John was a "mate of the Nile Transport no. 13", and also that Susanna was a spinster, and married with the consent of her mother Ann, a widow. A Robert Gidley also made his mark as a witness to the marriage. These names together made the link to the family of Nicholas Gidley, christened in Rattery in 1756, who married Anne Brownson in Buckfastleigh in 1790. They had three children, Susanna, Robert and Henry. Nicholas's burial is evidently that in Plymouth Charles in 1804. Robert is clearly placed in Plymouth, and therefore is highly likely to be the licensed victualler of Britonside and of the Black Bull in Exeter Street, and father of James Gidley, the jeweller, by his wife, Frances Elford. Robert died in 1842 and his age tallies closely enough with the Robert Gidley christened in Rattery in 1793, son of Nicholas and Anne.
Intriguingly, Robert's executor was Bartholomew Gidley, the surgeon of Plymouth, and Gustavus Gidley was his solicitor - both from a completely different Gidley tree. Was Robert also intrigued by the co-incidence of the names? As far as I know, there was no link at all between the two main branches of Gidleys after about 1600, when the first Gidley is mentioned in Buckfastleigh.
There are no known descendants of this family in the male line, but one of James's daughters married Frederick Farthing, and is known to have many descendants. Unusually for the times, James and his wife Eliza seem to have eventually gone their separate ways, and Eliza travelled round the country as a cook for some decades.

Gidleys in the England and Wales Criminal Registers

2009-08-05T11:17:00.000-07:00

With the release by Ancestry of the Criminal Registers in HO26 and HO27 at The National Archives, I think I'd better revise slightly my statement in the Gidley Profile to the effect that the Gidleys were nearly all of good character.
25 references have been found to Gidleys, although 16 of those named were subsequently acquitted. Another was almost certainly a mistranscribed Gidlow. The years and counties covered are Middlesex 1791-1892, and the rest of England and Wales 1805-1892.
Those eventually found guilty were as follows:
1) John Kerswell Gidley (from the Buckfastleigh branch) was sentenced to 18 months for larceny in 1840. He was in Exeter Gaol in the 1841 census. In the Criminal Register he is described as being able to read and write well.
2) Samuel Gidley (of the Woodbury branch) was sentenced to 3 months at the Exeter Lent Assizes in 1820. Other sources inform us that it was for stealing a hind quarter of mutton. His wife Penelope Gidley had been acquitted of receiving stolen goods the previous year.
3) Edwin Bartholomew Gidley (the Winkleigh branch) was sentenced to 6 months for larceny in 1842. On release he must have immediately joined the Royal Navy, where he became a Gunnner First Class.
4) Thomas Gidley (possibly from the Dean Prior family) was sentenced to 4 months for larceny at Leeds Borough sessions in 1850.
5) John Gidley (the Cornwall branch) was sentenced to a week's imprisonment in 1851 at Bodmin General Quarter Sessions for larceny. This could well have been the John Gidley who almost immediately emigrated to Canada.
6) Nicholas Gidley (also of the Cornish family) who was found guilty of burglary at Bodmin Assizes in 1852 and sent to prison for one year. He was probably also sentenced in 1854 in Devon for one week, again for burglary.

The sentences seem to have had life-changing effects in some cases, witness the emigration and enlistment in the Services.
Even being found not guilty also seems to have led to long distance moves, even emigration in one case: Thomas Gidley of the Winkleigh branch found not guilty of housebreaking at the Old Bailey in 1833. Thomas Gidley of the Dean Prior branch possibly moved after his imprisonment from Bradford to Manchester. James Gidley (of the Winkleigh branch, who had moved with his widowed mother to Brighton) moved on to London after he was acquitted of larceny in 1869. Richard Gidley (of my Spreyton and Heavitree branch) was acquitted of sheep stealing in 1834 at Plymouth, presumably whilst living in Ipplepen, and moved on to Heavitree shortly afterwards.

There were two noticeable recidivists who seem to have managed to get away with it for the most part:
1) Joseph Gidley, a costermonger of Deptford, who was acquitted three times between 1837 and 1839 of larceny (twice) and of uttering counterfeit coin. A month after his first acquittal a local newspaper tells us that he was charged at Greenwich Petty Sessions with three others with assaulting several police constables from R Division, which all the defendants denied. All were fined either £5, or given 2 months imprisonment. Joseph, whose parents are still unknown, settled down after he became a family man.
2) William Gidley (of the Winkleigh branch) seems to have been incorrigible. I already had several references in the Exeter Police notebooks to him, including using obscene language, and riding a horse up and down Preston St, Exeter. He was fined 10/- for that. He was probably also the William Gidley acquitted three times for larceny between 1853 and 1867, and charged with aggravated assault in 1857. He was married twice, and his son by his first wife, James Gidley, emigrated to Australia.

Nearly all the offences involved larceny. When it was listed, most of the defendants could either not read or write at all, or only imperfectly. The most serious crime was that of John Gidley accused of assault with intent to ravish in 1873 at Exeter General Quarter Sessions, but he was acquitted.

William the Conqueror link?

2009-06-14T07:11:00.000-07:00

I had read the history of Gidleigh village and manor in the Middle Ages in Tony Grumley-Grennan's book, and taken note of the family trees on Ancestry of the Prouz family that start with Giles de Gidley, but not really taken much notice of them. Then Pete Gidley sent me a copy this week of an extract from “Devonshire Wills “ by Charles Worthy written in 1896, pages 394-399. I reproduce it here:

"GIDLEY OF GIDLEY AND HOLCOMBE PARAMORE.

This ancient family derives its name from the parish of Gidley, on the north-eastern escarpment of Dartmoor, which land was given by William the Conqueror to his half brother the Earl of Mortain, and held under him, in 1086, by a certain " Godwin," and in the Confessor's reign it had also belonged to " Godwin," described as the " Priest" Westcote, in his seventeenth century View of Devonshire, declares that he had seen a grant of this land, by " Martine," Earl of Cornwall, in favour of his " nephew, Giles de Gidleigh,'' the seal bearing the impress of a triple towered castle, and that the said grant was "exemplified, under the great seal of England, in the reign of Henry VIII."
The said " Giles de Gidleigh," to have been a " nephew " of the Earl of Mortain, whose brother Odo, Earl of Kent, and Bishop of Bayeux, had no issue, should have been a son of his sister Emma D'Abrincis, the mother of Hugh, Earl of Chester, and there is no record that she had such a son as "Giles." Robert of Mortain, Odo, and Emma were the children of Harlotta of Falaise by her marriage with Harlowen de Conteville. Their half-brother and sister, King William and Adeliza, were the offspring of an earlier, and less respectable, intimacy on the part of Harlotta, with Duke Robert of Normandy, and it is most probable that the several personages who have been handed down to us as " nephews " and " nieces " of the Conqueror, or of Mortain, such as "Albreda," wife of Baldwin de Brion of Okehampton, William " Warlewast," Bishop of Exeter, and this Giles de Gidleigh, were children of the king's whole sister, Adeliza de Falaise aforesaid, who was married thrice, and had issue by each marriage, inter a/us, Adeliza, Countess of Albemarle in her own right, 1081-1090 ; Stephen, who succeeded his half sister in that earldom ; and Judith, wife of Waltheof, Earl of Huntingdon. The daughter of Albreda of Okehampton was also called Adeliza, and doubtless so after her grandmother. It is certain that this Dartmoor property descended in the name of Gidleigh for some generations, and down to the middle of the fourteenth century, when the daughter and heir of Giles de Gidley married William, son of Waiter Prouz, by the daughter of the Lord Dinham. Her eldest son and heir succeeded to Gidleigh, and his only child, Alice, married, first, Sir Roger Moels, and, second, Sir John Damerell. The latter family inherited Gidley for several generations, until it passed by intermarriage with one of them to the Coades of Morvell, in the county of Cornwall. It was during their ownership that Gidley Castle probably fell to decay ; the remains of it appear to be of early fourteenth century date, and consist chiefly of the large square keep, the lower chamber of which is barrel vaulted, and has two newel staircases communicating with the upper portion of the building. The name of Gidley, however, appears to have been preserved by a younger branch of the family which settled at Winkleigh, the Devonshire seat of the Honour of Gloucester, upon a property called Holecombe, which had been held under those Earls by William de Portu Mortuo in the reign of Henry III., and was afterward corruptly known as Holcombe Paramore. Richard Gidley was buried at Winkleigh, 26th March, 1574."

Tony Grumley-Grennan is not convinced by the supposed grant of the manor of Gidleigh by Martin, Earl of Mortain to his nephew, Giles de Gidley. The language used in the grant is apparently not from early Norman times, but more likely to be legal language from the 13th and 14th century.
The Prouz family tree produced from Charles Worthy's account also differs in some respects from other Prouz trees I have seen. It is unlikely that it will ever be proved that the Gidleys of Winkleigh descend from William the Conqueror's mother. That there is a link with other Norman barons seems highly likely, however. Manors weren't granted to Saxons or peasants.
The supposed link between the Gidleys and the Coades family of Cornwall is worth investigating, and I shall be checking the Visitations of Cornwall on my next trip to the Society of Genealogists, and trying to contact some Coades family historians, to see if I can find out if the Gidleys of Holcombe Paramore really were a younger branch of the Coades family.

John Edward G Gidley born 1903

2009-06-07T07:03:00.000-07:00

I have recently obtained the birth certificate of John Edward G Gidley, born in Kennington, London, in November 1903. I had hoped this was going to solve the mystery of the parents of Edward George Gidley, of a similar age and district of London. But they are totally different people. The certificate did, however, solve the mystery of the two Gidleys I found in Dover in both the 1911 census and in death references.
John Edward Gidley born 14 November 1903 in Kennington was the son of Evelyn Louise Hatton Greenaway, a milliner. The certificate has been officially altered by the registrar to change baby John's surname from Greenaway to Gidley, when presumably John's father went to the Register Office to facilitate this. The father was John Edward Gidley, a joiner. I think this makes him part of the Gidleys of Winkleigh tree, and John Edward senior was born in 1859 in Mile End, London, the son of Gustavus Gidley of the Metropolitan Police. John Edward married Maria in 1879. They had five children, and Maria died in 1900. John married again, in 1901, to Eliza, and was presumably still married to her when he admitted the parentage of John Edward junior. In fact Eliza did not die until 1933, by which time John senior had married yet another woman, three years before he died in the Renfrew Road Workhouse in Southwark in 1926.
Evelyn (who was born in Kent) and John junior were found in Dover in the 1911 census, both using the name of Gidley. John died in 1932 in Dover, aged only 28. Evelyn had died in Dover in 1928 under the name of Gidley, and is described in the probate record as a widow.

Gidleys around the world

2009-04-19T08:49:00.001-07:00

In the Gidley Profile on the Guild of One Name Studies website I mention that there are now far more Gidleys in the USA then there are in the UK.
The Publicprofiler.org/worldnames website from University College London puts a different slant on this statement.
This website gives the frequency per million of a surname in the total population, and looked at this way Australia comes out top with a frequency of 14.37 per million. The UK is next with 9.88 FPM, the US 3rd with 5.6 FPM, New Zealand 4th with 3.53 FPM, and Canada last with 0.92 FPM.
Top regions are West Virginia with a frequency of 35.8 per million, Alabama with 34.48 FPM, the South West of the UK with 33.33 FPM, the Timaru district of New Zealand with 28.71 FPM, and Australian Capital Territory with 27.06 FPM.
Top cities in the UK are Exeter, Blackburn, Birmingham, Burnley and Manchester.

Death of Dr. John Lynn Gidley

2009-04-09T11:20:00.000-07:00

I report the sad passing of a distingushed petroleum engineer, as sent to me by his son, Neil Gidley. I print here the official obituary, which gives some idea of John Lynn Gidley's achievements. Perhaps more tellingly Neil says, "My brother and I didn't even realise the extent of his professional accomplishments until we came to write his obituary.... to us he was just "Pop"."

From the Houston Chronicle:
DR. JOHN LYNN GIDLEY, age 84, of Houston, passed away Monday morning, March 30, 2009. Dr. Gidley was born December 30, 1924 to Andrew Jackson Gidley and Alice Josephine Lytle in Lytle, Texas. John L Gidley graduated from Lytle High School as valedictorian (1942). After one year at Texas A&M College, he served two and one half years in the United States Army Air Corps, where he flew B-17s, B-24s, and B-29s. He received his BS Ch.E, MS Ch.E. and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas. Dr. Gidley joined Humble Oil & Refining Company December 10, 1954 as an engineer in the Production Research Division (subsequently Exxon Production Research). Dr. Gidley's work in Exxon's Subsurface Engineering Group helped generate new techniques for well stimulation. Over his 31-year career with Exxon, he was responsible for numerous professional publications and for eight patents. In 1969, he invented a sandstone acidizing process which, within the first three years of use, increased oil production at Exxon by more than 25,000 barrels per day. Dr. Gidley was proud that the patent royalties more than covered his salary and benefits during his last 17 years at Exxon. Upon retiring from Exxon in 1986, Dr. Gidley organized both a consulting firm and a joint research project on sandstone acidizing. This led to his discovery of six new patents on improved acidizing techniques, which are still in active use today. Dr. Gidley also taught as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University from 1992-1998. Dr. Gidley loved the classroom, working with graduate students, and found teaching immensely rewarding. In 1999, the UT named him a Distinguished Engineering Graduate. Dr. Gidley was active in the Society of Petroleum Engineers and co-authored the monograph on Acidizing Fundamentals. He was named a distinguished member of SPE in 1990, received the Society's John Franklin Carll Award in 1992 and its highest award, Honorary Membership in 2000. From 1969 to 1986, Dr. Gidley chaired the API Subcommittee on Well Completion Materials. Dr. Gidley was nominated and admitted to the National Academy of Engineering in 1994 for development of stimulation materials and techniques to increase oil and gas production. He was a member of the Chancellor's Council of the UT System and a life member of the Friends of Alec. Dr. Gidley was a devoted father and grandfather, sponsoring an annual family reunion known as Gidleyfest, at locations throughout the United States. He was active as a Cubmaster in Cub Scouts for Pack 280 at Holy Ghost Catholic Parish & School. A convert to the Roman Catholic faith, he served as a Lector at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Houston. Dr. Gidley was truly grateful for the education he received as a result of the GI Bill. Dr. Gidley supported many charitable causes and helped to endow new student scholarship funds at Spring Hill College, the Debate program at the University of Kansas, and the University of Texas School of Engineering. In addition to his enjoyment of teaching and his stressing the importance of education, Dr. Gidley had a lively sense of humor and was well-known for his warmth, for his humility, and for making people feel at ease. Dr. Gidley was preceded in death by his wife Betty Jane Boggus and infant son; his brother Jack Gidley; and his sisters Jane Kenagy and Betsy Shaw. He is survived by his wife Virginia Anne Platz, his children Michael Andrew Gidley, John Mark Gidley (Bridget), Carol Gidley Wright (Charlie), Dr. Paul William Gidley (Milvia), Brian David Gidley, Allyson Anne Morrison (Richard), and Neil P. Gidley (Maggie), and his sister Margaret Clover and brother William J. Gidley, and his grandchildren Danielle Gidley, George Franklin Gidley, Travis Gidley, Jessica Gidley, Jack Gidley, Edward Gidley, Elizabeth Gidley, Charlotte Gidley, Eliza and Dalton Wright, Gabriel Gidley, Haley Morrison, Austin Morrison, John Lytle Morrison, Julia Morrison, Lauren Morrison, and Colin Patrick Gidley. The family asks in lieu of flowers that donations be made in his memory to MD Anderson Cancer Center, the John and Virginia Gidley Endowed Scholarship in Chemical Engineering at the UT Engineering Dept., or the charity of your choice.

The Acali experiment 1973

2009-03-29T08:52:00.000-07:00

Mary Gidley, an American mother-of-two, took part in the strange "Acali experiment", devised by eminent anthropologist, Dr Santiago Genoves. Five men and six women of several different nationalities set sail on a raft from the Canary Isles heading for Mexico, as an experiment in social behaviour. It was especially noted that key positions on the raft were given to women (remember, this was the 1970s). Mary Gidley herself was the navigation expert, and the captain was a Swedish woman.

The official description of the experiment follows:
"Eleven adult volunteers - six females and five males - were left on a small raft in the Atlantic in order to study interpersonal relationships affected by family patterns of behavior, attitudes toward sex, race and racism, nationality, verbal and nonverbal communication, personality and character, intelligence, language, religion, leadership roles, and space. We hoped to gain a better understanding of friction and violence phenomena. The Acali experiment grew out of the more limited raft studies of Ra 1 and Ra 2.
Intelligence and personality of the 11 members of the Acali raft expedition of 1973 were assessed by crew members and by shore-based scientists. Predictions concerning the Likely outcome of this long period of unavoidable proximity to 10 other individuals were made by a variety of scientists. Media treatment and views of friends and relatives were also studied. Some of the basic findings of the study were that assessments of both intelligence and personality carried out by these two methods were very different. Practising artists showed better predictive powers concerning the outcome of the voyage than either natural or social scientists. Media treatment influenced the views of the relatives of volunteers. It is suggested that laboratory assessments may not be related to assessed performances under stress, and that further progress in understanding human hostility will depend on a better knowledge of individual interactions."

It is not known how Mary Gidley fared. She would now (2009) be in her 70s, and was evidently one of the more adventurous Gidleys.

Multiple Gidley births

2009-02-08T08:26:00.000-08:00

Raising twins was quite an achievement before about the beginning of the last century, and Gidley twins are rare before then. Martin Robert Gidley and Thomas May Gidley are, I think, the earliest pair I have spotted - they were born in 1909 in Dartford registration district. Daisy S Gidley and Eric A Gidley are a later pair, born 1919 in Birmingham. Since then there have been a few other pairs, but twins don't seem to run in Gidley families.
But.... were there triplet births in the June quarter of 1864 in Southampton registration district? The births of John, Mary Ann and Thomas Gidley were all registered in the same volume and on the same page. Sadly, they all died in that same quarter, and, again, their deaths were registered on the same page.
Much more happily, there is a set of Gidley triplets thriving in Texas. All girls, they were born in December 2007, and their mother is recording their progress on a blog, The Gidley Girls.

William Henry Clarke Gidley

2009-02-06T07:38:00.000-08:00

Mystery surrounds this particular Gidley, a mariner of some sort, and his various marital arrangements.
In 1849 William Henry Clarke Gidley, a bachelor, of full age, a sailor, married Elizabeth Hannaford, a minor. William gave his father's name as Christopher Gidley, although I believe this was more likely to have been his grandfather. Christopher's son William born in 1795, a fisherman, was married to Agnes Gilley, and this couple was more likely to have been William Henry Clarke's parents. They did have a son William baptised in 1826, and Christopher's mother's surname was Clark.
In 1851 there was no sign of William, presumably at sea, and his wife Elizabeth was visiting her parents.
In 1861 Elizabeth is in Liverpool, a widow with a daughter, Eveline (I believe this is a misreading by the enumerator for Caroline). Again there is no sign of William.
In 1871 William C Gidley is in Liverpool, married, mate of a ship, with a wife Jane aged 34 born in Hull. There is no sign of Elizabeth and there is no obvious death reference for her. Their two daughters, Caroline and Mary Elizabeth, are lodging in St Marychurch in Devon.
In 1874 there is a marriage for William Hy C [sic] Gidley to Mary Jane Harvey or Earl. William describes himself as a widower. This time he gives his father's name as William Gidley, a mariner.
This situation only lacks a death reference for the first wife, Elizabeth, if you set aside the description of Elizabeth as "widow" in 1861 (and the enumerator had probably already made a mistake with the name of the daughter, and possibly missed off the second daughter from the entry).
However, I was surprised to find in the Civil Registration Indexes 1845-1958 from Ireland (available on FamilySearch.org) yet another marriage reference for William Henry Clark [sic] Gidley, this time in 1864 in Belfast. He certainly wasn't trying to hide his identity when he used all his Christian names. Perhaps this wife died before his third marriage, although possibly he was one of those legendary sailors with a girl in every port. There is a tantalising death reference to a William Gidley who died in Newry RD in 1884 aged 20. Was this a son of the marriage?

And then there is the puzzle of who is the William Gidley who married Harriet Caroline Burgoin in 1846 in the Newton Abbot RD? They move to London, where this other William from Torquay was a carpenter. I had thought this was William, son of William and Agnes, but it seems as though this was William Henry Clark Gidley, who has enough wives to keep him occupied. A marriage certificate will have to be purchased.

STOP PRESS November 2009- a baptismal entry for William Henry Clarke Gidley in Tormoham (Torquay) in April 1828 gives us the information that he was in fact the base son of Harriet Gidley of Torquay. Christopher Gidley was therefore his grandfather, and William Gidley his uncle. One mystery solved, but not his tangled matrimonial arrangements.

A FURTHER UPDATE May 2011
The burial records of Toxteth Park Cemetery reveal that William Henry Clarke's matrimonial arrangements weren't quite as tangled as I once thought. The records show the following burial in 1868:
GIDLEY Mary Ann 31 years Wife 201 Beaufort Street 16 December 1868.
I believe this is the wife he married in Ireland in 1864. Their son William Robert was born in 1865, and lived until 1871. William Henry Clarke then married Mary Jane (or Jane) Harvey or Earl in 1874.
I still don't have a death reference for his first wife, nor do I know why she was described as a widow in the 1861 census.

1911 census preliminary findings

2008-12-31T07:19:00.000-08:00

I have had a preliminary look at the 1911 census, the beta test version of which was released for a week or so. I didn't purchase any vouchers to check full details, and only a few counties were available, but fortunately Devon was one of them. From the 484 Gidleys found so far, there are now extra people to add to most of the trees I have built up. A lot of the new names were of girls, so there have not been many families to follow through.

1) My own family: A daughter, Emily Bessie J Gidley, born 1908 and a son, James Albert Gidley, born in 1910 have been added to the family of Frederick James Gidley and his wife Lily of Exeter, making a total of 5 boys in the family. James Albert married in Wales, but I have not found any children. I have a newspaper article from about 20 years ago about this family in Exeter, which I shall post separately.

A son, Gerald Frederick Gidley, born 1910 in Devonport, was a surprise addition to the family of Frederick Samuel Gidley and his wife Elizabeth. Gerald's sister Dorothy was 15 years older than he was. Gerald married and had two daughters in Newton Abbot registration district.

There are two more children to add to those of Albert Samuel Gidley and his wife Annie Sophia in Birmingham. One was a daughter, Dorothy Lily Gidley born in 1902, and one was a son, Frederick Gidley, born in 1904. Frederick married in 1932 and had one daughter. He and his wife both died in the Penzance registration area.

Muriel Avis Gidley, born in the Totnes registration district in 1910, was the daughter of Frederick Martin Gidley and his wife Amy.

2) The Winkleigh (and Pedigree) family: another son for the children of William Osborn Gidley and his wife Etta, who later settled in Kingsbridge. This is William George Gidley born 1907 in the Okehampton registration district. I cannot find any marriage for him, but it looks as though he died in 1979 in the Plymouth area.

There are several girls to add to the tree, including two daughters of Sidney George Gidley and his wife Louisa Esther nee Chamberlain. There was no birth reference in England and Wales for the older daughter, Marjorie Dorothy Esther Gidley, so she may have been born in Scotland where both her parents were in 1901.

3) The South Devon family: Stanley George Gidley born 1908 in Greenwich registration district and his sister Olive Wilhelmina born in 1906 have been added to the family of Richard Abel Gidley and his wife Jane. Richard had died in 1910 and one daughter, Florence Irene, was in an "institution" in the Brentford area in the 1911 census, but I didn't check the details. Stanley George married in Lewisham in 1930, but I couldn't trace any family for him.

Another son for John Coulton Elliott Gidley and his wife Mary Adeline of Bristol. This was George Stuart Gidley born 1909, who married and had one daughter. There also seems to have been another daughter for John and Mary's family, Olive Gidley born about 1902, although I can't find a birth reference for her.

4) The "Plymouth James" family: William Henry Gidley and his wife Mary Esther had a son Arthur James Gidley born in Bristol in 1907. Nothing further is known about Arthur yet. There was also another daughter, Dorothy Winifred Gidley, born in 1905.

There are still some mysteries. Several children were found in households where there were no other Gidleys. A birth certificate may have to be obtained for Leslie Edward Gidley born in Greenwich in 1904, as in the 1911 census he is living in Surrey in the Kingston area, the only Gidley in the household. Ivy Whitmore Gidley born in Greenwich in 1895 could not be found in 1901, and in 1911 is also living in the Kingston area, again the only Gidley in the household.

There will be more to add to this 1911 thread as I continue to work my way through the entries, and as more counties are unrolled in the official release.

Visitors to the Gidley Profile page

2008-12-24T03:22:00.000-08:00

I have recently installed StatCounter on the Gidley Profile page at the GOONS website. This has provided a wonderful source of information about visitors to the page, including how they were referred there - usually via Google of course. But their search terms are interesting - "churchwardens of Stoke Damerel", "Chudleigh family name", "Mrs Gidley MP", "Gidley Harold German" are some of them, also those who seek the meaning of the Gidley name (and one person who was looking for the meaning of the name Gidlow).
You can also see where the visitors are based and in the few daysI've had StatCounter installed, they have been from all over England, and also from Perth in Western Australia, and Montana, Massachusetts, Washington, New Jersey, California, and New Hampshire in the USA.
I wish more researchers would get in touch, as I'm sure they could add to the family trees.

The Gidleys of Shoreditch

2008-12-14T08:57:00.000-08:00

More information has emerged on the Gidleys of Shoreditch, descended from Robert Pyne Gidley and his wife Ann Norton. Actually, nearly all the males of the family seem to have married an Ann, which makes life confusing. I know that there are several researchers interested in this family. Eight children have come to light so far, the first two being christened in Topsham, Devon. Then there was a move in about 1793 to Bermondsey, on the south bank of the Thames and a centre of the tanning industry, where Robert Pyne Gidley would have plied his trade as a cordwainer. A slight doubt exists over Fraser Gordon Gidley, christened in 1801 in Bermondsey, where his father's trade is given as "Excise, Dock Head". Caroline Snyeder Gidley was the seventh child, and I believe is the Caroline who married John James Brewer in 1826 in St Pancras. A mystery surrounds William Boyne (sometimes Bowen) Gidley, the fifth child, born in 1798. He married Ann Prosser in 1822, and Robert Gidley and Caroline Gidley were witnesses. This Ann seems to have been about 14 years older than her husband, and on the 1841 and 1851 censuses is possibly a female servant (1841) and living with a sister-in-law (1851). There is no sign of William Boyne/Bowen until a death reference in 1866.
At some point the family seems to have moved north of the Thames. The oldest child Robert, born in 1788, married Ann Knight in 1815 in St Anne's, Soho. His parents witnessed the marriage. No children have been found so far, nor any trace of this younger Robert and Ann couple.
Present Gidley representatives of the family descend from the eighth child, Bartholomew Gidley, who married Sarah Cox and whose children were all born in Shoreditch. He carried on the family trade as a cordwainer.
Robert Pyne Gidley died in 1846 and his wife Ann in 1847. Robert Pyne's address was given as 11 Cowper St, City Road, at his burial in Golden Lane Cemetery.

Gidleys in Marldon, Devon

2008-11-30T08:02:00.000-08:00

On my last visit to the Devon Record Office in May, I was surprised to find a hitherto unknown Gidley family - that of John, described as "of Marldon" in the register when he married Mary Gale in 1792 in Kingsteignton. I found 4 children in the Marldon PRs until they became too faint to read easily. Son Samuel could possibly be the one who joins the Navy/coastguard service and marries Amelia Kearley in Hampshire. One of the daughters of John and Mary was Tryphena Gidley, who married in Berry Pomeroy in 1825, but by 1851 was living in West Teignmouth, where her sister Jane married in 1833. West Teignmouth looks a fruitful area to investigate next time, in the hope of finding a burial and/or possible ages for John and Mary, the parents.
The south coast of Devon seems to have been much more attractive to Gidleys from mid-Devon. Very few are to be found in Barnstaple or Bideford, etc. but most families seem to have a representative somewhere on the south coast, with Torquay being particularly popular.

The Gidley family history blog

2008-11-16T08:05:00.000-08:00

Photo of Pte. James Henry Gidley of the Royal Devonshire Regiment who died of enteric fever in Standerton, Transvaal, in February 1901.

I hope this blog will become a way of communicating progress to all interested parties on the Gidley fact-finding mission of the One-Name Study begun in 2001. I hope too that it will persuade me to go about the research in a systematic fashion, though that rather does depend on the opportunities that present themselves.
My most recent research trip was to London where I visited the Guildhall Library and the Westminster City Archives at half-term. Both very different research centres, but I did discover some more details about Gidleys living in London. One more mystery though - I checked the marriage of Mary Ann Gidley to James Maber at Shoreditch St Leonard in 1844. Mary Ann gave her occupation as bootbinder, and her father's name as Henry Gidley, porter. I don't know who this Henry Gidley could be.
At home I am inputting the census data from the American censuses into Custodian. It rather linked in with the John Adams programme recently shown on Saturdays about the second President of the USA, which provided an interesting background, but it is taking so long that I shall probably take a break at 1880. Looking more carefully than before, a few so far unrecorded facts have surfaced:
William Isaac Gidley, son of Jasper Maudit Gidley of the Honiton branch, had children, including three sons who survived to at least the age of 15. Unfortunately they have disappeared from the family home before the 1850 census when all the family was named. There are several "unattached" Gidleys born in New York State who could fit the bill. There is Charles Gidley born abt 1830 who married Almira Sherlock, Daniel Gidley born abt. 1819, a broom maker who moved to Wisconsin, and Edwin Gidley born abt. 1822 who married Mary (Polly) Herriman, who must not be confused with another Edwin and Mary couple of about the same age, and where the latter Edwin became the Police Chief of Ann Arbor. Confusingly, they all lived in Michigan for a while. There is also Edward B Gidley born abt. 1823, though I find it difficult to believe that a family could have an Edwin and an Edward amongst the children. One must belong to another family.

Amongst the English branches, after 20 years of family history, I have found another first cousin for my father, of whom the family was completely unaware. My aunt remembered visiting a Violet Gidley and her family as a small child, who was a relation of some sort. This tied in with an address for a "Violet Cole (Gidley)" in my grandmother's address book, but I was never able to work out who they were. Then when going through all the Gidley marriages and allotting them to family trees, I eventually decided that there was only one James Henry Gidley who could have married at Crediton in 1898, and that was my great uncle who died very shortly afterwards in the Boer War. We have a photo (the one above) but no-one living knew he had married. Re-checking the 1901 census, his wife, who had married as Lucy Vanstone, was living with her mother in Crediton and was wrongly enumerated under her maiden name as Louisa Vanstone, with a daughter - Violet L Vanstone. At that point I remembered the birth reference to Violet Ladysmith Gidley - a bit of a clue that I'd not thought had anything to do with my family. Violet Ladysmith Gidley married Stanley Coles (with an extra "s"). The mystery was solved. Louisa Gidley remarried very shortly after hearing of Jim's death. Sadly, Violet died as recently as 1999. There do seem to be descendants still in Devon through her daughter Joyce Coldridge, and I should love them to get in touch.