The 1825 will of Richard Gidley of Westbury-on-Trym, Gloucestershire

I recently came across an index entry for this will, which is in Bristol Archives, and applied for a copy. Nothing of Bristol Archives material has been digitised on any family history websites, as far as I know, and Bristol is not a traditional home for Gidley families at that date, so I was intrigued.
And it is interesting, as it has added to my knowledge of the Gidley family from Whitestone in Devon. I transcribe it below. I have changed only a few initial capital letters to lower case and omitted only some illegible, apparently administrative-type phrases.
This is the last will and testament of me, Richard Gidley of the parish of Westbury-on-Trym in the county of Gloucester. I give and bequeath unto [a line inserted here which is difficult to read but seems to be administrative] Miss Sarah Wigley of the parish of Clifton in the county of Gloucester, spinster, the sum of seventy pounds [another small illegible insertion] and I give and bequeath unto my father Nathaniel Gidley senior and my mother Mary Gidley both of the parish of Saint Thomas Exeter in the county of Devon the sum of fifty five pounds to be equally shared between them share and share alike. And I give and bequeath unto my brother Nathaniel Gidley junior of the said parish of Saint Thomas Exeter all my cloathes [sic]. And I give and bequeath unto my younger brother George Gidley of the said parish of Saint Thomas Exeter my watch. And I hereby nominate constitute and appoint the said Sarah Wigley of the parish of Clifton aforesaid executrix of this my will hereby revoking all former will and wills by me heretofore made and declare this [illegible] to be my last will and testament In witness whereof I have to this my last will and testament [illegible] my hand and seal this twenty ninth day of March one thousand eight hundred and twenty five.
Signed sealed published and declared by the within testatrix as and for his last will and testament in the presence of us who at his request in his presence and in the presence of each other have hereunto subscribed our names as witnesses.
Henry Greenly 10 Portland Place, Clifton
James Corner No.[?4] Lower [?Berkeley] Place, Clifton

Also attached is a codicil, drawn up only a day later, on 30th March 1825, increasing Sarah Wigley's bequest to £100 "now being in the hands of Messrs. Daniel, Kiles, Harford, Reynolds, Prothero, Bright and Sanders as trustees to the Bristol Savings Bank....and that the said Sarah Wigley shall be at liberty to draw out the said sum of one hundred pounds and all interest which shall be due and owing...if it shall seem expedient to her to do so. To hold same unto the said Sarah Wigley for and during the term of her natural life to and for her own proper use and benefit."

Did Richard discover he had more money in his account than he thought?
And who was Sarah Wigley? Possibly his fiancee? He obviously had a lot of confidence in her and she was about to become a comparatively wealthy woman for those days. I can see no Sarah Wigley in the Gloucestershire Burial or Marriage Indexes between 1825 and 1841, and the only Sarah Wigley I can find in Gloucestershire in the 1841 census is the one living with William Jones and his family, a gardener, in St Catherine's Street, Gloucester. She was born about 1781 and her occupation is "private", which fits a private income. This Sarah Wigley seems to have died in 1847, and was buried on August 20th that year in St Mary de Lode, Gloucester, aged 74 (so born about 1773), of St. Catherine's. A fiancee seems unlikely when we consider Richard Gidley's age.
It is clear from the family details in the will that Richard Gidley was born in Whitestone, Devon, in 1792, the oldest child of Nathaniel Gidley (born 1764 in Cheriton Bishop, Devon) and his wife Mary Westcott. Between 1811 when their youngest child was born and 1825 when Richard's will was drawn up, they had moved to Exeter, about 4 miles east of Whitestone.
Richard's father did not live very long to enjoy his legacy, as he died only seven years later in Exeter. Richard's mother died in 1844. The older brother Nathaniel also outlived Richard for only a few years. He joined the 59th Regiment of the army and died in Bangalore in 1834, aged only 31. Were Richard's "cloathes" any use to him?
The younger brother George is a bit of a mystery. He was only 14 when Richard died and he inherited his brother's watch. In 1838 he married Mary Blackmore Bennett in Exeter and they had 2 children - Maria Patience born in 1838 and George in about 1844. There is no sign of George the elder after 1841. I can't find him in the censuses nor in the England & Wales death indexes. His wife and children were visiting or staying in other households in 1851, although Mary described herself as married. By 1861 she states she is a widow. Their daughter Maria Patience moved to London, where she married Charles Francis in 1856.
George's son George the younger, whose birth reference or christening in about 1844 I haven't found, married Jessie Chamberlain in Exeter in 1872. A coach painter, he described his father on the marriage certificate as George Gidley, deceased. They have descendants who have continued to live in Devon.
So was Sarah Wigley, who may have been about 20 years older than Richard Gidley, his nurse in his final illness? His housekeeper? And there's no clue as to what Richard did for a living. He was obviously earning a good income and had moved an unusual distance from his birthplace. One rather puzzling thing is that there is no mention of his sisters in his will. Only one, Grace Setter, was married in 1825. The others, Mary (untraceable), Elizabeth (Betty, later married James Payne), Sarah (Sally, later married William Darkes) and Maria were still unmarried. Perhaps they were intended to share their parents' £55 legacy.

Inherited albinism in the descendants of John Gidley and Elizabeth Facey

I have just received an interesting email from Ann in Australia, a descendant of the John Gidley and Elizabeth Facey who married in Chudleigh in 1819. They were both sojourners in that parish.
She has given me permission to post her email on the Gidley blog, in the hope that it may enlighten us on the origins of John Gidley. Ann writes:

"My great great grandmother was born Elizabeth Gidley at Bishopsteignton in 1832, the daughter of John Gidley and Elizabeth Facey.

The family migrated to South Australia in three separate family groups in about 1850, but many of them subsequently moved to the goldfields of Victoria and Queensland.

I'm sure you've already spotted my problem: her father's name was John Gidley. On the passenger lists to SA his age is given at 54, meaning he was born in 1795 or 96 (there was absolutely NO advantage to bumping one's age up when applying for assisted passage). This is at the younger end of the timeframe indicated by the 1841 census. He married at Chudleigh in 1819, but both he and his bride were described at sojourners in that parish, so they could have come from anywhere. However, I suspect that he was born in 1796 in Bovey Tracey, the son of John Gidley and Elizabeth Knapman, but how can one be sure?

In your "Three John Gidleys" blog you said it looked as though DNA testing might be the only way to sort this out, but I do have some information that might help without that, or at least in the interim. My branch of the Gidley family has two distinct (and distinctive) genetic disorders: My gg grandmother's left eye was turned inwards, as was that of at least one of her children and at least one of that daughter's children. Another of Elizabeth's children married his Gidley first cousin, and several of their children were albinos, with white skin, white hair, bright blue eyes and legally blind. Other members of the family also have, right up to current generations, the brightest, bluest eyes -- clearer, brighter blue than Paul Newman or Mel Gibson -- so I suspect that it the gene for albinism still making its presence felt in those cases.

Have you heard of either of these issues amongst other members of the greater Gidley clan? It seems to me that it might help to separate the different branches."

So, does anyone have any knowledge of other Gidleys with the same genetic disorder? I haven't come across any myself. I know the Gidleys of Winkleigh had an unknown inherited medical problem, which was prevalent at least in Victorian times, as it was mentioned in a letter from early family historian Bartholomew Gidley in an enquiry to a family member, but presumably this cannot be related to the albinism, as the Winkleigh haplogroup is completely different to that of John and Elizabeth's descendants. The Cornish and South Devon branches, however, are related, so does anyone know of fellow sufferers?

Gidley family trees uploaded to Family Search

I have just finished uploading 17 Gidley trees to the Genealogies section of the FamilySearch website FamilySearch. They are not the only trees I have but do comprise the most used ones, as they feature Gidleys found in the online censuses. I must stress that they are not the complete answer to finding a Gidley ancestor. I have many more details on individuals on the trees on my home computer, as FamilySearch will not accept (yet) any notes or sources when you upload. And I have made a lot of notes on individuals and used many different sources. Also all living individuals have been excluded on these FamilySearch trees. But the main trees are at least recorded for posterity, I can delete them if I wish to edit them, and all the relationships I've made between individuals are now saved.
The trees are all in a special section of FamilySearch made available to members of the Guild of One Name Studies, and are not in the main, rather haphazard, Pedigree Resource Files, where anyone can add to your tree if they feel inclined.
Go to the FamilySearch website, then Search - Genealogies (this is very important) - then type in the search boxes the details of the Gidley you are interested in e.g. Frederick Gidley born in Devon between 1860 and 1880. You will get a lot of results. Then (again very important) Refine Your Search (left-hand box with blue heading) by scrolling down some way to Filter your results by: Collection - the top box is Guild of One Name Studies, which you should check. And that's it. That will reduce all the Frederick Gidleys in the original list to just the ones I've uploaded. 
If you can't find the person you are looking for, or you find I've made a mistake, or the name of

a living person has somehow slipped through, or you want more details, let me know. I'm still happy to email Outline Descendant trees or Genealogy Reports. My main aim is to provide any Gidley researcher with as much correct information as possible.

Some military jottings

A soldier of  World War One

Some records at Fold3 (a subscription American site specialising in military records) have recently been made freely available for a short period, so I took advantage of them. Many are already in the public domain, but I had another look, and some interesting stories emerged.
I was shocked at how many Gidley recruits were only 5'3" or under. I knew the authorities themselves were taken aback by the poor condition of possible recruits, many of whom had to be rejected. Not all of the records made a note of the height of the recruit, and it certainly wasn't an exhaustive search, but in just a brief afternoon's searching I counted 10 Gidley men who were 5'3" or under. It was quite rare to be over 5'5" and I only noted one six footer - Gunner Samuel Gidley, formerly a woolcomber  from Buckfastleigh, who served in India and Afghanistan in the 1870s.
For those who are interested in the reasons for this poor physique, I found the following website very interesting: Short poppies.
William Gidley of Tywardreath in Cornwall, aged 18, was rejected as unfit from the start, on account of flat feet and defective vision. He had to leave the Royal Artillery after 2 days in 1891.
Thomas Gidley of Peckham, South London, was discharged in 1879 after four year's service in the 13th Hussars that included over 2 years in India. He was suffering from anaemia after being treated for gastritis in Lucknow.
William Gidley of East Stonehouse in Devon was "very much marked with smallpox" on enlistment in 1867.
John Gidley of Ardwick in Manchester, a railway porter, was missing the end of his middle finger of the right hand and had "poor physical development"when he attested in 1915. His eyesight was also found to be defective, but here the Army came up trumps and provided him with glasses.

Typical RFC uniform

Ernest Valentine Gidley, who was only 5'1", suffered gunshot wounds to his arm and wrist in the First World War and was discharged in 1919 with 30% incapacity. He was awarded the Silver War Badge.
Stanley Charles Gidley, who served in the RFC, later renamed the RAF, seems to have been gassed no fewer than three times in 1918- on 22 May, 24 May and 27 May, but wasn't transferred to the RAF Reserve until December 1919.
Henry Gidley of Greenwich already had false teeth at the age of 19 when he joined the Royal Regiment of Artillery in 1901.
Horace Gidley from Clyst St George was found unfit for further service in 1891 after five years service in the Coldstream Guards. He had rheumatism in his hands and knee and was still only 23, according to his service record.
The body of Reginald Gidley, a career Royal Navy stoker, from Drewsteignton, was found floating in the harbour at Kobe, Japan, in May 1934, over 2 weeks after he was last seen. The Japanese police recovered the body and the authorities attributed his death to an accident. Incidentally, he is commemorated in  the churchyard at Drewsteignton.

Sailors of World War One

Ernest Gidley of Buckfastleigh, who was later lost on HMS Pheasant in 1917, had hernia and appendix scars on joining the Royal Navy in 1904.
I also looked at the UK Courts Martial registers. I don't propose to name any of the 8 men listed, and I haven't even worked out who they were, nor will I attach the records to their family tree. If they served in the First World War I should imagine that was enough to send many men off the straight and narrow. Their offences were pretty minor. I was pleased to see that the Gidley accused of stealing a comrade's money and striking a corporal was found not guilty. Violence to a Sergeant and insubordinate language resulted in one year's detention and stoppages for another Gidley. Desertion and going AWOL, or loss of equipment, led to reduction to the ranks or perhaps 6-8 months of detention and stoppages, which was occasionally remitted by half, were other offences. It wasn't always clear what the offence was - S40 was listed on one man's record and googling didn't help (he was found not guilty anyway).
These brief accounts are by no means a full account of the military service of the Gidleys. Many more served and many were left permanently incapacitated after their service. This was not always noted on their record, even if it survived. Some, like my grandfather who was lame after a badly set broken leg, were rejected immediately by a Medical Board before even getting as far as a military depot.

Sad news of Pamela Gidley, actress

I have just been forwarded Pamela's obituary, which I reproduce here from the Seacoastonline website. Pamela was interested in her family history and contacted me a few years ago. I was able to tell her that she was descended from the Gidleys of Dean Prior. Her great grandfather Samuel Gidley, a woolcomber, moved from south Devon in the 1890s to work in the textile mills in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
As far as I know, Pamela was our only film star and she has died far too young.

Pamela C. Gidley, 52, died peacefully in her home, on Monday, April 16, 2018 in Seabrook.
Born in Methuen, Mass on June 11, 1965, she was the daughter of Phyllis M. Gidley of Hampton and the late Albert E. Gidley of Salem.
She grew up in Salem, N.H. and attended St. Joseph's Elementary School and Presentation of Mary Academy in Methuen, Mass.
At the age of three she was in her first dance recital and after that there was no stopping her. At four years old she won "New England's Little Miss Lovely." She came in 12th in their national competition in Florida. She modeled for Jordan Marsh at age 6. At 15 years old she was on her first of many magazine covers for Seventeen Magazine. Pamela competed in and won many beauty competitions including the Wilhelmina Modeling Agency "Most Beautiful Girl in the World."
Pam pursued an acting and modeling career in New York City, eventually moving to Los Angeles, California, spending most of her adulthood there. Her acting career included parts in many movies including Thrashin', Twin Peaks, Fire Walk with Me and Cherry 2000. Also, she appeared in episodes of MacGyver, The Pretender, Tour of Duty, CSI and The Closer.

William of Spreyton's possible link to the Ussery family

View Between the Quay Gate and West Gate Outside the City Walls, Exeter by Francis Towne

As detailed in the previous post, DNA testing proves there is a link with the Ussery/Usery/Usry family. This is an even more unusual surname than Gidley. There is a distinct dearth of records found for any of the name variations in the Devon parish registers. Only one looks of any use to us - that of William Ussery, born on Aug 16, 1740 and baptised on Sep 21, the same year, in Dawlish, the parents being William and Sarah Ussery. There is no later trace of this family or the Ussery name in Devon. There is no record of the marriage of William and Sarah in Devon. Dawlish is on the coast, so was William Ussery born in 1740 the son of a sailor from another county or country?
Cindy H Casey has an Ussery family history website http://www.cindyhcasey.com where she lists several theories about the origin of the name. The fact that there are no records for it in Devon after the mid 18th century is interesting. The Ussery family were very early and prolific settlers in the southern United States, right back to the 17th century. There are no records for any of the variant spellings in civil registration in England or Wales (i.e. from 1837 onwards) until the mid 20th century. If William's father was descended from an Ussery, then it is also possible he may have been a descendant of an illegitimate Ussery line which carried the mother's surname.
To return to our William of Spreyton who married Wilmot Reeve in 1795. It is beginning to look as though our William was a Gidley descendant in the female and not the male line. When there are more DNA tests done, this may be clearer. But who could have been his mother?
Spreyton is nearer the Gidley base of the Winkleigh line than it is to those from parishes further south in Devon. So I looked there first. There were indeed Gidleys in Spreyton in the 18th century, descended from a brother of the famous Bartholomew Gidley, Charles II's supporter. If we assume that our William is the one in the Topsham burial registers in 1853, aged 87, of Countess Wear where he was a lodger in the 1851 census, stating his place of birth as "Sprayton" he was born in about 1766. There were, however, no female Gidleys in Spreyton of an age to have a child in about 1766. Except for one possibility. There is an entry in the South Tawton parish registers (the parish was close to Spreyton) for a William Gidley, son of Mary Gidley, in 1776, where the vicar has added an unusual note "son of Mary Gidley, his father having been transported"  The date of William's birth is given as 8th May 1773. Rather far out for our William, if we believe the census and burial dates. But I've never found a burial for this William. The date of birth is a huge stumbling block, though.
The documented Poor Law removal of John and Mary Gidley "with their three children, Samuel, Mary and Joanna, all under the age of 10" from South Tawton to Spreyton, where John Gidley was born and where his place of settlement would legally be, took place in 1772. Their son William was obviously not yet born, or he would have been mentioned in the Removal Order. And DNA evidence has already shown that our William could not have been John Gidley's child. The Winkleigh Gidleys are a completely different haplogroup.
One of the minor mysteries of the Spreyton tree was what happened to the older daughters of William and Wilmot Gidley. Their names were Sally, Ann, Mary and Elizabeth and were christened in Spreyton between 1795 and 1806. The youngest daughter Frances, born in 1810, is well documented. She moved to Heavitree, just outside Exeter, as two of her brothers did, and died there in 1858. Of Sally, the oldest, there is no reference after her christening. I think she may have died as an infant. The other three daughters survived to be apprenticed by the parish at the age of about 9 to local farmers in Spreyton. This was common practice to avoid a poverty stricken family becoming a burden on the ratepayers of the parish. I have recently discovered Ann, who moved well away from Devon after her apprenticeship, and married Thomas Linney in 1828 in Southampton. They had no children. Elizabeth I still cannot trace.
Going systematically through the Gidley burials in the Devon registers on FindMyPast I came across two burials I hadn't noticed before. They were both for a Mary Gidley, both in the parish of Holy Trinity, Exeter, and both lived at Quay Gate. The younger was buried in 1820 aged 21, and the older in 1823 aged 88. This made their dates of birth 1799 and 1735 respectively. It seems reasonable to suppose they were related. I haven't come across that address before in the Gidley database. The most likely relationship seems to be a granddaughter living with a grandmother. Looking at the baptisms in about 1799 with a grandmother called Mary, the only likely candidate seemed to be Mary Gidley of Spreyton, christened in 1800, William and Wilmot's third daughter.
Is it significant that William was found in the 1841 census at Countess Wear about 2 miles further down the Exeter Canal from the Quay? Could Mary's grandmother be Mary Gidley, the wife of John? The age tallied almost exactly, as Mary Blanchford who married John Gidley was christened in May 1736 in Bow, Devon, another nearby parish to Spreyton. I had originally assigned Mary a burial in Chudleigh in 1816. Her daughter Joanna Gidley was living in Chudleigh in the 1841 census and died there in 1846, and I thought it possible Mary had gone to join her, perhaps in her old age. But I had double booked that burial. It is more likely it is of Mary Gidley, nee Cassell, of a similar age, whose husband George had already been buried in Chudleigh in 1808.
There are some major problems:

• Our William couldn't have been John's child. 
• What happened to William Gidley born on May 8, 1773? He survived infancy to be christened in South Tawton in 1776.
• His age isn't correct for our William Gidley born about 1767. 
• Mary Gidley who died in 1820 in Exeter probably wasn't aged 21 if she was William and Wilmot's daughter, but 20. 
• Why were William and Wilmot living apart from at least 1841 until their deaths? 
• Which other female Gidleys were of an age and in a likely location to produce a child who was born in Spreyton in about 1767? See April 30 update below.
• Who was the Ussery descendant who was the male progenitor of William Gidley?

There are many unanswered questions, and nothing ties up neatly. But DNA has at least eliminated some possibilities.
April 30 update: I had forgotten a small tree descended from Bartholomew Gidley and Rebekah Smith. I have only traced their marriage, their burials and 4 children, but their son John christened in 1731 could be the progenitor of the Woodbury, Whitestone and Kent branch (John Gidley who was buried in Tedburn St Mary in 1789), or of the West Virginia Gidleys (John Gidley who was transported to Virginia in 1769).
Bartholomew married Rebekah in Cheriton Bishop in 1730. They seem to have moved to Tedburn St Mary by 1735 where the two younger daughters were christened. Bartholomew and Rebekah were both buried there, in 1756 and 1760 respectively.Their oldest daughter was Mary Gidley, christened in 1733, so of an age to be the surmised grandmother of Mary Gidley, a daughter of William and Wilmot. I have found no likely marriages for any of the daughters.

Gidley DNA news April 2018

Gidley haplogroups at April 2018

Thanks to two more Gidleys doing the Y-DNA test with the FamilyTreeDNA company, we now know more about the Gidley lineage. Unfortunately, the highly popular Ancestry Family Finder DNA test is of no use for surname research. It will only find you cousins within about 5 generations back, on both maternal and paternal sides of the family. So we do have to use FamilyTreeDNA, who are the major company supplying the Y-DNA test. All who have tested have gone for at least 37 markers, considered to be the lowest number of use for genealogists.
The following interpretation of the Y-DNA tests includes a lot of percentages. I've used FamilyTreeDNA's TiP reports. TiP stands for Time Predictor and makes more sense to me than most of the explanations I've tried to get to grips with. But please bear in mind that these percentages are only probabilities. And I gather different mutation rates could make a difference too. So care is needed.
Eric Gidley, whose furthest known ancestor is the John Gidley of Chudleigh in Devon who was born about 1799, has taken a Y-DNA test; as did James Gidley, whose earliest known ancestor is Archilaus Gidley born about 1636 in Buckfastleigh in Devon.
Their results were almost an exact match. There was one marker's difference, which means that (and I am quoting from FamilyTreeDNA's website), presuming that there is no known common ancestor within the last 4 generations (which we know from the paper records) "the probability that James and Eric shared a common ancestor within the last 4 generations is 24.27%, within the last 8 generations is 79.03%, within the last 12 generations is 94.98%, and within the last 16 generations is 98.88%."
And not only that. James and Eric also matched Bryan Gidley's results. Bryan's ancestors are from Cornwall, with his last known ancestor being Leonard Gidley born about 1710 in that county. The matches are not quite so close, but with one extra marker's mismatch. That brings the percentages down slightly for each generation, but not by much. The possibility of Bryan having a common ancestor with both Eric and James is 79.03% within 8 generations and 94.98% within 12 generations.
The other two Gidley males who have tested for Y-DNA are from my own branch, namely William Gidley who married Wilmot Gidley in Spreyton in 1795, and Pete Gidley from the Winkleigh branch. There the mismatches are much larger, particularly with Pete's results. Indeed, he is a completely different haplogroup from the other Gidleys who have tested so far, and even at a vast distance of 24 generations there is only an infinitesimal chance of his sharing an ancestor with James, Eric, Bryan and myself - at 0.09%.
With my own branch, I am pretty sure there is no link within 10 generations to James (and by extension to Eric and Bryan). That brings the chances of sharing an ancestor at 12 generations to 8.07% and at 16 generations still to only 27.25%. I have, however, been contacted by the only close matches to my cousin John, whose DNA was tested (a reminder that it does have to be males for the Y-DNA test), and their surname is always the same - Usry, Usery or Ussery. So I've done the TiP test between my cousin John Gidley and the closest Ussery match. I know there is no match within 5 generations so that brings the probability of a shared ancestor within 8 generations to 71.95%. It's not terribly high. In the next blog post I'm going to discuss some possibilities relating just to my own branch. There are some interesting points about the surname Ussery (and variations) which are probably only of interest to us.
Meanwhile at the moment it looks increasingly likely that William Gidley, my last known ancestor, could have been an illegitimate son of a Gidley female in Spreyton and a male descended from an Ussery ancestor.
I should love more male Gidleys to come forward for testing. The tests are available at a special price of £80 from the Guild of One Name Studies, which is a huge saving on the usual cost, and I am prepared to pay half. I am particularly interested to hear from you, if you would like to join the Gidley DNA Project which is jointly run by both Bryan Gidley and myself, and if you think you are descended in an unbroken male line from:

1. the Massachusetts Gidleys (who were in Massachusetts by 1662).
2. the Gidleys of West Virginia (descended from John Gidley transported in 1769).
3. William Gidley of Bovey Tracey born about 1805.
4. John Gidley who married Grace Rouden in Cheriton Bishop in 1745, and whose descendants were in Whitestone, Woodbury and Kent.
5. Bartholomew Gidley of Shoreditch born in 1806 (although the name Bartholomew puts them almost certainly on the Winkleigh tree).

Contact me via the Gidley profile on the Guild of One Name Studies website, if you aren't sure where you fit in on a family tree. Many thanks to all those Gidleys who have tested so far.