Family Trees

TV programmes such as 'Who Do You Think You Are' have created massive interest in tracing our family roots. Everyone, it seems, is now an amateur geaneologist intent on discovering if the family legends of being connected to someone weakthy or famous were indeed correct. More often then not, of course, such researches turn up the fact that the only famous member of the fanily was only famous witin his own village for being the local ratcatcher and the only wealthy one aquired his wealth by stealing sheep.

In our own village research might well prove that some of our best known families have no logstanding connection with the village at all. or if they do, certainly originated somewhere else entirely. Taking a few names at random, Gooding and Stradling are Flemish in origin, the latter coming via Wales. Davies, French and Hutchings are all Welsh in origin and probably date to the days when the welsh 'navvies' built the Exe Valley Railway or when Welsh miners came to work on the land when there were lay offs and strikes at home Selley, or Zelley, the family spelt it both ways at various times is cornish and the Dymonds in there original form, De Mont, were part of that noyorious band of 17th century asylum seekers, the freench htugonauts. When you start excavating the past things are rarely what you might expect.