The family of Master Mariner John COLLEY suffered many changes a few days ago but is, I think, in good order again on the Shared Tree. Jane STUTTER is John’s wife for now but I’m seeking the information that will either re-instate Jane LUNDY or give him yet another life partner.

You may recall that John and Jane’s grandson, John William, married a Jane Lundy too. Their daughter Eleanor Ferguson COLLEY married William Colling JENKINSON, licensee of The Star. Filey Genealogy & Connections gives them just one child, a daughter they named Alice Lundy. Alice married Thomas Moore Renney LISTER at St Oswald’s in 1947. She died just over three years ago, aged 92.

Over the last couple of days I have been gathering descendants of John and Uncertain Jane, connecting the Lister and GLEDHILL families. I went to primary school with a Gledhill, Derek if I recall, and my interest in the family was thereby raised a notch. The name rang a bell for another reason. A red marble cross in the churchyard remembers several of them.

Alice Lundy’s mother in law, Lilian Moore Gledhill had four sister and three brothers. The eldest sibling, Florence Moore, was born in Dewsbury but died in Filey aged nine. All the others thrived and married, some of them twice, but FG&C records only two children from the partnerships.

All the children born to Thomas Moore Gledhill and Mary SQUIRES were given the middle name Moore at birth and mother Mary has it in at least one census . The Listers were also profligate with “Renney” and this has occasioned double-barrelling on the Shared Tree and other resources for both families. This might be taken as an indication of elevated status but it doesn’t appear to be supported by the occupations of the 19th and 20th century breadwinners. But wait…

The recent Gledhills and Listers on the Shared Tree were limited in number but I noticed a connection could be made to an earlier generation – and created thereby a portal to a super pedigree. I began the day wondering if my schoolchum Derek was connected to the Filey clan and discovered that I was related to them.

I hasten to add that I had a bunch of common ancestors with the Moore Gledhills for only a few weeks, before the door to my portal was closed and locked a couple of years ago.

The Gledhill pedigree populated quickly and a dozen or so generations back I began to see familiar names. When I reached Eleanor of Aquitaine, I knew.  One 23rd great grandfather of Florence, Ivy and Olive Moore Gledhill is King Henry I of England. Obviously it doesn’t begin or end there.

I don’t actually know where it ends for the Gledhills. I haven’t followed all the branches yet – when I got to Loki, “God of Fire”, I had to take a break.

Super pedigrees are very entertaining, whether you believe in them or not. If you want to take a trip, start with Thomas Moore, born 7 June 1860 in Birstall, West Riding. (Follow the Nelsons.)

Mark of Man 46 · Filey Sands

Locked out of libraries, I have dusted off a hefty tome from my own shelves. Richard Stone’s Some British Empiricists in the Social Sciences 1650 – 1900 is not as dull as it may sound.

Eleven men of numbers, and one female statistician better known for giving her name recently to Covid hospitals, are considered. First up is William PETTY. He must have visited earth before because he hit the ground running. ‘The story of his boyhood and early manhood reads like a picaresque novel.”

In Oxford at the age of 26, he took the degree of doctor of physic, was made a fellow of Brasenose College and deputy to the Professor of Anatomy, succeeding to the professorship at the beginning of 1650.

You can find a more detailed account of Anne Green’s resurrection at Ancient Origins.

A strange event occurred at the end of 1650. A certain Anne Green was hanged at Oxford for the murder of her illegitimate child. She seemed to take a long time in dying but was eventually certified dead. The body was put in a coffin and taken to the dissecting room. At this point Petty and his colleague Dr. Thomas Willis appeared on the scene and, recognising signs of life, attempted successfully to revive the supposed corpse. She lived, it is said, to marry and become the mother of other children. This episode added considerably to Petty’s reputation.

Richard Stone

Anne surely deserves a place on the FamilySearch Tree but I couldn’t find her there. One would expect William to be represented but it is a surprise that there are no sources attached to his record. Richard Stone says his father was Antony Petty, a cloth maker and dyer, and his mother Francesca (surname unknown).

This source on FamilySearch is well-timed for William’s birth on 26 May 1623 but the village of Hambledon is over twenty miles from his Romsey birthplace. There is a  Hampshire source dated 8 June 1618 for the marriage of Anthony Petty and “Denby” but no records that I could find for a Francesca Denby.

William was in his mid-forties when he married ‘a very beautiful and ingenious lady, brown, with glorious eyes’ (John Aubrey). She was ‘an extraordinary wit as well as a beauty’ (John Evelyn). They had three surviving children. Two sons died without issue and William’s “strain continued” through daughter Anne, via sundry earls and marquesses to ‘Supermac’ – Harold Macmillan, British Prime Minister when I was a lad.

As an epidemiologist, I wonder what William would think about the misinformation about SARS-CoV-2 being dumped on us all.

UK Column spreading the the truth.

Goebbels would be so proud of the media today.

Dr Pam Popper

Path 93 · Arndale