Are you sitting comfortably? These are your new aunties from Somerset, 1856.

In 1992, the retired bursar of Wells Cathedral School read out the will of Priscilla Creed (1856) to me down the phone. I was in for some shocks. The bell tolled for Priscilla at Pilton church and after the actuary had calculated how many years her children might live for, and paid off the Tasmanian son, we get down to business:

There were six daughters and their names were spellbinding: Ann Tabor widow, Mary wife of Thomas Dauncey, Elizabeth wife of William Creed, Sarah wife of Edward Indoe, Priscilla, Jane wife of James Chappell.

Tabor, Dauncey, Indoe, Chappell.  And these were close relatives. My great-grandpa would be Elizabeth's grandson: it looked like there was no getting away from that. I was a bit puzzled that Elizabeth was a Creed who married a Creed, but I needed to get over it, and fast. There were all these aunties to explore...

By the good offices of Aubrey Brown, founding member of Somerset & Dorset Family History Society, I received in the mail, print-outs of the 1881 census entries for Ann Tabor's sons. Through the probate indexes I could easily find the Tabors still living and farming in Somerset. (Though not for long: when I visited them unannounced in 1994 they were sadly just selling their dairy farm.) I even saw the portrait of 'battle-axe' daughter Mary Ann while carousing through Somerset in my motor car in winter 1994.

Mary Dauncey, Sarah Indoe and Priscilla would have to wait a bit, and there was no rush. Each of them had just one or two children whom nobody could quite recall: just being outside of living memory.

But the youngest auntie, Jane Chappell is still unresolved right now in 2025. Born in 1830, she was just two when her brother chose to sail for Tasmania, she lived to see her grandson die in World War One, and was a widow nearly 58 years. I was sat in the library in Winchester in 1996 when her death date flashed up on the screen. Exactly 100 years ago in 1925. She was 95, and had survived into the modern epoch.

I had caught a glimpse of her in the old reels of census at the basement record office of Chancery Lane, aged 40 a widow with many of her brood, residing with the Indoes. She had many twists and turns yet, another fifty years of finding a home for herself, outliving almost everyone.

In 2018 I walked from Castle Cary to the little hamlet of Henley, with its own chapel, under Turn Hill, High Ham. I was able to meet a relative but not to solve the real quest: to find a photo of Jane Chappell (1830-1925). I think it will eventually turn up, but who knows where? On my walk I thought I saw the old schoolhouse where her grandchildren would have been taught the three Rs.

I also recently discovered that one of these grandchildren Albert Wilkins (1895-1986), farm worker, was interviewed age 87. But when the Heritage Lottery Fund came knocking in 2005, his voice did not make the online pages. (He was in disk format, so perhaps could not easily be converted to MP3.) The bursar's brother DOES make an appearance in these pages - now at Somerset Voices.

Priscilla perhaps has the last laugh. Most of her descendants are from her great-granddaughter Gladys (1911) who worked at Langport Glove Factory and married Ebbie Cook. They have a large family in the Seend area. They are never going to outnumber Jane's massive descendants (who have conquered Walthamstow, Havant, Decatur Illinois, Evercreech, Wells...) but Seend is one area that Priscilla's line have claimed for their own. And Jane's cannot get a foothold. It is not too far away, so hopefully I can get to the Barge Inn on the canal there one day and see if there's any cousins to say hello to.