The Adley Family History Project
By Lee Adley Stevens
Circular letter
Dear Sir / Madam
I am writing to ask you if you can offer me a little assistance on a project I have been working on for many years. For some time now I have been endeavouring to compile a family tree on all branches of the Adley / Addley with variations on those spellings into one large family tree.
Whilst I have an almost complete list of all Addley’s and Adley’s born, married, deceased or buried for the past two hundred years plus. My hardest task seems to be linking together this list of names by actual families. Whilst I have been able to collate a large book full of small trees of individual families there are some missing links; thus me writing to you.
I first became interested in the subject when a very good friend of mine, Mr William Hickmott told me he was researching his family tree. I was already a where that somebody had researched the Adley/Addley tree to some level. My mother told me a story about a man calling at my parent’s house back in 1970's, asking about my mother’s maiden name Adley / Addley history. He later went and saw my late Grandfather also. This callers name was Mr Derek Adley. I was only 12 years old at this time.
After a few years researching the name myself I started coming across Derek Adley’s work that he and his very good friend, a Mr William Loffs, had researched themselves. This varied from small trees they had worked on, letters, general correspondence and some generic indexes.
I have discovered for some reason that between the dates 1750 to 1850 numerous families began to spell their names with two D’s and one D. This was more than likely due to the church warden being partially educated and spelling things how he thought they sounded.
I have had an outstanding amount of help and correspondence from hundreds of people from all over the UK and abroad. Returning me questionnaires etc, thus enabling me to build a master tree which, to date, dates back to 1650 at Hoath nr Canterbury Kent.
I also have an ongoing mammoth project, working to index all Adley with variations on the spelling Baptisms / Marriages / Burials; from all Kent parish church records, taken from within the Canterbury Cathedral archives. This dates from [1600 to mid 1960+] already; there is much work to do here.
My own collection of indexes also extends to a huge index of ALL Births Marriages Deaths of all Adley with variations on the spelling culled from the old St Catharine’s house London. It runs from 1837 to 1998, I also have a very large collection of wills culled from Summerset house.
The MASTER Adley tree has around 3000+ Adley individuals encapsulated on it to date, 90% of which are from Kent. This document I have named the MASTER tree is 99.9% pure researched data, thus as accurate as it could possibly be.
My work to date is over 20 years in the making and is profoundly accurate all research has been undertaken by hand and NO third parties involved IE web sites and never word of mouth.
So many people find family bibles with hand written trees in the front cover and take this to be the gospel, as well as hand me down stories. Sadly these are all totally irrelevant as the truth and real facts can ONLY be attained from the original documentation.
However sadly I made a huge mistake and some years ago aloud a large amount of my data out of my control, thus it has spread to web sites alike and been altered incorrectly in other family trees, these tree’s are uncontrolled copies of the MASTER tree.
However, it would seem that after some correspondence way back in 1996, the Adley tree with variations on the spelling has been researched back to around 1450 in England. This quite amazing effort was undertaken by a couple of life long friends. Their astonishing amount of dedication to produce this document has done nothing more than to inspire me to the same level, thus to eventually produce my own version as their work has become a private document.
This work was undertaken by the late Mr. William Lofts 1922 to 1997 and his very good friend, Mr. Derek John Adley (1927 to 1991). Just before Derek died, their Master tree was fully completed after 30+ years, and left to Derek’s brother.
It would be a great shame if the original Master Adley tree was to end up being lost in the passages of time. Thus I have decided to produce my own version and pass it on to any one interested.
I would therefore esteem it a great favour if you could possibly give me a little information regarding your own family branch. For instance, can you tell me the names of your mother and father with their birth dates and place of birth and if it applies, death dates as well as marriage dates and place?
The same applies for your brothers and sisters, aunties and uncles, grandparents etc. I quite realise that all details will not be remembered and of course there is the possibility that you may not wish to furnish me with this data. If the latter applies, I would of course understand.
On the other hand, even the smallest insignificant piece of information could assist me to get on the trail of further information. It is my intent to eventually compile an Adley/Addley family tree to cover all branches which incidentally seems to have definitely originated in Kent.
I thank you for taking the time to read this letter. If you would like to become part of this huge project and be encapsulated in time on the Master tree, please don’t hesitate to contact me and add your family branch details. I would be very grateful for your input into this ever growing mammoth project.
I have enclosed 2 different kinds of questionnaires, one being a family grouping sheet, the other a FULL family grouping data.
In return for your additional information, I am more than happy to send you a copy of your branch of the Master Adley Tree on Cd-rom
Please don’t hesitate to contact me, if you have any questions. Thank you.
As a matter of interest I have now totally proven that all Adley surnames with variations on the spelling are related by blood lines.
Thank you.
Yours sincerely
Lee Adley Stevens