This was sent last week but I realised when I had not seen it posted that I
sent it from my AOL address which is not suscribed to this list!
Hello Michael and Fellow Delvers,
A cousin from an Australian Hallett/Chant line, who flew home today, expressed
surprise to me, yesterday, that there had been other Hallett/Chant marriages
in the past!
My line is the Robert 1700 one.
His son Robert 1725 had a daughter, Martha, born 20.3.1779 Stoke-sub-Hamdon.
In 1805 Martha married Thomas Hallett of Henstridge.
Some months ago I contacted Ann Patten Oliver (annieo1(a)mindspring.com) but to
no avail, as her Martha Chant married Thomas Hollett.
Time passed until I was surfing Chant related sites, and came upon
'http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/t/r/e/Judith-L-Trest/tree1.html'
wherein was Martha and Thomas Hollett but showing Martha's parents as Robert
Chant and Susannah Tett.
I contacted Judith Trest but she could not remember where she got the
information. At the same time a Hollett researcher, Hudson Davis, got in touch
with her and she put us in contact with each other.
Hudson went home to Canada on Thursday last but before going sent me this
information:
'On Friday of last week I spent three hours in the Somerset Records Office in
Taunton. There I found a photocopy on microfiche of John's baptism. He was
baptised in Henstridge by the vicar of that day George Smith M.A. In the
vicar's handwriting we find this record: "John son of John & ______ Hallot,
baptised privately Sept. 6, 1736." I surmise that the vicar was given orally
the surname Hallett and spelt it phonetically as Hallot. The correct spelling
was certainly Hallett, because in a search of the Henstridge records and those
of seven other parishes adjacent to Henstridge (each of which recorded Hallett
births, marriages and deaths) all the spellings were Hallett. As an example I
found the record of your ancestor Martha Chant's marriage to Thomas Hallett
dated 8 January, 1805. Incidentally a friend of mine in Newfoundland has found
the record of their burials in Great Burin, Newfoundland. Martha was buried on
April 22, 1857, age 75 years; and Thomas one month later on May 23, 1857, age
87 years.'
End of story? By no means: my Australian cousin is now going to research her
father, Robert Hallett's, family to try to connect up with some of those
Somerset/Dorset families. And as for the Pattens: we have connections and
Annie has more than a few in her tree. She likes to meet new relatives on the
net, no matter how distant they are, so who has a Patten to share?
Regards,
John Chant
Canvey Island, Essex, England.
P.S. Always go back about six months later: it is amazing what gets posted
during the period, and what you haven't found before .....
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