Twelfth Clan Letter

(Stagles, Steggall, Steggles, Stegall, Steagall and Variants)
10th March, 2008

Dear Friends,
    It's now just over 5 years since Dad first wrote to all of the Stagles families listed in the 2002  British electoral register, and received a response expressing interest from over 50%. Since then our membership has continued to grow and now includes many  people who although they spell their name differently may well be descended from the same families.

Stagles Families
    When we started looking at family trees we initially found eight separate Stagles families. Then as we traced the families back through the census, births, marriages, and death records we found further links that reduced this to just three families that we named after their geographical origins as the Holton, Mitford, and Wisbech Stagles Families. Naturally we wondered if these three families were related.
    We now have DNA results from members of all these three families groups that show that genetically we are indeed separate.
    However our Wisbech Stagles family has been shown to be related to both Steggle, Steggall and Steggles families.
    We know that the Mitford Stagles have living Steggles relations with whom we are in contact and the Holton Stagles family have Stigle relations with whom we are also in contact.

Stagoll Family in Australia and Switzerland
    Recently I had the pleasure of meeting a member of this family from Australia who was on a visit here. They have traced their ancestry back through two brothers William Sebastian (b Halesworth 1831) and John Wesley (b Bungay 1836) who emigrated to Tasmania. They were sons of William Stagoll b Bramfield in 1803 who in turn with his brother John was son of John Stagoll born in 1774 and Mary Nunn born in 1780.
    William's brother John, born in Bramfield 1805, was a self educated schoolmaster who went on to become a land surveyor. One of his grandson's Edwin George b Halesworth in 1873 emigrated to Switzerland.
    Although we think that there are only 2 people with this name in Britain today there are several hundreds in Australia and a fair number of French speaking Swiss Stagolls who trace their ancestry back to Bramfield in Suffolk. They would have been near neighbours of the Holton Stagles / Stigle family. We are hoping to test this possible  relationship through a comparison of DNA results.

Stegall / Steagall Families in America
    DNA results show that all 5 of the American men so far tested with this name share a common male ancestor. The common ancestor is thought to be William Steggall / Steddall who arrived in Virginia from London on the Plaine Joan in 1635. On the ship's manifest he is recorded as 26 year old William Steddall. Many Americans with the Stegall / Steagall / Stigall name think that he was a Suffolk or London Steggall and that his name had been incorrectly recorded.
    However their DNA results show that these Americans do not share a common male ancestor with any of the British Steggalls so far tested. Furthermore there is a Kentish surname of Stedall, and we have confirmed that a William Stedall, son of William was baptised in the Kent parish of Bearsted Holy Cross on November 12th 1609. William's family appear to trace their origins back to Westerham in Kent.
    We are hoping to test and compare the DNA of some male volunteers who could be from the same Stedall family with that of our American Stegall / Steagall colleagues.

Stedall and Stidolph
    These are thought to be variant surnames that may have originated from Stedwulfe's Place, a farm near Seal, Sevenoakes in Kent. There are about 50 people with the Stedall and about 200 with the Stidolph surname in Britain today.
   
Stiles
    Although most surname dictionaries class Steggles and Stiles as variant surnames, we have seen no evidence of this in Britain. However in America we have found a Stiles family whose DNA is a fairly close match to ours. It could be that they re descended from a Steggall / Steggles family whose name got changed upon arrival in the USA.

Steggles DNA Surname Project
    To date we have results from 13 men sharing a variant of our surname. Two others are currently under test. All 5 Americans tested fall into one genetic group and 5 of the 8  Englishmen fall into another.
    Within the English group Terry and Rob Steggle arranged to be tested because they suspected that they were from the same family. This was proved by their DNA results. A few months later they were informed that records had been found showing that they were both descended from Marin Steggle who married Mary Pierssene in Bloomsbury, London in 1772 and was born in about 1742.
    Further details can be seen on the Genetic Family Tree page of our website.

DNA Testing
    If you are interested in having your DNA tested please contact us, our project is set up with Family Tree DNA where testing costs from $99. Or if you can provide sufficient information about your family tree it is possible to arrange for free testing with Sorenson.

Recruitment
    Towards the end of last year  we wrote to 202 households with Steggall, Steggles, Stygall (and variant) families about our project. This has brought us into contact with more people sharing an interest in our name. Some have returned family trees for which we are grateful.

Our Website
    Has now been expanded to 11 pages and can be seen at www.stagles.co.uk

Contact Us
    If you would like to contact us please either click this link, or write to us at ;
86, Cumberland Road, Reading, RG1 3JT, England; tel 0118 9676129

Best wishes,


Tom and Ray Stagles.