I have been contacted recently by Alexander, a genealogy enthusiast in Germany whose retirement hobby has included considerable research on the Aufrere family, descended from a prominent Huguenot family, the Marquis de Colville. They fled France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes led to persecution and murder of protestants. Antoine Aufrere, my 8x great-grandfather, secretly disposed of his considerable property and got his fortune out of France before his escape to safety in Holland, moving later to London, where he built a fine house in Charles Street, St James’s. His son Israel became Minister of the French Chapel in London, which was frequented by all the principal refugees.

The history of the Aufrere family is very well documented in the Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London, an extract of which I have added to the website. There was also a book published in 1914 about Aufreres and related families which has the preface “On February 17, 1756, my great-great-grand- father, Anthony Aufrere, of Norfolk, in England, married Miss Anna Norris. One of her relatives was a certain Anthony Norris, of Barton, in Norfolk, who compiled what he called an ‘Extract from the Parentilia of Mr. Norris of Barton.’ Upon the death this Mr. Norris in 1785, the manuscript came into the possession of my great-grandfather, Anthony Aufrere …“

Israel’s son Anthony acquired Hoveton Hall, on the Broads outside Norwich, and it was his son, also Anthony, who wrote the Parentilia. He had the unfortunate experience of being seized while travelling in France before war broke out in 1803 and being imprisoned in Verdun fortress for 11 years until Napoleon’s abdication.

Antony’s son, George, spent time in Hamburg where he married Caroline Wehrtmann, to whom Alexander is related, hence the German family. He sent me George Aufrere’s Will noting that Charlotte Ward, née Baker (my great-great-grandmother), was his darling and legatee of £500, quite an amount in 1881.

Alejandro, an Argentinian researcher, emailed me about a letter that he had found in the Buenos Aires National Archives … “I have images of a letter, dated 10th July, 1807, in Buenos Aires, addressed to ‘Thomas Kington Esq., Charlton Lodge near Bristol’. It is from his brother, who … had been wounded in battle when the British attempted to retake Buenos Aires, after their failed first invasion the year before …”.

Through the considerable power of google search he found on this website that William Gibbs “added to his property in 1865 the adjoining estate and house called Charlton (in Wraxall parish) buying it from the Kingston family…“

“Are you aware of any Kington descendants, or would you have any idea how to reach them? The letter was never delivered because the person it was given to, the American merchant William P. White, was imprisoned before he was able to send it and his property confiscated. I would love to see this letter reach his family, more than two centuries later.”

A good challenge to get me searching!

The letter was from Colonel Peter Kington, who died shortly after of his wounds. Alejandro has published a blog article of “Una carta de 1807 que no llegó a destino” (English translation)

I found a book online, published in 1900, about ‘Collections for a Parochial History of Wraxall’ that gave me a good lead, and eventually traced the family to the direct male descendant, who turned out to be a resplendent Scottish laird living in a castle at Ardbair, north of Perth.

I sent a translation of the article about the letter to the castle and have since had a correspondence with the laird, whose great-aunt had written a book about “The Oliphants of Gask” revealing how the Kington line migrated from Wraxall to Scotland.

There were also business links between our two families. Thomas Kington of Charlton was onetime Chairman of ‘The Great Western Steam Ship Company’ of which George Gibbs and Robert Bright were also Directors.