The Arthy Family Tree
with Surname variants

Introduction

My name is John ARTHY and I first started researching our family name back in 1981.  My Grandfather was born in the small village of Little Bentley, Essex some 7 miles north east of Colchester in 1837, where his father James ARTHY ran the small Bakery business and Post Office.  You can reach me via the form on the Contact page.

At first, family research was very slow progress and I spent a lot of time at St Catherines House, London documenting all the Births, Marriages & Death registrations from 1837. I was amazed to find so many ARTHY/ARTHEY entries considering the name is so unusual, and this prompted me to take a real interest in our family genealogy.

By 1989 I had accumulated a lot more information relating to the county of Essex but I needed help to link up all of these different families that kept popping up. I was put in touch with my first researcher Jack Baxter who lived in Benfleet and with his tremendous help he was finding ARTHY Marriages and Wills going back into the 1700s, some of whom were bakers.

In the early 1990s whilst visiting Colchester Records Office and quite by coincidence, I met up with another family researcher by the name of Barbara ARTHY, now deceased but at the time living in Earls Colne. I have to thank Barbara for her wonderful contribution in helping with further family research and also for help from her contact with Kirsty ARTHY, living in Beau Desert, Brisbane, resulting in finding out so much more about our Australian cousins.

​

I also wish to thank Margaret Masters (her paternal Great Grandmother was Annie Frances EARTHY) for her wonderful dedication in researching the Earthy part of our family tree and for passing on all the EARTHY generations to the present day that you will see documented on this website.

​

By 1997 we had traced the family descendants into Suffolk to the marriage of James ARTHEE = Mary Smith 1673 in Boxford. Soon after that Mark Earthy kindly set up our very first website which expired in April 2021.

In 2010 I had a major breakthrough finding a number of Acton (Suffolk) baptisms between 1598-1613, all siblings of John & Joan ATHEY. I now had to find John ATHEY’s marriage but that proved to be extremely difficult after many hours of intense research. Onwards to 2018 and no nearer to finding this marriage, I decided to engage another professional researcher. It is with thanks to Rita Harris that in 2019 she  found this very important marriage entry, 20th Oct 1589 John ARTER to Joan Writ in Clare. From the  Manorial Court Rolls of Acton we can now confirm that James ARTHEE of Boxford was the grandson of John ARTER/ATHEY. Rita  also found the Will of 

John ARTUR  21st Jan 1583 of Stoke  by Clare also confirming he was the father of John ARTER/ATHEY.

More evidence appeared from the Stoke by Clare Manorial Court Rolls of Michaelmas 1578 that Ralph Turner conveyed to John ARTURE  and his heirs the whole of a freehold tenement called 'The George' situated in Stoke by Clare, held freehold of this Manor for an annual rent of 6s 4d.

In June 2023 we have now found more evidence thanks to Rita Harris of much earlier family surname variants. You will need to visit the heading,  "On going research".

 I sincerely hope this family website will give future generations an interesting insight into the origins of our family surname. 

​

  Finally, my sincerest thanks go to Ben Crabb who has done all the very hard work to set up this Arthy family website for me, and not     forgetting my wonderful researcher Rita Harris