On the back of the A-Z April Challenge, the lovely folk at Gould Genealogy devised another challenge – Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge. Each week, we work through the letters of the alphabet sharing perhaps an elusive ancestor, a favourite or particular ancestor, or perhaps a heirloom.

E is for Elstone

Elstone was the surname of my Maternal Grandmother. Mary Elizabeth Elstone was born in 1880 in Bramshot Hampshire, the daughter of James Elstone and Mary Denyer.

The Denyer’s and Elstone’s had from what I have researched so far have been in the Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire borders and were heavily involved in the paper making industry. No great surprise there as the Elstone’s inherited Bramshot paper mill upon the marriage of John Elstone to Ann Pim in 1786.

Over the years, I have not researched more fully this line, and then quite by chance I was at the Exeter local studies library looking at a card index for something else when the cards flipped back to E. I don’t quite know what made me look at the cards, but I came across the reference to the name of Elstone and a reference or two to the name of Pim, both connected with paper making in Devon.

Was there a connection? Was this a coincidence?  A few weeks later, driving along the A377 heading to North Devon we drove through a hamlet by the name of Elstone. I can honestly say the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Is there perhaps some connection that I had not been aware of?

Elstone is a hamlet, with very little there. It is rural with a river – probably the River Exe following close by.

So, another 10 years on and I still have not researched this more fully. Is this a red herring? or is there perhaps a little link between my Elstone and Pim, of paper making stock in Sussex and Hampshire and the Elstone and Pim families of Exeter?