Roy Stockdill wrote: > What I am interested in, as a regular researcher into the ancestry of the famous, is > where the Riddifords came from originally. Research in the IGI suggests that it is > overwhelmingly a Gloucestershire surname, especially around North Nibley, and the > earliest date I can find is 1594, but that is an unsourced private submission by an LDS > member and therefore unreliable. The earliest officially extracted record I can find is at > North Nibley in 1616 of a Jone (sic, presumably Joan) RIDIFORD. Can anyone go > back further with the name? It does not seem to appear in either of my main surname > dictionaries (Reaney & Wilson and Hanks & Hodges' Oxford Dictionary of Surnames). I've had a rummage around on the Bristol & Avon FHS (BAFHS) CDs and have found a number of entries on several disks. Full details on the CDs which are available from the BAFHS. There are dozens of entries on the Gloucestershire Baptisms and Burials CDs which you can get from Gloucestershire FHS. Unfortunately it doesn't look as though either FHS will be at the WDYTYA fair. -- Charani (UK) OPC for Walton, Greinton and Clutton, SOM Asst OPC for Ashcott and Shapwick, SOM http://wsom-opc.org.uk