Kate, I really am incredibly grateful for your long e-mail regarding the arrival of one Colby in the New World. The last wills are amazing documents too. If you would be so kind as to send me your address I will send you a cast of the Colby coat of arms I moulded from the a wall monument to Captain Charles Colby, as a thankyou. He, poor fellow was killed by a Tiger in India in 1852 whilst serving in the British Army and was a member of the Colbys of South Wales. Despite a few exceptions, many of the various branches of Colby employ on their coat of arms 3 escallop shells surmounted with a crest depicting a mailed arm holding a broken dagger. Your research will proove a valuable addition to the mass of Colby papers I have in my possession. Quite extraordinary that there is a record of Colbys arriving in America at such an early juncture. The family certainly has its fair share of important historical figures. There is even one Colonel Colby who as head of the Pembrokeshire militia, stopped the only incursion of British soil by an invading foreign force (French) since the Norman conquest in the 11th C. Here is another reference to the very early family members taken from Charlton's History of Whitby, p. 180. "About 1227 WALTER DE COLLEBY, influenced by Divine piety, at the request of his wife Margaret, gives to the monks of St Hylde of Middlesland 3 acres of land in Colleby field and other things. MARGARET DE COLLEBY at the time of her widowhood continues the grant her late husband, Walter de Ribbestein, gave in the town of Coleby. In another place HUGH DE COLLEBY is a witness" Any more goodies regarding the family would be greatly appreciated. Tristan. [email protected]