Hayletts & Wilsons

My father was a Haylett and my mother a Wilson. Both are proud families, the former Norfolk fishermen and farmers who have been traced back many generations, the latter members of Clan Gunn who settled at Bannockburn and found fame and fortune from the design and weaving of tartans. Over the next few weeks I plan to record a brief history of these families.

Researching family trees is a popular pastime but I have had to do little to satisfy my curiosity as both families have been researched by earlier family members. My father's uncle Bob, who retired early from the police force, spent many years researching the Hayletts and had good access to parish records which, in those days, were kept in the churches where they originated. In the Wilsons' case, research was carried out by a cousin of my mother's, and my mother then simplified the wealth of available information when she wrote my father and her own biographies.

We have visited the areas where the two families were based. The Hayletts are very localised, their home territory running from Happisburg in the north to Great Yarmouth in the south, largely along the Norfolk coastline. The first written record of the Hayletts is from Lessingham, above, a Robert Heylett, who was recorded as dying in 1468. The Haylett name is now found in many parts of the world but all these people are likely to be descended from men originating in this area.

Such is not true of the Wilsons. The name came from an abbreviation of the name William, so Will's-son, so it arose in many areas independently. It is common in England but relatively even more common in Scotland. Our Wilsons are descended from men who were members of Clan Gunn - collectively these Wilsons have been described as a 'sept' of the clan. The Gunns are a small clan based in Sutherland, in the northeast of Scotland, one member of which, John Wilson, is recorded as living in Stirling in 1727 though the family soon moved south to the Bannockburn area (above).