PART FORTY-THREE

The Staffordshire Line to Kentucky and Michigan 1870 to 2014

This is the second of two sections of this family line

Updated November 2024

43P59

John Robert Thomas Collett, who was known as Robert, was born in Missouri on 11^th December 1871 and this probably happened at Millard where his father Robert Collett died in May 1880 when John was just eight years old. Also, at the time of the US Census in June 1880, Robert was recorded as being eight years old, when he was living with his widowed mother Elizabeth and the rest of his family at Pettis in Adair County in Missouri. A little while later, during that same year, Robert was recorded as boarding with his mother and sister Katie (above) at the Atchison home of his uncle John Collett. According to the census return, eight years old Robert had been born in Missouri and was attending the school in Atchison. He was described as nephew to head of the household John Collett.

Robert married May Edna Hoolan in the early 1920s with whom he had a daughter. The date of birth for their daughter may suggest that May was much younger than Robert, since he would have been 55 when the child was born. The alternative may be that the date of 1927 is incorrect.

Two years earlier Robert was living at St Louis when he heard the news that he and his brothers and sisters were to share in a considerable amount of money left to them by their grandparents back in England. The full details were printed in the San Antonio Express on 4^th February 1925 and are re-produced in Appendix One at the end of this family line. Joan, as their daughter was better known, was a librarian and was very keen on genealogy and is believed to have spent some time researching her family roots. Robert Collett died at St Louis in Missouri.

43Q92

Mary Joan Collett (known as Joan)

Born in 1927

43P60

Helen Maude Collett, who was sometime referred to as Ellen Maude but more commonly as Nellie, was born in Missouri on 4^th May 1874. That may have taken place at Millard where her father died or at Pettis where Helen was living with her family in 1880. The 1880 Census for Pettis in Adair County listed Nellie as being five years of age. Later that year Nellie’s mother was living with Nellie’s uncle John Collett at Atchison in Kansas with her older siblings Katie and Robert (above). That meant Nellie and her sister Minnie, and brothers Arthur and William must have been looked after by another family, possibly in Missouri.

In 1916, Helen was living at 608 West Craig Place in San Antonio. Family legend tells the story that Nellie attempted to take her own life using a pair of scissors. Apparently, she was a patient at the State Mental Hospital in Kerrville, near San Antonio in Texas where she died in 1919. The real tragedy of this story is that six years after she had died, she would have been one of the beneficiaries to the estate of her English grandparents, the parents of her mother Martha Elizabeth Simons, which had been placed in trust at Leicester in England since 1894.

43P61

William Francis Collett was born in Missouri on 19^th August 1877. He was the son of Robert Collett of Colwich and Martha Elizabeth Simmons of Essington and was born eleven years after his family had emigrated to America from England. It seems likely that he was born at Millard in Missouri where it is known his family was living at the time of the death of his father Robert, when William was only one or two years old. The US Census of 1880 for Pettis in Adair County, Missouri simply recorded that ‘Willie Collett’ was two years old and born in Missouri. On that occasion he was living with his widowed mother Elizabeth and five of his older siblings, they being Arthur, Minnie, Katie, Robert, and Nellie.

It is not clear exactly what happened to his family following the death of his father, except that later that same year his mother, together with his sister Katie and brother Robert were living as boarders with his father’s brother John Collett and his family at Atchison. Where William and his other ‘missing’ siblings were on that occasion has still not been resolved, or what happened to them over the following years.

Sometime later and possibly before the end of the century, William left Missouri and moved south into Texas where he met Maje L Townsend whom he eventually marriage in 1906. The couple’s marriage certificate confirmed that the wedding took place on St Valentine’s Day in 1906 in Maverick County, Texas. The document was drawn up in the registrar’s office in the town of Eagle Pass. Maje L Townsend was born in Texas around 1885. This photograph of her may have been taken around the time of her marriage.

Over the next four years William and Maje lived over the border in Mexico where their first child was born, before returning to settle in Texas where their remaining children were born. It is established that it was at Crystal City in Texas that his son William was born, and it may have been there also that his second daughter was born. By 1^st January 1920 (the US Census Day) the family of five was living at Alpine in Brewster County in Texas and was recorded as follows:

William F Collett of Missouri was 42, his wife Maje was 35, and their three children were Margaret of Mexico who was 13, William, who was seven, and Martha who was four years and eleven months old, both of Texas. Shortly after the census the family left Alpine and move to San Antonio, where the couple’s last child was born. In 1925 William and his family were living at 104 Haynes Avenue in San Antonio from where he worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad. It was on 4^th February 1925 that the San Antonio Express (newspaper) published an article about William and his four surviving siblings inheriting a shared fortune of $200,000. The full transcript of the article is re-produced in Appendix One at the end of this family line.

By the time William died at Houston in Texas in 1943 he was 65 and had been separated from Maje for several years due to his busy work schedule and had been staying in a boarding house. Maje survived her husband by twenty-two years when she died at San Antonio in Texas during 1965.

43Q93

Margaret Frances Collett

Born in 1908 at Mexico

43Q94

William Bruns Collett

Born in 1912 at Crystal City, Texas

43Q95

Martha Elizabeth Collett

Born in 1915 at Alpine, Texas

43Q96

Mary Belle Collett

Born in 1921 at San Antonio, Texas

43P62

Dorothy Louise Collett, who was known as Lulu, was born at Aughton Park in Ormskirk, Lancashire on 3^rd June 1858. Around the time she was ten years old her family emigrated to America and by 1880 they were living in Atchison. The census that year listed Dorothy as 22 when she was working at home, where she was supporting her mother Mary. Seven years later she married James Waters McKelvey, who was known as Jim, on 13^th April 1887 at Merriam Park in St Paul in Minnesota. Jim was a ‘scotch tinner’ and their marriage produced four children for Lulu and James who were all born at Atchison in Kansas.

Dorothy Louise McKelvey nee Collett died whilst at Kansas City on 23^rd January 1925 and was buried at Mount Vernon Cemetery in Atchison in Kansas on 25^th January 1925. Her husband James (although referred to as John in Lulu’s obituary) died eighteen months later, on 19^th June 1926, at Kansas City and was buried with his wife in Atchison. An obituary in the Atchison Globe newspaper read:

“Mrs. Dorothy Louise McKelvey, wife of John W. McKelvey, Kansas City, formerly of Atchison, dies Friday in Kansas City after a long and painful illness. Mrs. McKelvey was a sister of William Barrow Collett. She spent most of her girlhood and many years of her married life in Atchison. She was stricken with the illness which caused her death several years ago, since when she has been almost entirely helpless. She was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Collett who lived in Atchison for years. Her father died a number of years ago, but her mother survives and lives in Richards with another daughter, Mrs Uberrein formerly of Atchison. Besides her husband, mother and brother and sister, Mrs McKelvey is survived by four children: John McKelvey, who is editor of a paper in a town in Kansas, James McKelvey of St. Louis, Mrs. Bessie Mair of Sioux City, and Mrs. Florence Ellis of Kansas City. Mrs. McKelvey was a staunch Episcopalian and was instrumental in the building of St. Andrew's Chapel in West Atchison and it was hoped the funeral might take place from the chapel. But the main entrance to the chapel is too small for the casket to be taken through, so the funeral will take place at 2 o'clock this afternoon from the Hawin & Douglas Chapel”

Their children were John (Jack) Francis McKelvey born on 21^st July 1888 and died on 24^th December 1967, James Brook McKelvey born during 1890, Florence McKelvey born in 1900 who died on 3^rd February 1925, and Elizabeth (Bessie) McKelvey born during 1902.

43P63

Elizabeth Copeland Collett was born at Eastham, across the River Mersey from Liverpool, on 15^th June 1859. By 1870 Elizabeth and her family had emigrated to America, and by 1880 they were living at Atchison where Elizabeth was twenty-one years of age. It was much later in her life that she married banker Karl Ueberrhein on 19^th December 1901 in Atchison, who was many years younger than Elizabeth. She was an accomplished water-colour artist and she died on 14^th January 1927 and was buried in Whites Cemetery near Richards Township. The cause of death was pneumonia with influenza. Following the death of his wife, Karl is understood to have married Della and the couple lived at 528 West Lee, Nevada in Missouri. He was the Secretary and Treasurer of the Vernon County National Farm Loan Association of Nevada, Missouri and, after Elizabeth died, he continued to manage Edgewood Farm at Richards which was still owned by the Collett family.

43P64

Robert William Barrow Collett was born at Liverpool on 31^st July 1860. He sailed to America with his mother and younger sister Eliza (below) when he was just eight years old, his father and two older sisters having gone on ahead a couple of years earlier. The crossing from Liverpool was on board the sailing ship ‘City of Baltimore’ which arrived in New York on 24^th April 1867. Once in America, the family made their home at Atchison, Kansas. And it was there that they were living at the time of the US Census of 1880. This recorded that William aged 20 and from England, was still living at the family home from where he was working as a clerk.

He later married Annie Heermance the daughter of Henry Philip Heermance and Elizabeth Fonda. Annie was five years older than William, having been born at Glenco, New York on 26^th February 1855 and baptised there five months later on 31^st July 1855. William and Annie remained at Atchison after they were married, and it was there that their three children were born. It was on becoming a naturalised American citizen at the age of 55 on 11^th January 1916, that William Barrow Collett (the first) chose to drop his initial name of Robert. William Barrow Collett died on 1^st September 1930 at Cleveland in Ohio, and was buried in Mount Vernon Cemetery in Atchison where his wife was also buried following her death nearly seven years later, on 2^nd February 1937. The Atchison Daily Globe carried the following obituary on 3^rd September 1930:

"Funeral services for the late William Barrow Collett, 70, former Atchison insurance man who died Monday morning at his home in Cleveland, Ohio were held this afternoon. The body arrived at the Burlington station at 1.33pm and was taken from the train to Mount Vernon Cemetery, where the Rev. Early Poindexter, Rector of the Trinity Episcopal Church conducted a short service at the grave. Pallbearers were Martin Jensen, John Kaff, Herb Mine, Wirth Hetherington, and Arthur and Ed Lukens. Hawin and Douglas were in charge. Mr. Collett first went into the insurance business in Atchison in 1887 with Dick Selts as partner. They engaged in the fire insurance business until 1893 when Mr. Collett became the fourth district agent appointed in the state of Kansas for the North-Western Mutual Life Insurance Co. Together with Mr. K.W. Poindexter, Swift, and P.M and E.H. Anderson, Mr Collett formed the Kansas "Old Guard" of the North-Western Company. Mr. Collett took part in various civic and public enterprises in Atchison. He was appointed receiver of the Atchison Coal Company and closed up its affairs. Together with the late Dr. E. T. Shelly and others, he helped to organise the Committee of Forty, and was instrumental in organising the Atchison YMCA and the Rotary Club. Mr. Collett's illness began in 1919 with an attack of intestinal flu. From 1922 to 1924 he lived in Fort Scott, Kansas in order to be near his farm interests. He returned to Atchison in 1924, which he always claimed as his home, and lived here until 1929 when he went to Cleveland. At the time of his death Mr. Collett was still listed as an active agent by the North-Western Mutual Life Insurance Company. His son, William Barrow Collett Jr is now production manager of the company in the Detroit, Michigan."

43Q97

a Collett daughter (stillborn)

Born on 16.09.1887 at Atchison

43Q98

Mary Elizabeth Collett

Born in 1888 at Atchison

43Q99

William Barrow Collett II

Born in 1895 at Atchison

43P65

Eliza Collett was born in 1861 and very likely at Liverpool where her brother William (above) was born two years earlier. When she was only a couple of years old her father John Collett sailed to America with her two oldest siblings Dorothy and Elizabeth. The remainder of the family, comprising Eliza and William and their mother Mary, followed in due course, when they sailed out of Liverpool on the ship ‘City of Baltimore’ which sailed into New York harbour on 24^th April 1867. The ship’s passenger list included the names of Mary E Collett aged 36, and her two children William who was eight, and Eliza who was six. Whether it was the sea voyage or the one-thousand-mile trek across America that caused the death of Eliza is not known, but she appears not to have survived the journey since she was not listed with the family when it settled at Atchison in Kansas and where they were living in 1880.

43P66

Mary Ellen Collett, who was known as Ella, was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch at the end of 1860 and in the April census of 1871 she was living at The Castle Inn with her parents and was ten years old. Ten years later Mary’s father was still the inn keeper at The Castle when Mary was 20 years old and working as a draper’s assistant. The marriage of Mary Ellen Collett and John Hollis was recorded at Burton-on-Trent (Ref. 6b 82) during the first three months of 1884 and took place on 3^rd February. John, who was known as Jack, was born in 1858 and was 25 and the son of Edward Hollis, and from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, while Mary Ellen was 23, the daughter of William Collett, and was residing at 23 High Street in Burton. By 1891 the couple and their two children were living at Burton Road in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where solicitor’s clerk was John Hollis was 33, Mary E Hollis was 30, Charles Reginald Hollis was six, and Mabel Alice Hollis was four years of age. Visiting the family that day was Mary’s sister Kate Elizabeth Collett (below) who was 16. According to the next census in 1901, every member of the Hollis household had been born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, when in 1901 they were residing at Ashby Road in Packington just south of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. John Hollis was 43 and a solicitor’s clerk, Mary Ellen Hollis was 40, Charles Reginald Hollis was 16, and Mabel Alice Hollis was 14.

It was a similar situation in 1911, when John was again working as a clerk for a local solicitor at the age of 53. Mary Ellen was 50, son Charles Reginald was 26, and daughter Mabel Alice was 24. John’s income from his work was sufficient for him to employ a domestic male servant, sixteen-year-old George Arthur Walker. Thirteen years later, the family was still living in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where John Hollis died on 22^nd March 1924 at the age of 65, where he was also buried.

43P67

Annie Collett was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1862 and, in the census of 1871, she was living at The Castle Inn with her parents and was nine years old. Ten years later Annie was nineteen and with no specified occupation it seems likely she was working with her mother looking after their large family. Around the mid-1880s the family left Ashby-de-la-Zouch when they swapped The Castle Inn for The Albion Hotel in Burton-on-Trent where they were living in 1891 when Annie was 28.

43P68

Charlotte Collett was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1863 and was missing from the family home at The Castle Inn in 1871 when she would have been six years old. Her sister Alice (below) was also absent at that time, although both featured in later census returns. However, the census for Burton-on-Trent in 1871 included Charlotte Collett, aged eight years, as living with her aunt and uncle, Margaret and Richard Geddes. Charlotte was 17 in 1881 and had returned to the family home at The Castle Inn and, like her sister Annie, she too was listed as having no occupation. During the next ten years Charlotte’s father took over as proprietor of The Albion Hotel in Burton-on-Trent, which was where the family was living in 1891. Charlotte was still living with her parents at that time when she was 26 years old.

Curiously in the census of 1901, Charlotte was recorded as being 32 while she was still unmarried and was still living with her parents at The Albion Hotel on Shobnall Road. Her actual age would have been nearer 37, so perhaps it is an error in transcription. Ten years later she was a 47-year-old spinster still living with her parents at The Albion Hotel where she was assisting her father in the hotel business. Charlotte Collett of The Albion Hotel died in Burton-on-Trent on 15^th December 1926. She was a spinster and it was through the office in London that probate was completed on 12^th March 1927 when her sister Agnes Collett (below) was named as the sole executor of her personal effects amounting to £217 6 Shillings.

43P69

Alice Collett was born at Ivanhoe Road in Ashby-de-la-Zouch on 27^th October 1865 and, just like her sister Charlotte (above), Alice was also missing from the family home in April 1871. That was perhaps a temporary arrangement because of overcrowding or some other reason, since both sisters appeared in subsequent census records. By 1881 Alice was 15 and was the oldest child in the family that was still attending school while still living with her family at The Castle in Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Alice has not been found with her family in the census of 1891 since, by then she was married to Arthur Crofts Blant who was born on 16^th November 1870. Alice and Arthur would appear to have been married around 1889 and, over the following thirteen years, they had seven children.

They were Gladys Ellen Blant (born 22.10.1890), Alice Maud Blant (born 04.02.1892), Agnes Elizabeth Blant (born on 26^th September 1894), Charlotte Mildred Blant (born on 27^th November 1895), John Samuel Blant (born on 19^th November 1897), Henry Edward Blant (born on 18^th September 1900) and Gerald Charles Blant (who was born on 6^th October 1902). And it was their youngest child Gerald who, with his wife Hilda Gladys Gee, was the father of David Blant who made contact in 2013 and kindly provided all the new information regarding this branch of the Collett family.

43P70

Lottie Collett may have been born around 1866 at Ashby-de-la-Zouch where all twelve of her siblings were born. Her non-appearance with her large family in any census return might indicate that she suffered an infant death before 1871. However, it seems highly likely that she was the Lottie Winifred Selbey, a married woman, who was granted administration of the personal estate of her brother Richard Edward Collett (below) in 1962, when she would have been in her early nineties.

43P71

Agnes Collett was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1867 and was three years old by April 1871 when she was living with her family at The Castle Inn at Ashby-del-la-Zouch. Agnes was 13 in 1881 and was still at school and still living at The Castle Inn. By 1891 Agnes’ parents were living at Burton-on-Trent, although by then she was not living with them at The Albion Hotel. It is not clear where Agnes was in 1901, but by April 1911 she was once again living with her parents at The Albion Hotel. The census that year recorded that she was unmarried at the age of 43, when she was assisting with the family business. Agnes was still a spinster in 1927 when she was the sole executor for the Will of her sister Charlotte Collett (above). Agnes Collett was 78 when she died at Burton-on-Trent in 1946, her death being recorded at the Burton register office (Ref. 6b 325) during the month of June that year.

43P72

William Henry Collett was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1869. At the time of the census for Ashby in 1871 William was two years of age and was living at The Castle Inn with his family, while ten years later he was still there at the age of eleven. He was 21 in 1891 by which time he had moved with his parents from Ashby-de-la-Zouch to Burton-on-Trent, where the family was living in The Albion Hotel of which William’s father was the proprietor. It was towards the end of the decade, when the marriage, by the reading of banns, of William Henry Collett and Emily King was recorded at Burton register office (Ref. 6b 127) during the first quarter of 1899. The wedding ceremony took place at St Paul’s Church in Burton-on-Trent on 26^th February 1899, when William was recorded as residing in the St Johns Horninglow area of Burton. Emily King had been born in Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Shortly after that, Emily presented William with a son, by which time the family of three was settled in Burton. The census in 1901 listed them as William H Collett, a licenced victualler aged 32 and from Ashby-de-la Zouch, his wife Emily who was 25, and their son William M Collett who was just seven months old. At that time in his life William was the landlord of the British Oak Inn at 36 Byrkley Street in Burton-on-Trent. Helping the family was servant Alice E Bradley who was 17 and from Burton.

Four years after that the couple added a daughter to their family, but sadly when she was around four years of age her father died. The family was residing at 35 Derby Street in Burton when William Henry Collett passed away on 14^th August 1910 at the age of 41. His Will was proved at Lichfield on 7^th September 1910, when his widow Emily was named as the administrator of his estate of just £100. Six months after his death Emily Collett from Ashby-de-la-Zouch was 34 and had living with her in Burton her two children. They were William Mark Collett, who was 10, and Eveline Martha Margaret Collett who was five years old. The family was still living at 35 Derby Street, where they were supported by servants Elsie May Topliss who was 13, while visiting the family was Alfred Alexander Gray who was 26.

43Q100

William Mark Collett

Born in 1900 at Burton-on-Trent

43Q101

Eveline Martha Margaret Collett

Born in 1905 at Burton-on-Trent

43P73

Frederick Charles Collett was born at The Castle Inn in Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1870 just prior to the census of 1871 in which he was recorded as being under one year old. At that time, he was living at The Castle Inn where his father William was the inn keeper. By 1881 he was ten years old. Around 1885 Frederick and his family took over The Albion Hotel in Burton-on-Trent where they were living in April 1891 when Frederick was 20. By the time of the next census in March 1901 Frederick was a married man living at 55-56 Worcester Street in Coventry. Fredk Chas Collett from Ashby-de-le-Zouch was 30 and a grocer’s assistant. His wife Ellen was 39 and from Coventry, and with her was her married daughter from her previous marriage. She was Lizzie Evelyn Stanton, aged 20, who was married to John Stanton, a plasterer from Coventry who was 27, with whom she had already had two grandchildren. Evelyn Annie Stanton was one year old, while her unnamed brother was only twelve days old.

After another ten years Frederick Collett from Coventry (?) was 42 and employed as the hall keeper at the Hippodrome in Coventry when residing at 46 Cope Street in the city. Living there with him was his wife Ellen Collett who was 50 and their daughter Doris Collett who was only seven years old, having been born and baptised at Coventry on 22^nd July 1903 as Elma Doris Collett, daughter of Frederick and Helen Collett. It seems the family of three was residing in the theatre, the census in 1911 also listing five other adults who may have been performers or staff. The death of Frederick C Collett was recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 6d 352) during the second quarter of 1924 when he was 54.

43Q102

Elma Doris Collett

Born in 1903 at Coventry

43P74

Robert Collett, who was known as Bob, was born at The Castle Inn in Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1871 but after the census that year which was conducted on second of April, and he was nine years old in the census of 1881 when he was still living at The Castle with his family. About four years later the family left The Castle Inn and moved to Burton-on-Trent where they set up home in The Albion Hotel and where, in 1891, Robert was 17 years of age. It was ten year later when Robert Collett married Martha Hyde during the second quarter of 1901, the event being recorded at Burton register office (Ref. 6b 703) when the witnesses were named as William James Orton and Amy Beatrice Shilton.

Their marriage had produced three children by the time of the census in 1911 when the family was living at 14 Mill Hill Lane in Winshill, Burton-on-Trent. Robert Collett from Ashby-de-la-Zouch was 38 and was working at a local brewery. He had been married for ten years to Martha who was 37, while their three children were May Collett who was nine, Katie Collett who was five, and Robert Collett who was three. Only three years later Robert Collett died at Burton at the age of 43, when his death was recorded at the register office (Ref. 6b 553) during the first three months of 1914.

43Q103

May Collett

Born in 1901 at Burton-on-Trent

43Q104

Katie Collett

Born in 1905 at Burton-on-Trent

43Q105

Robert John W Collett

Born in 1908 at Burton-on-Trent

43P75

Kate Elizabeth Collett was born at The Castle Inn in Ashby-de-la-Zouch early in 1875 (Ref. 7a 62), where she was also baptised on 21^st February 1875, who was still living with her family in 1881 at the age of six years. Ten years later, Kate was no longer living with her parents, instead she was a visitor at the home of her older married sister Mary Ellen Hollis nee Collett at their home on Burton Road in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, when Kate E Collett was 16 with no stated occupation. Kate was back living with her family on Shobnall Road at The Albion Hotel in 1901 when she was 25, again with no stated occupation, and was there also, ten years later at the age of 36 when she was still an unmarried lady who was assisting her father with the running of hotel. Within six months of the census Kate E Collett married Charles M Robinson, the event recorded at Burton-on-Trent register office (Ref. 6b 142) during the third quarter of 1911. No record of any children has been found.

43P76

John Barrow Collett was born in 1877 at The Castle Inn in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where he was baptised on 6^th April 1877, the eleventh child of William Collett and Ellen Miller, whose birth was recorded at Ashby-de-la-Zouch (Ref. 7a 109) during the first quarter of 1877. He was four years old in the Ashby census of 1881 when he was still living at The Castle Inn with his family. Four years later John and his family gave up The Castle Inn to take on The Albion Hotel on Shobnall Road in Burton-on-Trent where, in 1891, they were living and where John was 14 and still at school. Just after the end of the century, John was working as a brewer’s number taker and in 1901 was 23 years old and still living with his parents at The Albion Hotel. It is understood within the family that John’s father was a brewer of ‘Burton Beer’ so it is likely that John, and his brother Richard (below), were both working for or with their father.

It is also known from his great granddaughter (see below) that he was working for the Davenport Brewery Company in Birmingham during the early 1900s, as illustrated in a family photograph. It was just over six months after that census day in 1901 when John Barrow Collett married (1) Clara Agnes Jones, with their marriage recorded at Burton-on-Trent register office (Ref. 6b 764) during the last quarter of 1901. The birth of Clara Agnes Jones was registered at Burton-on-Trent (Ref. 6b 393) during the first quarter of 1881. It was also at Burton-on-Trent where the couple set up home, and where births of their two children were recorded. The birth of Ivy Eileen Collett was recorded at the register office (Ref. 6b 438) during the second quarter of 1902. Tragically, Clara died during the birth of their second child, at which time her two children were taken into the care of their grandparents at The Albion Hotel, where they were recorded in error in April 1911 as Ivy Ellinor Collett who was nine, rather than Ivy Eileen Collett, and John Edwin Collett who was six years old, both having been born in Burton-on-Trent.

Following the death of his first wife, John Barrow Collett was married for the second time during the autumn of 1908 to either (2) Louise Lovett OR Lucy Elizabeth Perrins, with the event recorded at Coventry register office (Ref. 6d 973). It was also at Coventry that the couple’s first child was born, although the birth was not registered there, perhaps because the child was born not long after their wedding day. By April 1911 that second marriage had already produced a further two children, whose birthplaces were confirmed in the census that year as Coventry and Birmingham respectively. The birth of the second of those two children was recorded at Aston register office (Ref. 6d 223) during the second quarter of 1910. Nine months later, it just was John and the two children who were living as boarders at 7 Emmeline Street within the Bordesley area of Birmingham, the home of cabinet maker Frederick William Spilsbury and his family. John Barrow Collett from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, a married man, was a motor steerer at the age of 34, who had been married for three years, during which time he and his wife had given birth to two children, both living. They were recorded as Leonard Collett who was two and born at Coventry, and Florence Collett who was one year old and born in Birmingham. What happened to his second wife is not confirmed, but it seems likely that she had died after the birth of her daughter, although no obvious recorded of her death has been found.

No record of a Leonard Collett who was born at Coventry has been found, while it is likely he was born on 9^th March 1909 and died in 1983, his passing as Leonard Wilfred Collett recorded at Staffordshire register office. If so, then his birth as Leonard Wilfred Collett was recorded at Kings Norton register office (Ref. 6c 451) during the second quarter of 1909. The later birth of Florence Collett was recorded at Aston register office (Ref. 6d 223) during the second quarter of 1910. Before the First World War, John Barrow Collett married (3) Elizabeth Bruce, a widow, with the event recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 6c 559) during the last three months of 1914. Elizabeth Bruce was the former Elizabeth Tolladay/Tolliday. It was early in the following year, when the birth of their only child was recorded at Birmingham register office, when the mother’s maiden-name was recorded as Tolliday.

The later Electoral Roll for the Yardley area of Birmingham in 1939 recorded John Barrow Collett as residing at 8 Everton Road in Birmingham, where he had been living since 1927. It was twelve years after the start of the Second World War that the death of John Barrow Collett was recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 9c 292) during the third quarter of 1951 when he was 74. His third wife spent the last nineteen years of her life as a widow, when the death of Elizabeth Collett (born on 28/2/1881) was recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 9c 1010) during the third quarter of 1970.

In November 2022, thanks to Kelly Plant, a great granddaughter of John Barrow Collett, we now know a little bit more about him, and his third wife. John and his father William, were both inn keepers during their lives, with Kelly pursuing the same career path in the twenty-first century, and not far from the family roots in Ashby-de-la-Zouch. She informs us that her great grandmother was Elizabeth Tolliday from Hackney Wick in London, who later lived within the Aston area of Birmingham. Kelly also provided the two photographs (above) of John Barrow Collett, and John and Elizabeth Tolladay.

Recent research reveals that Elizabeth Tolliday was the daughter of Thomas Tolliday, a bricklayer in 1881, and his wife Elizabeth, when the three of them were residing at Prince Edward Road in Hackney where Elizabeth had been born one month prior to that census day on 28^th February 1881. Her birth, as Elizabeth Tolladay, was later registered at Hackney (Ref. 1b 588) during the second quarter of 1881. By 1901 she was still living with her family, but at Osborne Road in Hackney, when Elizabeth Tolliday was 20 and working as a confectionary packer. Under one year later, she married James George Bruce, their wedding day recorded at Hackney register office (Ref. 1b 701) during the first three months of 1902. She was subsequentially made a widow

43Q106

Ivy Eileen Collett

Born in 1902 at Burton-on-Trent

43Q107

John Edwin William Collett

Born in 1904 at Burton-on-Trent

The following are the two children of John Barrow Collett by his second wife (see above):

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Leonard Wilfred Collett

Born in 1909 at Coventry

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Florence Collett

Born in 1910 at Birmingham

The following is the only child of John Barrow Collett by his third wife Elizabeth Tolladay:

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Irene May Collett

Born in 1915 at Birmingham

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Richard Edward Collett was born at The Castle Inn in Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1878 where his father was the inn keeper. The census of 1881 recorded that Richard was two years old while living at The Castle Inn with his family. A few years after the census day, the Collett family left Ashby-de-la-Zouch and made their new home at The Albion Hotel in Burton-on-Trent. That was confirmed by the census of 1891 when Richard was twelve years of age. Richard was still living there ten years later in March 1891 when he was 21 and was employed as a brewer’s number taker with his brother John Collett (above).

At the end of the next decade Richard Edward Collett was a brewery employee and was still living with his parents at The Albion Hotel where he was recorded as being unmarried, 33 years of age, and employed by the brewery. Shugborough Hall at Great Haywood, and four miles from Stafford, is today a museum which includes a brewery. Four letters written in 1895 to Richard E Collett are held there. They came from the Midland Railway Telegraph Department, Superintendent's Office in Derby and were addressed to Mr Richard E. Collett at The Albion Hotel, Shobnall Road in Burton-on-Trent and relating to a job of work.

It is possible that he never married, and it was in 1962 that Richard Edward Collett of 324 Shobnall Street in Burton-on-Trent died while a patient at Andressey Hospital in the town. He was 82 and his death was recorded at the Burton register office (Ref. 9b 75) in June 1962. Administration of his personal effects amounting to £488 9 Shillings was granted to Lottie Winifred Selby, a married woman.

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Walter Collett was born at The Castle Inn in Ashby-de-la-Zouch in either December 1880 or January 1881 with the birth recorded in the town (Ref. 7a 101) during the first three months of 1881. Furthermore, Walter was included in the census of 1881 as being just three months old. The next census in 1891 listed Walter as being 10 years of age when he was living with his family at The Albion Hotel in Burton-on-Trent. Upon leaving school, it seems Walter helped his father by working with him at The Albion Hotel since, in the census of 1901, Walter was 20 and his occupation was that of a hotel proprietor’s assistant. Whether it was an accident or through illness is not known at this time, but the death of Walter Collett was recorded at Burton-on-Trent (Ref. 6b 253) during the last three months of 1906 when he was only 25 years old.

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James Henry Collett was born at Wolverhampton on 6^th November 1868, the eldest child of James Collett and Sarah Georgia Hopkins. He was 11 years of age in April 1881 when he was living with his family at Canterbury Villa on the Warwick Road in Solihull. Ten years later he was still living with his family at Warwick Road in Solihull when he was 21 and employed as a brass founder. It was on 17^th April 1897 when James Henry Collett aged 27 married Clara Luckman aged 30 at St Giles Church in the Parish of Sheldon in Birmingham. James was confirmed as the son of James Collett, while Clara, who was born in Birmingham on 15^th May 1866, was named as the daughter of William Luckman. Over the following decade the marriage produced six children for James and Clara, the first three being born at Birmingham, before James and his family returned to the Solihull area of south-east Birmingham within the, where they were residing on the census day in 1901.

On that day James’ occupation was that of a canvasser as confirmed in the census return, when he was living with his family at Lyndon End off Coventry Road, Bickenhill, north-east of Solihull. On that occasion he was recorded as Henry J Collett aged 32, who had been born at Birmingham rather than Wolverhampton. That may have been stated as a direct result of the fact that he and his parents only lived in Wolverhampton for a few months after he was born, following which the family moved to Birmingham, where all his younger siblings were born. The remainder of his family in 1901 were listed as his wife Clara who was 35 and from Birmingham, and their three daughters Ruth E Collett who was three years of age, Georgina M Collett who was one year old, and baby Dorothy M Collett who had just been, although her birth had not yet registered. All three children were described as having been born in Birmingham, indicating the family had only just moved into the dwelling at Lyndon End.

Staying with the family on that census day at the end of March in 1901 was James’ younger brother Frederick John Collett, another canvasser from Birmingham, who was separated from his wife, pending his decree absolute which was granted three months after. The next two children of James Henry Collett and Clara Luckman were born at Solihull and Shirley, with their last child born at Small Heath in Birmingham, who birth was recorded at Aston register office. By April 1911, the family was once again living back at Shirley, to the west of Solihull, and comprised James Henry Collett who was 41 and a steam and automobile engineer, who was said to have been born at Penn Fields in Wolverhampton, his wife Clara who was 44 and born at Alcester Street in Birmingham, and their six children. They were Ruth who had been born at Alum Rock/Alum Rock Road in the Glebe Farm area of East Birmingham and was 13, Georgina who was 11 and said to have been born at Lyndon End at Bickenhill (sic), where Dorothy aged ten years had been born, Gladys who was eight and born at Solihull, Norman who was seven and born at Shirley, and Phyllis who was five years old and born at Small Heath.

The death of James H Collett was recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 820) during the second quarter of 1936 when he was 66. It was just over two years later that his wife passed away on 23^rd August 1938, following which her Will was proved in Birmingham on 17^th October 1938. The Probate Service confirmed that Clara Collett of 204 Coventry Road at Yardley in Birmingham, a widow, died on 23^rd August 1938 at Lyndon on Queslett Road in Streetly, Staffordshire. The executors of her estate valued at £1,143 11 Shillings and 8 Pence were her eldest daughter Elizabeth Ruth Cetti, Norman Noel Collett a pattern maker, and Elizabeth’s husband Albert Victor Cetti, a stockbroker’s clerk.

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Elizabeth Ruth Collett

Born in 1897 at Sheldon, Birmingham

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Georgina Mary Collett

Born in 1899 at Sheldon, Birmingham

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Dorothy Mabel Collett

Born in 1901 at Sheldon, Birmingham

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Gladys Clara Collett

Born in 1902 at Solihull

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Norman Noel Collett

Born in 1903 at Shirley, Solihull

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Phyllis May Collett

Born in 1906 at Small Heath, Birmingham

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Frederick John Collett was born at Birmingham on 19^th July 1870. His age was given at being nine years in the census of 1881 which might suggest the year of birth was 1871 rather than 1870, since he was 19 years old ten years later, by which time he was working as a merchant’s apprentice while he was still living with his family at Warwick Road in Solihull. It was on 20^th January 1894 that Frederick married spinster Ada Marian Lea at the Wesleyan Chapel in Sparkhill, Solihull, where he may have been working at that time, and where Ada, who was known as Marian, had been born in 1873. The marriage was also recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 713).

Ada was six months pregnant on the day of their wedding and gave birth to a son just three months after. That child was followed by three more, two of whom had died by the summer of 1899, with the death of the third child oddly recorded at Birmingham register office only weeks after his birth was recorded at Solihull. It was in June 1900 when Ada Marian Collett, formerly Lea, filed for divorce from her husband on the grounds of his adultery and cruelty. It was at the High Court of Justice, Probate Divorce and Admiralty Division on 25^th June 1900 that the petitioner was named as Ada Marrian Collett of Solihull, the wife of Frederick John Collett. The report confirmed that Ada Marrian Lea, spinster was, on the twentieth day of January 1894, lawfully married to the Frederick John Collett at Sparkhill Chapel near Birmingham. It continued that, after her marriage, the petitioner lived and cohabited with her husband at Sparkbrook in Worcester and at other places. The same report also listed the names and dates of birth of their four children two of whom, Howard and Gordon, were described as already deceased, while it also stated that the petitioner, who was now pregnant with the couple’s fifth child, had been assaulted by her husband within one month of their wedding day.

Six months after filing for divorce, the High Court of Justice sitting at the Royal Courts of Justice in The Strand, London, issued the decree nisi on 19^th December 1900. The President, the Right Honorable Sir Francis Henry Jeune KCB, having taken the oral evidence of the Petitioner and of the Witness produced on her behalf in support of the Petition filed in this cause, and having heard Counsel thereon, the Respondent not defending the Suit at the hearing, pronounced that the Petitioner had sufficiently proved the contents of the said Petition. It was also at The Royal Courts of Justice in The Strand that the decree absolute was granted on 1^st July 1901 when it was stated that the marriage was dissolved on the grounds of the adultery, coupled with cruelty, towards the Petitioner, called Marrian Collett, by Frederick John Collett.

Three months earlier, at the time the census was conducted in 1901, Ada M Collett from Solihull was 27 when she and her three surviving children were residing at the Grocer’s Shop on the High Street in Solihull, the home of her mother Mary A Lea. Mary was a widow of 64, a grocer and a shopkeeper who had her own account. Supporting her as assistant grocer was her son Howard P Lea who was 30, and her daughters Jessie M Lea aged 26 and Elsie B lea who was 23. The three children of Ada Collett were recorded as Cyril F Collett who was six years old and born at Sparkhill, Phyllis M G Collett who was four and from Stechford near Yardley, and Margery M Collett who was just five months old and born at Solihull.

On that same day the children’s father, Frederick J Collett who was 29 and from Birmingham and whose occupation was that of a canvasser like his older brother James (above), was staying at his brother’s home at Lyndon End off Coventry Road in Solihull. That was the last known record of Frederick John Collett who died five years later during 1906 by which time, it is thought, he may have been a serving member of the British Army.

By the time of the census in April 1911 Ada Marian Collett was 37 when she was still living with her mother at the grocer’s shop on the High Street in Solihull. The census return confirmed that Ada was divorced and that she was working as a monthly nurse with her own account. The form also confirmed that she had given birth to five children, only one of which had survived, that being eldest child Cyril. Ada’s mother Mary Ann Lea was 74 and was still a grocer and a shopkeeper, while still living with her were Ada’s two younger sisters Jessie May Lea who was 34 and Elsie Beatrice Lea who was 32, both with no occupation but described as at home. Three years later, Ada received the news that her only surviving child had been killed in France, with the later death of Ada Collett aged 79 recorded at Warwickshire register office (Ref. 96 862) in 1952.

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Cyril Frederick Collett

Born in 1894 at Sparkhill

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Phyllis Mary G Collett

Born in 1896 at Stechford

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Howard Collett

Born in 1898 at Solihull

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Gordon Victor Collett

Born in 1899 at Solihull

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Margery Martin Collett

Born in 1900 at Solihull

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Mary Georgia Collett was born at Birmingham on 14^th March 1872. When she was seven years of age her family moved out of Birmingham and made a new home in Solihull where they lived until the end of the century. The census of 1881 confirmed that the family was residing at Canterbury Villa in Warwick Road in Solihull where Mary G Collett was eight years old. She was 18 in 1891 and was still living with her parents at the property in Warwick Road, Solihull. During the next decade Mary married John Arthur Young who was born in 1868. Following the death of her mother in 1899 Mary’s father moved to Newport in South Wales with Mary’s three sisters (below) as confirming by the census of 1901. Mary also moved to Newport at some time and she and John are known to have lived at 40 Summerhill Avenue in the town.

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Rosa Polly Collett was born at Birmingham on 27^th April 1874. By April 1881 her family were living at Canterbury Villa on Warwick Road in Solihull where Rosa was six years old. She was also recorded as Rosa P Collett in the census of 1891 when she was 15 and still attending school when she was still living at Warwick Road in Solihull with her family. However, after her mother died in 1899, her father took Rosa and her two younger sisters (below) to live with him at Newport in South Wales where her mother had been born and where she may have been buried. According to the Newport census of 1901 she was recorded as Rosie Pollie Collett aged 25 and from Birmingham. The only other fact known about Rosie within the family is that she died at Hereford on 30^th May 1932.

43P84

Nellie Mabel Collett was born at Erdington on 4^th August 1877, her birth being recorded at Aston register office (Ref. 6d 403) during the third quarter of that year. By the time of the census in 1881 she was living with her family at Canterbury Villa on the Warwick Road in Solihull at the age of three. She was still there at Warwick Road ten years later in 1891 when she was 13 and still at school. Following the death of her mother in 1898 her father moved to Newport in Monmouthshire, taking his three youngest daughters with him including Nellie M Collett from Erdington who was 23 in 1901.

Seven years later Nellie Mabel Collett married Edwin Hubert Harrison, their marriage being recorded at Newport register office (Ref. 11a 379) during the second quarter of 1908, when the witnesses were Maggie Brankley and Albert Edward Walkley. Tragically they were not married very long when Nellie Mabel Harrison nee Collett died during 1915 when the couple was living at White Cross in Hereford. It may also be significant that Nellie’s sister Rosa Polly Collett (above) died in Hereford during 1932.

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Hilda Ann Collett was born within the Olton district of Birmingham on 11^th September 1881, which is rather strange since her family was living at Warwick Road in Solihull in both 1881 and 1891. By the time of the census in 1891 Hilda A Collett from Olton was nine years old. Her mother died when Hilda was around 18 years of age and, when the census was conducted in March 1901, she and her two older sisters were living with their widowed father in Newport, when Hilda Ann Collett from Olton in Birmingham was recorded 21 rather than 19. If she was born on 11^th September 1880, as previously stated here, there is still the mystery as to where she was in early April 1881 to cause her absence from the census that month. It is also established that she later married A G Harrison who was born around 1876 and that the couple spent some years living in India before returning to England to live at Church Road in Minehead in Somerset.

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Alfred Shawcross Collett was born at Salford, Manchester, on 7^th December 1860, his birth recorded there (Ref. 8d 132) during the first quarter of 1861, who was only four months old in 1861. He was the base-born son of unmarried Georgiana Collett of Stafford and Rugeley, and his father was very likely John Shawcross who never married his mother even though they had three more children together. Oddly, when Alfred was baptised at St Stephen’s Church in Salford, there was no reference to the Shawcross name. Instead, Alfred Collett, the son of John Collett and Georgiana Collett took place on 18^th January 1865. His baptism was arranged as a matter of some urgency because of his failing health, and it was also during the first three months of 1865 that he died, the death of Alfred Collett recorded at Salford (Ref. 8d 12).

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Peter Collett was born at Salford in 1863, his birth recorded there (Ref. 8d 157) during the second quarter of the year, the second son of Georgiana Collett who appears not to have been married. Life was difficult for Peter, with first the premature death of his older brother, and then the imprisonment of his mother during the following year. Consequently, no record of any many of his family has been located for 1871. After a further ten years, Peter Collett from Salford was 18 years old and working was a machine grinder with the company of E & M. It was towards the end of the following year that the marriage by banns of Peter Collett and Mary Jane Carroll took place at St Andrew’s Church in Ancoats, Manchester, on 20^th November 1882, when Peter the son of John Collett was 19 and Mary Jane was 18 and the daughter of James Carroll.

Both were recorded as residing at 16 William Street in Salford, from where Peter was employed as a grinder, the same occupation as his father John Collett (aka John Shawcross), when Mary Jane’s occupation was that of a doubler. Interestingly, both Peter and his sister Mary Collett (below) made their mark in the marriage register as groom and second witness, with Mary Jane signing her own name, as did first witness Robert Crawshaw. By the time of the 1891 Census the family living at Washington Street in Manchester comprised Peter who 29 and a tool grinder, Jane from Scotland who was 25, and their four Manchester born children. They were Mary Jane Collett who was eight, Peter Collett who was four, Herbert Collett who was two, and baby Martha Collett who was not yet one year old.

Also in the census of 1891, Peter’s younger married sister Georgiana Holt, aged 22, was living nearby in Tame Street, with her husband William Ernest Holt, also 22, and their one-year-old daughter Georgiana Holt. Three other members of the extended family were living at the same address, and they were William’s younger brother Frederick Holt, aged 17, fifty-year-old Georgiana Collett, a shirt maker and William’s mother-in-law, the widowed mother of Peter Collett (1862-1899), and William Lowe aged 10 who was a cousin. He was the son of Fanny Lowe, formerly Fanny Collett (Ref. 43O17), and Thomas Lowe.

Almost exactly eight years later tragedy struck the family, when the death of Peter Collett was recorded at Manchester register office (Ref. 8d 135) during the second quarter of 1899, at the age of only 37. Two years after her loss, widow Jane Collett and her four children were still living in Manchester, but at Harding Street, where Jane Collett was 35 and had no stated occupation, but was taking in paying lodgers. Her four children were recorded as Mary J Collett aged 17, Peter Collett aged 14, Herbert Collett aged 12, and Martha Collett who was 10. Every member of the household was said to have been born in Manchester. Jane Collett later married a gentleman by the name of Cadman and he may have been William, Henry, or John. That was confirmed by the census of 1911 in which Jane Cadman who was born in Manchester was still living there and was 46 years of age. On that same day, her youngest child, 20-year-old Martha Collett was a live-in domestic servant and housemaid at the home of Joseph Lionel O’Kelly in Manchester. During the war years Jane was living at 62 Junction Street in Ancoats, and it was there in September 1915 she received the sad news that her son Peter had been killed while serving King and country in France.

43Q122

Mary Jane Collett

Born in 1883 at Ancoats, Manchester

43Q123

Peter Collett

Born in 1886 at Ancoats, Manchester

43Q124

Herbert Collett

Born in 1888 at Ancoats, Manchester

43Q125

Martha Collett

Born in 1890 at Ancoats, Manchester

43P88

Mary Collett was born at Manchester in 1868 and was 12 years old in 1881. Near the end of the next year, Mary was one of the witnesses at the wedding of her older brother Peter Collett (above). By 1891 she was 21 and was living at Regent Road in Salford.

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Georgina Collett was born at Manchester on 5^th June 1869, her birth recorded there (Ref.8d 322) during the third quarter of the year. At the time of her birth, Georgina’s mother was Georgiana Shawcross, the assumed wife of John Shawcross, although no marriage for the couple has been found. However, the fact the child was given her mother’s maiden-name might suggest that Georgina was not a product of her marriage to John Shawcross. No census record for Georgina has been found in either 1871 or 1881, perhaps indicating that she had been removed from the family, while it is certainly confirmed that her mother was living with two of her Shawcross siblings at Salford in 1881. After a further five years, when Georgina Collett was seventeen years old, she gave birth to a son, with the birth of Alfred Collett recorded at Salford register office (Ref. 8d 210) during the third quarter of 1886. He must have been a poorly child, since he was later privately baptised at 24 Muslin Street in Salford on 1^st June 1887, arranged by the vicar of Salford Christ Church, at the home of mother, the spinster Georgina Collett. Not long after the ceremony, the death of Alfred Collett was recorded at Salford (Ref. 8d 92) during the second quarter of 1887.

Just over two years later, on 28^th September 1889, Georgina Collett married William Ernest Holt at St Andrew’s Church in Manchester, the event recorded at Manchester (Ref. 8d 229). It is interesting that the marriage certificate initially shows the father of the bride to be John Shawcross, but the name was subsequently crossed out, perhaps resulting from an objection from her mother. William E Holt was born at Chorlton-on-Medlock in Manchester on 9^th March 1869, the son of William Holt, of Prescot near St Helens in Lancashire, and Anne Moore of Hampshire.

The marriage produced twelve children for the couple, all of whom were born in Manchester, the first group while the couple were living at Chorlton-on-Medlock and the latter ones at Miles Platting. Only six of them are named below. In the 1891 Census, eighteen months after they were married, the couple had their first child living with them at Tame Street in Manchester. Georgina was listed as being 22, as was her husband William E Holt, with their daughter being one-year-old Georgiana Holt. Staying with the family was William’s brother Frederick Holt aged 17, and his mother-in-law 50-year-old Georgiana Collett and her nephew William Lowe who was 10 years old and the child of Fanny Lowe nee Collett. Ten years on, in 1901, the much larger family was living at Fawcett Street in Manchester when William E Holt was aged 32 and was working as a stonemason’s labourer. Georgiana Holt was 31, her daughter Georgiana Holt was eleven, Annie Holt was nine, John William Holt was seven, Mary Holt was five, and Alfred Holt was still under one year old. Still living with the family was widow and shirt maker Georgian Collett who was 62, who passed away shortly thereafter.

One more child was born into the family after that census day, and she was Edith Holt born in 1913, when their mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett. It would appear that Georgina and George lived all of their life together in the Manchester area. And it was in the Ancoats district of the city that George Collett died on 6^th July 1943, following which he was buried at Philips Park in Miles Platting on 10^th July 1943. Sometime during the fourteen years following her husband’s death, Georgina moved to the Crumpsall area of Manchester where she died on 2^nd June 1957. She too was buried at Philips Park in Miles Platting four days after her passing on 6^th June 1957.

43Q126

Alfred Collett

Born in 1886 at Salford; died in 1887

43P90

Alfred Thomas Collett was born at Salford in 1868, his birth recorded there (Ref. 8d 179) during the first three months of the year. He was the base-born son of Fanny Collett and in 1871 the pair of them were living with Alfred’s grandmother, 60-year-old Mary Collett in her home at 12 Corporation Square in Salford. Alfred was three years old at that time. Following the marriage of his mother Fanny to Thomas Lowe in 1878, Alfred changed his name to Alfred Thomas Lowe, as confirmed in the 1881 Census when he was 13 and was living in the family home at 9 West Charles Street in Salford.

Eight years later, Alfred was married at Christ Church in Salford on 21^st December 1889, when the groom was named as Alfred Thomas Collett Lowe, aged 20 and a grinder and a bachelor of 4 West Elizabeth Street in Salford. The bride was Elizabeth Ann Barlow, 19 and a jack-tenter and a spinster of 15 West Elizabeth Street in Salford. The groom's father was described as Thomas Lowe (deceased), a spinner, while the bride's father was John Barlow, a maker-up. The witnesses at their wedding were William Ernest Holt, the groom’s brother-in-law (above), and Fanny Lowe, the groom’s mother. The couple’s first child was born at 2 Heaps Court in Salford just days before the census in 1891, however she was not with her parents that day.

According to the Salford census that year the young married couple was staying at the St Stephen Place, Salford, home of Alfred’s mother-in-law Jane Barlow who was 49 and his younger brother-in-law William Barlow who was eight years of age. Alfred T Collett was 23 was a grinder and a glazier and Elizabeth A Collett was 18. It is possible their daughter was in hospital on that census day who, despite being baptised a month later died later that same year. Just after the turn of the century the March census of 1901 recorded Alfred Thomas Collett as 33 and a machine grinder, and Elizabeth Ann Collett as 28, when they were living at 15 Market Street in Salford with their daughters, Elizabeth Collett, who was six, Emily Collett, who was four, and Alice Collett who was one year old. Also living with the family on that occasion was Alfred’s widowed mother Fanny Lowe who was 53, and her son William Lowe who was 20.

Three further children were added to the family over the next six years, and it was at Salford that the family was still living in April 1911, although by then the couple had suffered another loss with the death of their daughter Sarah Ellen. Alfred Thomas Collett was 43 and a grinder at an ironworks, and his wife Elizabeth Ann was 38. Their three eldest daughters were confirmed as Elizabeth Ann Collett, 16, Emily Collett, who was 14, and Alice Collett who was 11, while the two new arrivals were listed as James Collett who was six, and Elsie Collett who was three years old. On the occasion of the registration of the birth of his son James, Alfred’s occupation was that of an electrical engineer’s labourer. His youngest child Alfred was only five years old when the death of Alfred Thomas Collett was recorded at Salford register office (Ref. 8d 136) following his passing at Salford on 28^th July 1918 at the age of 50, following which he was buried at the Weaste Cemetery in Salford. He was survived by his widow, with Elizabeth Ann Collett passing away in Salford in 1837.

Over the years, the Collett family appear to have moved a great many times, but all the known addresses were within the Trinity area of Salford and, in addition to those already mentioned above, the other addresses included Cobbett Street in 1895, Arlington Court in 1905, Rigby Street in 1907, 15 Market Street in 1911, Corporation Square in 1913, and Brewery Street in 1923.

43Q127

Mary Elizabeth Collett

Born in 1891 at Salford, Lancs.

43Q128

Elizabeth Ann Collett

Born in 1895 at Salford, Lancs.

43Q129

Emily Collett

Born in 1897 at Salford, Lancs.

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Alice Collett

Born in 1899 at Salford, Lancs.

43Q131

Sarah Ellen Collett

Born in 1902 at Salford, Lancs.

43Q132

James Collett

Born in 1905 at Salford, Lancs.

43Q133

Elsie Collett

Born in 1907 at Salford, Lancs.

43Q134

Alfred Collett

Born in 1913 at Salford, Lancs.

43Q1

Oliver Otto Collett was born at Keokuk in Iowa in 1887. He settled in Wapello County in Iowa where his father died in 1912 and where his son was born in 1920. And it was at Wapello that Oliver Otto Collett senior died in 1976.

43R1

Oliver Otto Collett junior

Born in 1920 at Wapello County, Iowa

43Q5

Preston Collett was born at Leslie County, Kentucky in 1874, the eldest of the three known children of John William Collett and his wife Kittie. He was seven years old in the census of 1880 when he and his family were residing at District 3, Marrowbone, in Leslie County, where his father was a farmer. After another twenty years Preston Collett was living at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird in Clay County and had been married to Sarah (Asher) for five years, with the result being the birth of just one child. Preston was a farmer of a rented property who gave his age as 25 (sic), whose wife’s age on the form was not recorded, while their son William Collett was one year old in 1900. The marriage of Preston Collett and Sarah Asher took place on 14^th October 1894 at Bell County, Kentucky.

Staying with the young family that day were other members of the wider family including Preston’s mother Katie Collett aged 46 and a widow who had given birth to seven children, all of whom were still alive. With Katie were two of Preston’s sisters, 14-year-old Marie Collett, and five-year-old Daisie Collett. It was also at Upper Red Bird, in Precinct 7 – Visitation number 25, that the enlarged family was living in 1910 when farmer Preston was 36 and Sarah was 28 who had been married for 14 years and had given birth to seven children, all living.

Those seven children were listed as sons Wilkie Collett 13 (absent ten years earlier in 1900), Willie Collett 10, Thomas Collett seven, Ella Collett five, daughters Addie Collett four, and Ollie Collett three, and Norma Collett one-year-old. Still living with the family was Preston’s mother Kittie Collett 55, her daughter Cattie Collett 18, and Cattie’s daughter Pur Collett who was two years of age. Other Colletts were recorded at Visitation numbers 27 and 29. At 27 was farmer with his own account Ambrose Collett 24, his wife of nine years Lizzie who was 20 and had already given birth to four children: Emily Collett nine; Bige Collett eight; Preston Collett seven; and daughter Mallie Collett one-year-old. At 29 were Thomas and Lucy married for 13 years parents of six children, five living. Thomas Collett was 33 another farmer with his own account, Lucy Collett was 26, Bertha Collett was 12, Chester Collett was 10, son Goldy Collett was seven, Hazel Collett was six, and Mitchell Collett who was seven months.

It is now known that the other Preston Collette, son of Ambrose Collette, who was born in 1904, died at Ashland on 26^th January 1929 at the age of 24, with his death recorded at Roark in Clay County when he was confirmed as a married farmer who was buried at the head of Blue Hole Creek. The death record was unusual in that no date of birth was included, nor the name of the informant, or the name of his wife if she was alive.

In the census of 1920, the family was again recorded at Upper Red Bird, but on the road up to Blue Hole Creek. On that road that year there were three Collett farms adjacent to one another, Farms 2, 3 and 4. The middle of the three was owned and managed by Preston Collett aged 46, where Sarah Collett was 40, William Collett was 18, Thomas Collett was 16, Ella Collett was 15, Addie Collett was 13, Norma Collett was 11, James Collett was seven, P L Collett was five, and Pearl Collett was three. Farm 2 was rented by Silas Collett aged 38, whose wife was Mahaby Collett aged 32, whose daughters were Hettie Collett 18, and Elizabeth Collett 11, and Farm 4 was rented by Walker Collett aged 21 and his wife Yvonne Collett aged 18.

After a further ten years Preston Collett was 56 and residing at Blue Hole Creek Road in Magisterial District 8 of Clay County in rented property which he farmed as a general farmer in 1930. His wife Sarah was 51 who had been married at the age of 15, when Preston was 26. Their sons James Collett and P L Collett were 18 and 16, when daughters Diane Collett and Malvaria Collett were 11 and six years old. Living in the next property, which was also rented, was Willie Collett aged 26 who married Lourenia (Lindima Ferrell on their wedding day) Collett aged 24, when he was 18 and she was 16, whose two children were Ford Collett who was five, and Helen Collett who was two years old. Living further along Blue Hole Creek Road was Preston’s other married son Wilki Collett 32 who was married when he was 20 to Dhronie Collett who was 28 and married when she was 17. Their children were Mallie Collett who was eight, Walden Collett who was five, Aslin Collett who was two, and Clarence Collett who was three months. Staying with the family was Wilkie’s widowed mother-in-law 60-year-old Josia (surname not clearly written).

Preston Collett was 67 years old when he died on 23^rd September 1941 at Leslie County in Kentucky. Upon the death of at least two of his children, including Pearl and Malvaria, their place of birth was recorded as Ashers Fork, Roark in Clay County, which was also where his youngest child died in 1925, just after she was born there.

The following are the confirmed children of Preston Collett and Sarah Asher:

43R2

Wilkie Collett

Born in 1898 at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird

43R3

William Collett

Born in 1901 at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird

43R4

Thomas Collett

Born in 1902 at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird

43R5

Nanna Collett

Born in 1904 at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird

43R6

Addie Collett

Born in 1906 at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird

43R7

Ollie Collett

Born in 1907 at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird

43R8

Norma Collett

Born in 1909 at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird

43R9

Anna Collett

Born in 1911 at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird

43R10

James Collett

Born in 1913 at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird

43R11

P L Collett

Born in 1915 at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird

43R12

Pearl Collett

Born in 1918 at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird

43R13

Diane Collett

Born in 1920 at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird

43R14

Malvaria Collett

Born in 1922 at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird

43R15

Myrtle Collett

Born in 1924 at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird

43Q9

Catherine Collett, who was known as Cattie, was the fifth of the six surviving children of John William Collett and his wife Katie (Kittie) Collett. She was born at Leslie County, Kentucky in 1892, but was not with her family in 1900 just after her father had died. Instead, as 18-year-old Cattie Collett she had already given birth to a daughter Pur Collett who was two years old in the census of 1910. On that day Cattie and her widowed mother Kitty Collett were staying at the home of Cattie’s eldest married sibling, her only brother Preston Collett (above) at Upper Red Bird, in Precinct 7.

What happened to daughter Pur is not known while, it was within the next four years that Catherine Collett married Hence Stewart, who already had a daughter from his first wife, who were living in District 8, Otter Creek in Clay County for the census in 1920. That year Hence Stewart was 35 a farm labourer having his own account, Mary Stewart was 28, when the three children listed with them were Margaret Stewart who was 15, Rosie Stewart who was eight, and Ada Stewart who was four years and seven months old. Completing the family was Hence’s widowed mother-in-law Kitty Collett, with all members of the household born in Kentucky. Hence’s eldest daughter Margaret was the grandmother of Michelle Hubbard Smith who kindly provided this information in August 2014.

43R16

Pur Collett

Born in 1908 at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird

43Q20

Arthur Collett was born at Leslie County in Kentucky on 10^th October 1894, the son of Ingrim Collett and his first wife Renio Cope. Arthur was eight years old in the census of 1900 when he and his family were living at Marrowbone in Bad Creek, Leslie County in Kentucky. Shortly after 1906 his mother died and his father married the much younger Sarah who was only one year older than Arthur, as confirmed in the Bad Creek census of 1910 when Arthur Collett was 18. He served with the US Infantry in 1917 and 1918, when his military records gave his date of birth as 10^th October 1892 and his place of birth as Asher in Kentucky.

It is also established that Arthur married Frances Morgan, known as Francy, and that their son Troy, the couple’s seventh child, was born during the same year that Arthur died at Asher. His death certificate confirmed that he died on 24^th July 1926 and that he was the son of Ingram Collett and Renio Cope. An earlier son of Arthur and Frances, Troy’s older brother Corbett, also had a son with the same name. After the death of Arthur Collett, his widow remarried, and it was Frances and Willie Brock who raised the Collett children. In 1950 William Brock aged 53 and a farmer, and his wife Frances Brock, who was 52, were living immediately adjacent to Francy’s son Corbett at Blue Hole Water, Red Bird in Leslie County.

43R17

Fred Collett

Born in 1917 at Asher, Leslie County

43R18

Emanuel Collett

Born in 1918 at Asher, Leslie County

43R19

Corbett Collett

Born in 1920 at Asher, Leslie County

43R20

Troy Collett

Born in 1926 at Asher, Leslie County

43Q24

Shelby Collett was born at Bad Creek in Leslie County during 1906, the youngest child of Ingrim Collett and Renio Cope, who was four years old in the Bad Creek census of 1910. He married Martha around the middle of the 1920s and by 1930 she had given birth to their first two children when the family was living at Marrowbone in Leslie County. Shelby Collett was 24, Martha Collett was 21, their son Huy (Dewey) Collett was four and their daughter Gracy (Grace) Collett was two years old, every member of the household having been born in Kentucky.

Three more children were born into the family during the next decade but tragically the last of them died three years before the Leslie County census of 1940. According to the census return that year Shelby and Martha Collett were both 35, and their four surviving children were recorded as Dewey Collett who was 15, Grace Collett who was 13, Rufus Collett who was nine and Sternel Collett who was seven years old.

43R21

Dewey Collett

Born in 1926 at Leslie County

43R22

Grace Collett

Born in 1928 at Leslie County

43R23

Rufus Collett

Born in 1931 at Leslie County

43R24

Sternel Collett

Born in 1933 at Leslie County

43R25

George Collett

Born in 1936 at Leslie County; died 1937

43Q28

Nancy Ann Collett was the fourth child of John Robinson Collett and his first wife Jennett Reed, who was born at Leslie County on 16^th May 1896. She was later Nancy Ann Brock who died as a widow on 9^th November 1962 in Red Bird Hospital at Beverly in Clay Co, and was buried at Bad Creek Cemetery in Asher on 11^th November 1962, after residing at Hyden in Leslie County.

43Q38

Carolyn Ethel Collett was the last of the fourteen known children of John Robinson Collett, and the only child by his third wife Nettie Whitehead. She was born at Asher in Leslie County on 31^st October 1941 and, upon being married, she became Carolyn Ethel Lewis, who died on 12^th September 2005 at Hyden, Leslie County, Kentucky.

43Q39

Robert Collett was born at Bad Creek in Leslie County, Kentucky in 1895, the son of Pleasant Lee and Rusho J Collett, who was five in the Bad Creek census of 1900 when he and his family were living at Marrowbone. Like his two younger brothers (below) and his father, Robert was residing within Clay County by the time of the census in 1920, by which time he was married with a son. Robert Collett was 23, his wife Dora Collett was 19, and their son P L Collett who was two years and two months and named after Robert’s father. Staying with the family was Mary Jane Brock who was 18.

43R26

Pleasant Lee Collett

Born in 1918 at Clay County, Kentucky

43Q40

Ingrim Collett was born at Bad Creek in 1897, the son of Pleasant Lee and Rusho J Collett. He was three years old in the Bad Creek census in 1900 when he and his family were residing at Marrowbone. It was just prior to 1920 that Ingrim married Sallie and within the census that year Ingram Collett was 22 and Sallie Collett was 19 when they were living not far away from his brother Dewie (below) and his father in Clay County.

43Q42

Dewie Collett was born at Bad Creek in 1900, the son of Pleasant Lee and Rusho J Collett. By the time he was 20, Dewey Collett was living at Clay County, Kentucky in 1920 with his father P L Collett and his possible stepmother Lottie Collet. He was still unmarried ten years later in the Bad Creek census in 1930 when he was listed at the family home as Dewie Collett aged 30. Shortly after 1930 he became a married man and his wife presented him with two daughters. However, in the Leslie County census of 1940 Dewie and his two girls were without their mother, when they were living at the home of their grandfather Pleasant Lee Collett. Dewie Collett was 40, while Dorothy Collett was five and Leitha Collett was four.

43R27

Dorothy Collett

Born in 1935 at Leslie County

43R28

Leitha Collett

Born in 1936 at Leslie County

43Q59

Joseph Collett Griffin was born at Clay County in Kentucky on 14^th March 1874, the only son of Theophilus Garrard Collett and wife Lucy J Brumley. Where the Griffin surname came from is still being investigated. What is known is the Joseph Collett Griffin died at Clay County on 11^th March 1954, a few days before his eightieth birthday.

43Q61

George William Collett was born in Kentucky on 17^th September 1873, the first child of John W Collett and his older wife Rebecca Jane Whitehead. It was at Leslie County that he was living with his family in 1880 when George W Collett was six years of age. In 1893 George married Elizabeth Chappel of Bad Creek in Leslie County where the couple was living at Marrowbone when the census was conducted in 1900. George was 26 and a farmer who had been married to Elizabeth for seven years. His wife, Lizzie Beth Collett was 24 and had given birth to four children, all still living. They were Emily Collett who was six, Bertha Collett who was four, Shelby Collett who was three, and Wilson Collett who was four months old. It was also at Bad Creek that George’s parents were still living in 1900, together with his youngest brother Elias Collett.

Four more children were added to the family during the next decade but sadly by the time of the Bad Creek census in 1910 two of the couple’s eight children had died. The surname was recorded as Collette, with farmer George being 36 and married to Elizabeth for sixteen years. She was 33, while their surviving six children were listed as Emily who was 15, Bertha who was 13, son Shelby who was 11, Sarah Jane who was six, Birchell who was four and Reuben who was thirteen months old.

The US Army draft record completed on 12^th September 1918 described him in the following way. George Collett, serial number 296, had blue eyes, dark hair, was tall and of medium build. He was 44 years old and a resident of Roark in Leslie County where he was farming. His nearest living relative was Elizabeth Collett of Roark, who was most likely his wife, while the name of his employer was George Collett, perhaps indicating he was self-employed. The form was signed by the registrar McKinley Asher.

Less than two years later the census in 1920 listed the family still living at Bad Creek as farmer George aged 46 who owned the property in which they were living, his wife Lizzie B who was 45, Shelby who was 21, Sarah J who was 15, Bertchel who was 12, Reuben who was nine, Charley who was six, and Mary who was four. A few dwellings from the family were tenant farmer James Collett (#43q56) aged 40 and his wife Sinthly (?), also 40, and their daughter Martha Collett (#43r14) who was four months old. Who they were, is not known at this time.

After a further ten years George and his reduced family was still residing in Bad Creek at Bowens Creek Road, although their ages were at variants to the ages stated ten years earlier in 1920. George Collett was 60 and still managing the farm, his wife Betsey Collett was 56, unmarried son Shelby Collett was 34, Reuben Collett was 23, Charlie Collett was 18 and Mary was 15. The two younger sons were both labourers and unemployed Shelby was suffering with bad health. Once again, the census return confirmed that George had been first married at the age of twenty-one, while in the case of his wife it was seventeen.

During the following years George was widowed by the death of Elizabeth, after which he married Martha. According to the Bad Creek census in 1940, farmer George was 66 and still living on Bowens Creek Road, Martha was 65, Shelby Collett was 42 and Mary Collett was 25. Living next door was George’s married son Reuben Collett who had living with him his wife Mary and their first four children. Another family living on Bowen Creek Road comprised farmer Wiley Collett (#43q57), aged 56, his wife Chloe Collett, aged 63, Mollie Collett (#43r15), aged 35, WPA labourer Harrison Collett (#43r16), aged 34, farmer Ballard Collett (#43r17), aged 25, Lucy Collett (#43r18), aged 20, Elizabeth Collett (#43r19), aged 14, Opal Collett (#43r20), aged 10, Joe Collett (#43r21) who was eight, and Ada Collett (#43r22) who was seven years of age.

George William Collett died on 27^th March 1948 at Essie in Leslie County, Kentucky, and was buried at Bowens Creek Cemetery.

43R29

Emily Collett

Born in 1894 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R30

Bertha Collett

Born in 1896 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R31

Shelby Collett – died in 1969

Born in 1897 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R32

Wilson Collett – infant death

Born in 1900 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R33

a Collett child – infant death

Born in 1902 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R34

Sarah Jane Collett

Born in 1904 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R35

Birchell Collett

Born in 1906 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R36

Reuben Collett

Born in 1909 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R37

Charley Collett

Born in 1914 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R38

Mary Collett

Born in 1916 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43Q62

Joseph Collett was born at Kentucky in 1876 and was four years old in the Leslie County in 1880. He was around eighteen years old when he married Dorcas (aka Dorkus) with whom he had one child, who sadly did not survive. That situation was confirmed in the Bad Creek census of 1910 when two of the four known sons of John Collett and Rebecca Jane Whitehead were living and farming on land immediately adjacent to their parents. They were Elias (below) right next door to his parents, with brother Joseph next door to him. Joseph Collett was 34, a general farmer having his own account who had been married for 16 years, during which time his wife Dorkus Collett aged 38, was confirmed as having given birth to just one child, no longer alive.

43Q64

Elias Collett ($) was born in Kentucky, at Leslie County on 2^nd January 1880, the fourth and last son of John W Collett and Rebecca Jane Whitehead. He was just five months old in the June census of Leslie County that year after which no record of him has been found until, 1910 when he was still living in Leslie County, at Bad Creek, and married for ten years. The census that year revealed that Elias was married to Carla Howard who already had a daughter from a previous marriage. Elias Collett was a farmer at the age of 30, his wife Carla Collett was 31 and had given birth to a total of four children, one of whom had already died. Elias’ stepdaughter was Martha Ann Collett aged 15, and the couple’s two children were named as Elmer Collett who was four, and John Collett who was two years of age. Living on either side of the family were two other parts Elias’ Collett family, but whose surname was recorded as Collette. They were Elias’ parents John and Jane Collette, and Elias’ older brother Joseph Collette (above) with his wife Dorkus Collette.

According to the next census in 1920 the family was living on Bowens Creek Road in Bad Creek Precinct, Leslie County, where Elias aged 39 was general farmer and a renter on the property. Carla Collett was 43 and her daughter Martha Ann had left the home by then. Her place in the house had been filled by a third child for Elias and Carla. Elmer Collett was 14 and helping his father on their farm, as was John Collett who was 12, while the newest addition to the family was daughter Della Collett who was nine years of age. Still living and working their farm next door was Elias’ parents John W Collett aged 66 and Jane Collett who was 76. Further along Bowens Creek Road were two more Collett families, living adjacent to one another. They were L M Collett 27 with his wife Delora 23 and their daughter Martha Collett two years and two months, and the larger family of farmer Manford Collett (below).

In the 1930 census for Bowens Creek Road in Bad Creek, three members of this family were recorded in three adjacent farms. Carla Collett (as Carty) was 55 who was married to the absent Elias when she was 25, a farmer, who had widower John W Collett (Ref. 43P45) lagged 74 living with her who was described as brother, when he was actually her father-in-law. Carla was residing at 74 Bowens Creek Road that year, when at 73 was son Elmer with his family, and at 75 was son John C Collett with his wife and their first child. By the day of the next census in 1940, the couple’s son John L Collett was a married man living in the adjacent property on Bowens Creek Road, when Elias Collett was 60 and a farmer, and curiously his wife of the correct age was named as Elizabeth Collett aged 64.

The US Army draft record completed on 27^th April 1942 described him in the following way. Elias Collett of Essie Town in Leslie County was 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighing 180 pounds, with black eyes, a fair complexion and grey hair. He had been born in Leslie County and was 62 and farming at home. His next-of-kin was named as Carly Collett, also residing at Essie, his wife. The draft form for the Medical Board at Hyden was signed by registrar John L Collett. The earlier draft record for 1917-1918 confirmed his date of birth and also stated he was born at Roark. The death of Carly Howard, nee Collett, on 1^st December 1947 happened at Essie in Leslie County. The death certificate confirmed she was the daughter of Johnie W Howard and Linda Pennington, and the wife of 68-year-old Elias Collett. She was 71 years old and had been born at Leslie on 24^th August 1876. Sometimes, she was recorded at Carty.

Not long after being widowed, Elias Collett died at home in Essie, Leslie County on 13^th February 1948 at the age of 68 and was buried at Bowens Creek Cemetery, the son of John W Collett and (Rebecca) Jane Whitehead, while the informant of his passing was recorded by his son John L Collett. Could he be the same John L Collett, the Medical Board registrar in 1942. Recorded in official US Social Documents dated May 1937, his date of birth was confirmed as given above, with his birthplace recorded as Stinnett in Leslie County, a son of John W Collett and Rebecca Jane Whitehead.

43R39

Elmer Collett

Born in 1905 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R40

John L Collett ($)

Born in 1907 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R41

Della Collett

Born in 1911 at Bad Creek, Leslie Cty

43Q65

Manford Collett was born at Leslie County in Kentucky on 12^th December 1877 and was two years old in the Leslie County census of 1880 when he was living there with his parents William Collett and Alice Elizabeth Caldwell and his younger baby sister Lucy. In 1892, with Alice still his wife, his father took a second much young wife. Six years later, in 1898, Manford Collett married Nancy (Nanie) Sizemore as confirmed by the Leslie County census in 1910 which stated the couple had been married for twelve years. On that census day he, his wife and their children were residing at Bad Creek Precinct. Manford Collett was 38 and a farmer, his wife Nannie Collett was 28, Judie Collett was 11, Ruth Collett was eight, James F Collett was six, and Lucy was three years of age. Staying with the family was Manford’s younger brother Samuel Collett who was 15 and a labourer on the farm. Curiously he was not living with Manford’s family in 1900 when Samuel would have been five years old.

Another Collett resident of Bad Creek Precinct, who was living next door to Manford’s family, was James Collette (#43q61) senior and his family. James was 44 and also working as a farmer. His (second) wife Nancy was 24, and the only child from his previous marriage still living with him was Chester Collette (#43r27) who was 13. The two youngest children of James and Nancy were Floyd Collette (#43r28) who was two and Thomas Collette (#43r29) who was one month old. The census return confirmed that James and Nancy had only been married for eighteen months. It is not currently known where this family might have a connection with this family line, so the names have been included here for completeness in the hope that a link may be found at a later date.

Further children were added to Manford’s family between 1910 and 1920 which was living at Bowens Creek Road in Bad Creek Precinct on the census day in 1920. Manford Collett was 42 and a general farmer with his own account, Nancy Collett was 38, James F Collett was 15 and a farm labourer, as was Lucy Collett who was 12. The couple’s younger children were daughter Cornella Collett who was nine, William Collett who was eight, son Billie Collett who was three and a half, and son Berry Collett who was sixteen months old. Living next door that year was the unidentified family of L M Collett who was 27, whose wife Delora Collett was 23, and whose daughter Martha Collett was two years and two months.

On the day the census was conducted at Bad Creek in 1930, farmer Manford Collett was 53, Nanie Collett was 48, son Billie Collett was 14, son Berry Collett was 11, Mary Collett was nine and Ruth Collett was six years of age. The census form also stated that Manford was nineteen years old when he married, while Nancy was 15. The adjacent home that year was occupied by farmer Charlie Collett (#43q62) who was 22, his wife Laura Collett was 19 and their son Fred Collett (#43r30) was eleven months old. Charles had married Laura when he was 20 and she was 17.

According to the census in 1940 all their children had left the family home which, that year, was at Little Creek in Clay County. Manford Collett was 62 and Nanie Collett was 57 and the farm where they were living was rented by them, not owned by them. Two years later, on 27^th April 1942, a US Army draft registration form was completed for Manford which included the following details. He was 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighed 140 pounds, with brown eyes, black hair, and a dark complexion. He was 64 years of age and his place of residence was Roark in Leslie County where Nanie was still living with him. It seems he lived his whole life in Leslie County, since it was there that his death was recorded just over twenty years later, on 23^rd February 1963 at the age of 85.

There is a very sad story involving Manford’s youngest son Berry Collett. Just prior to being twenty years of age he married Opha Cox, but tragically before reaching the age of maturity his death was recorded at Beverly in Bell County, Kentucky, in 1939. The death certificate confirmed the name of his spouse, together with the names of his parents, Manford Collett and Nanie Sizemore.

43R42

Judie Collett

Born in 1899 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R43

Ruth Collett

Born in 1902 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R44

James F Collett

Born in 1904 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R45

Lucy Collett

Born in 1907 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R46

Cornella Collett

Born in 1911 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R47

William Collett

Born in 1912 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R48

Billie Collett

Born in 1917 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R49

Berry Collett

Born in 1919 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R50

Mary Collett

Born in 1921 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R51

Ruth Collett

Born in 1924 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43Q66

Lucy Farmer Collett was born at Leslie County on 7^th February 1880, although an alternative source suggests she was born just south-west of Leslie County at adjoining Bell County. She was the second child of William and Alice Collett, and was four months old in the in the Leslie County in June 1880, raising yet another county where she may have been born. So far, the census for 1900 has not been located, by which time Lucy had a husband and had already given birth to the couple’s first two children. Lucy F Collett was fifteen years of age when she married Farmer Roark with whom she had five children, all living, in the census of 1910. That day, in addition to the seven members of the Roark family, staying with them was Lucy’s younger brother Willie Collett who was 18. Head of the household Farmer Roark was 34 and a general farmer, Lucy was 30, Hobart Roark was 12, Charley L Roark was 10, Martha E Roark was seven, Fannie was four, and Mallie Roark had only been born and was under one month old. At that time in his life Farmer’s brother-in-law Willie was probably helping his on the farm. Three more children were added to the family during the next decade at Lesley County, and they were Luella Roark born on 23^rd October 1913, Annie L Roark born on 6^th October 1916, and Davis Roark who was born on 14^th June 1920.

In March 1939, Social Program Application correspondence referred to her as Lucy Collett Roark born on 7^th February 1800, also known as Lucy Farmer Roark, the daughter of Billie Collett and Alice E Caldwell. Three years later, the marriage of widow Lucy Collett Roark, aged 62 and living at Brookside in Leslie County, and widower (2) Lawrence L Blankenship, aged 65 and a farmer and a stonemason, took place at Harlan County in Kentucky on 23^rd May 1942, when her parents were confirmed as Billy Collett, deceased, and Alice Caldwell, while the groom’s parents were Thomas Blankenship, deceased, and Lucetta Mace. They were only married for just less than seven years, when Lucy Farmer Collett died at Nicholas County in West Virginia on 2^nd May 1949 aged 69.

43Q67

James Farmer Asher Collett was born at Roark in Leslie County on 19^th May 1882 another son of William and Alice Collett. As simply Farmer Collett he was 18 years old in the census of 1900 when he was a farm labourer, mostly working on his father’s farm. During 1903 Farmer married Rosa Lee and by 1910, when the couple was living at Bloomington Precinct No.5 in Magoffin County, Kentucky, they already had three children. Head of the household F C, was 25 and a general farmer, Rosa Lee was 23, Maggie Collett was five, Alice Collett was three, and Herman Collett was one year old. The census return confirmed the couple had been married for seven years, during which time Rosa Lee had given birth to three children.

During 1916 Rosa Lee gave birth to a still-born son described at Jefferson County as Freeling Stillbirth Collett. The US Draft Registration document in 1918 confirmed Farmer’s date of birth as detailed above, when he was 36 and residing at Redway, Magoffin County, with the second page stating that he had a broken collar bone. By 1920 the family was still living at Bloomington Precinct No.5 in Magoffin County. Again, as just Farmer Collett, he was 37 and a general farmer. His wife Rosa Lee was 33, daughters Maggie and Alice were 15 and 13, and sons Herman, Bee, and Allen, were ten, six, and twenty-five months.

It was at 167 Long Branch in Salyersville, within the Magisterial District No. 1 of Magoffin County, that the couple was recorded in 1940. At that time in their life, J F Collett was 58 and still farming, when Rosalie was 54. Living with them that day, were four of their children, plus a grandchild. Eldest child Maggie Brock was 35 and a widow from Knox County in Kentucky, and with her was her one-year-old daughter Jean Fay Brock. Completing the household were sons Allen Collett aged 22, Millard Collett was 15, and Ella Collett was 12 years old.

Also living at Long Branch in 1940 were three other Collett families, all one after the other at 168, 169, and 170. The first of them at 168 was Willie Collett (Ref. 43rX), who was 19 and a labourer working on a road project with the W P A [Works Progress Administration]. His wife was Cellie Collett who was 21, and their son Marshall Collett (Ref. 43sX) aged two years and, as at November 2024, they have not been linked to this Collett family line. Next door to them at 169 was James’ eldest son Herman Collett with his wife Maggie Collett, and their four children, while at 170 Long Branch in Salyersville was Willie M Collett (Ref. 43Q75) a farmer and his wife Sina Collett, and their seven children

Two years later the US Draft for the Second World War dated 27^th April 1942 included James Farmer Collett aged 59 and born at Roark on the date above, who was residing at Gifford in Magoffin County, whose wife was Rosa Lee Collett. Twenty-two years later, James Farmer Asher Collett died while residing in Morgan County, Kentucky on 20^th March 1964, after which he was buried at Ollie May Cemetery, Salyersville in Magoffin County.

43R52

Maggie Collett

Born in 1904 at Bloomington, Magoffin County

43R53

Alice Collett

Born in 1907 at Bloomington, Magoffin County

43R54

Herman Collett

Born in 1910 at Bloomington, Magoffin County

43R55

Bee Collett

Born in 1914 at Bloomington, Magoffin County

43R56

Allen Collett

Born in 1918 at Bloomington, Magoffin County

43R57

Millard Collett

Born in 1925 at Gifford, Magoffin County

43R58

Ella Collett

Born in 1928 at Gifford, Magoffin County

43Q68

JOHN COLLETT was born at Clay County in Kentucky during May 1884, another son of William Collett and Alice Elizabeth Caldwell, who may have been born at Otter Creek. John was eight years of age when his father took a second younger wife, and it was with his father and his stepmother Catharine that sixteen-year-old John was one of seven children living with them at Otter Creek in 1900. A further seven siblings/half siblings were recorded with John’s mother Alice at nearby Bad Creek. It was four years after that when John married Dora Smith on 20^th March 1904 at Otter Creek in Clay County, Kentucky when John was 21 and Dora was only 14. According to census in 1910 the family of John Collett, aged 30, was still residing at Otter Creek in Clay County, where his wife Dora Collett was 25, and their daughters were named as Elsie (Elzie) Collett who was four and Bertha Collett who was two years old. It is established that at least three further children were born into the family during the next decade, as confirmed by the next census in 1920. On that occasion the family was living at Manchester in Clay County when John Collett was 39, Dora Collett was 32, and their children were Elsie (Elzie) Collett who was 16, Bertha Collett who was 12, Elbert Collett who was nine, Cordelia Collett who was seven and Burchell Collett who was four years of age. Every member of the household had been born in Kentucky.

Just two more children were added to the family, one just before and one just after 1830. By the time of the census that year the family was still living in Clay County, but in District 8, when it comprised John Collett who was said he was 53 instead of 49, Dora Collett who said she was 40 instead of 42, Elbert Collett who was 21, Cordelia Collett who was 18, Burchell Collett who was 14 and most recent arrival Norma Collett who was just two years old. It was within the Magisterial District 2 in Bell County, Kentucky, that the family was living in 1940. Head of the household John Collett was 68 (who surely should have been nearer 58), his wife Dora Collett was 51 (which more or less corresponds with her age in the two previous census returns). Still with the couple were their two youngest daughters Norma Collett who was 12 and Opal Collett who was eight. Completing the household was their married son Burchell Collett and his wife Della and their two children.

43R59

Elsie Collett

Born in 1905 at Otter Creek, Clay County

43R60

Bertha Collett

Born in 1908 at Otter Creek, Clay County

43R61

Elbert Collett

Born in 1911 at Otter Creek, Clay County

43R62

Cordelia Collett

Born in 1913 at Clay County, Kentucky

43R63

BURCHELL COLLETT

Born in 1915 at Clay County, Kentucky

43R64

Norma Collett

Born in 1918 at Clay County, Kentucky

43R65

Opal Collett

Born in 1922 at Clay County, Kentucky

43Q69

Nathaniel Collett was born at Clay County in March 1886 and in 1900 and 1910 he was still living with his family at Otter Creek at the age of 14 and 23 when he was recorded at Nathan, a son of William and Alice Collett on whose farm he was working. By that time in his life, he had been married for two years, his wife being Mary Collett who was 18 years old. It was two years earlier that the wedding of Nathan Collett and Mary Slusher was conducted on 13^th August 1908. In 1920 the family of Nathan and Mary were recorded at Banner Fork Precinct No. 6 in Harlan County, by which time Mary had given birth to three children. Nathan was 34 and a coalminer with the Banner Fork Coal Company, when his was Mary was 31. Martha J Collett was nine, Mack Collett was five, and Axie Collett was four years and one month old.

It was in the coal mining community at Frozen, within Magisterial District 2 of Harlan County, just east of Banner Fork, that the family was residing in 1930. Coal-loader Nathan Collett, aged 45, was still in rented accommodation and was 19 years old when he married Mary who was 13 (sic). Mary Collett was 34 (sic) eleven years younger than her husband, where she was only three years younger ten years earlier, and five years younger in 1910. None of their children was working, and they were Mack Collett who was 17, Axie Collett who was 13, and Ethel Collett who was six years old.

Their daughter Axie Collett was 18 when she married James Thomas who was 25 at Arjay in Bell County on 26^th March 1934. It was there also, just over one month later, that their son Mack Collett 21 married May Taylor 19 on 2^nd June 1934. In the end, Axie Thomas, daughter of Nathan Collett and Mary Slusher, died at Pineville Community Hospital in Bell County on 8^th July 1961 and was buried at Arjay. Earlier, the death of Nathan Collett happened on 7^th August 1945 at the age of 62 placing his year of birth around 1883 an not 1886, as above. Furthermore, whilst his father was confirmed as William Collett, his mother was recorded as Caroline Howard. He was confirmed as born at Clay County as was an employee of a coalmining company, when the informant of his passing was his son Mack Collett.

43R66

Martha J Collett

Born in 1911 at Otter Creek, Clay County

43R67

Mack Collett

Born in 1914 at Otter Creek, Clay County

43R68

Axie Collett

Born in 1916 at Harlan County, Kentucky

43R69

Ethel Collett

Born in 1924 at Harlan County, Kentucky

43Q71

Gilbert Collett was born during May in 1888 at Clay County, another son of William and Alice Collett. He was living with his family in 1900 and six years after was married to (1) Delia Patterson on 12^th May 1906 as recorded at Bell County, Kentucky. It seems likely that Delia died during, or just after, giving birth to daughter Pearly, her name a memorial to her mother having gone through the “pearly gates” Three years later the marriage of Gilbert Collett aged 25 (sic) and (2) Ellen Collett aged 23 (sic) was conducted at the home of William Collett in Clay County on 17^th May 1911, where William Collett was one of the witnesses. The licence for them to be marriage was approved on 13^th May 1911 at Manchester in Clay County. On that day, Gilbert was not an honest man, when the stated this would be his first marriage, as did his much younger bride who was barely 18 years of age and certainly not 23, being 27 in 1920 – below.

By 1920 the family was residing at Banner Fork in Harlan County, where Gilbert was 33 and in rented accommodation while employed as a coalminer with the Banner Fork Coal Company. His wife Ellen was 27, and their three children were Pearly Collett who was 12, Grace Collett who was nine, and son Billie Collett who was seven years of age.

Gilbert Collett died on 19^th May 1925, with his death recorded at Harlan County, following which he was buried at Highsplint Cemetery, not far from Closplint where his son Billie was killed in a mining accident in 1950. His daughter Grace Collett married (1) C W Smith, son of T F Smith and Sarah J Smith at Baxter in Harlan County on 16^th December 1933. Later on, Grace married (2) Ballinger Howard son of Grannille (Granville?) Howard and Lucille Callaway at Pineville in Bell County on 3^rd May 1946.

43R70

Pearly Collett

Born in 1908 at Clay County

The following are the children of Gilbert Collett by his second wife Ellen Collett:

43R71

Grace Collett

Born in 1911 at Clay County

43R72

Billie Collett

Born in 1913 at Harlan County

43Q73

Betsey J Collett was most likely born at Otter Creek in Clay County, Kentucky in February 1890, a daughter of William Collett by the first of his two Mormon wives Alice. While still married to Alice, his father married Catharine Rader in 1892, and it was with them that Betsey was ten years of age in 1900 at Otter Creek, when Betsey’s mother was living at Bad Creek with a second set of seven children on William Collett. Fourteen years later Betsey J Collett married Andrew Quillen on 5^th May 1914, a double wedding with sister Mollie Collett (below) and Joe Coleman, when parents William and Catharine Collett were described as the father and mother of the girls who “are willing with no objections”. While Molly certainly was the daughter and second child of Catharine’s, Betsey was born three years earlier.

43Q75

Willie M Collett was born on 14^th August 1892 at Roark in Clay County just after his father William Collett married his second concurrent wife, the much younger Catharine Rader. He was living with his family in 1900, but ten years later it was as brother-in-law aged 18, that Willie Collett was staying with his married sister’s husband Farmer Roark at Bad Creek within the Magisterial District No. 5 of Leslie County. Farmer (his christian name) was 34, Lucy F Roark was 30, and their five children. Boarding with the family next door was James Collett who was 24 but with no occupation. Less than four years after that census day, Willie Collett married Sina Caudill on 5^th February 1914 at the home of Abel Caudill in Magoffin County, when the groom’s parents were confirmed as Billie Collett and Alice E Collett, while the bride’s parents were named as Abel and Elizabeth Caudill.

The US Draft Registration for the First World War included Willie Collett born on the date provided above, who was 24 and living at Salyersville in Magoffin County, where he was a self-employed farmer. The form also confirmed he was a married man with one child, and claimed he had weak lungs for exemption purposes. According to the next census in 1920 for Gifford in Magoffin Willie was 25 and the owner of his own general farm. His wife Sina was 18, and their two daughters were Lena who was five, and Myrtle who was two years of age. Boarding with the family, and the owner of his own farm was John M May who was 66, perhaps advising the much younger farm on best practice.

Willie Collett aged 36, was still the owner of the farm in Gifford in 1930 purchased for $1200, the census form confirming he was married to Sina when he was 23, when she was 16, now 32 and recorded as Sudie (sic). Their eldest daughter Lena, had either suffered and infant death or was just absent on that day, with Myrtle being their eldest child at the age of 11 years. The other four children were Junie aged eight, son Onley who was five, Carrie who was three, and Ella who was three months old.

More children were added to the family during the 1930s, which was residing at 170 Long Branch in Salyersville in 1940, where Willie M Collett was 46 a farmer. His wife Sina Collett 43, and their children that day were Myrtle Collett 21 a seamstress with the N Y A sewing project, and Oland Collett 16 (Onley in 1930) a farmer. The couple’s five other children were Claire Collett 14 (Carrie in 1930), Elsie Collett eight, Nolia Collett six, Virginia Collett four, and Barbara Collett who was two years of age. Living at 169 Long Branch was Herman Collett (Ref. 43R53), his wife Maggie, and their children, then at 168 was Willie and Cellie Collett – still to be identified, while at 167 was Willie’s older brother James Farmer (Asher) Collett (Ref. 43Q67), his wife Rosa Lee, and their children.

Willie M Collett who was born at Roark on 14^th August 1892 was 57 when he died at Gifford in Magoffin County on 29^th April 1950.

43R73

Lena Collett

Born in 1915 at Salyersville, Magoffin County

43R74

Myrtle Collett

Born in 1917 at Gifford, Magoffin County

43R75

Junie Collett

Born in 1922 at Gifford, Magoffin County

43R76

Ollen Collett

Born in 1924 at Gifford, Magoffin County

43R77

Clara Collett

Born in 1925 at Gifford, Magoffin County

43R78

Ella Collett

Born in 1930 at Gifford, Magoffin County

43R79

Elsie Mae Collett

Born in 1932 at Gifford, Magoffin County

43R80

Nolia Collett

Born in 1934 at Gifford, Magoffin County

43R81

Virginia Collett

Born in 1936 at Gifford, Magoffin County

43R82

Barbara Collett

Born in 1938 at Gifford, Magoffin County

43Q76

Molly Collett was probably born at Otter Creek in October 1893, the second child of William and Catharine following the birth of a son soon after they were married in 1892. From William’s two concurrent marriages his two wives, Alice and Catherine, a total of twenty children were born into their family. In the Otter Creek census of 1900, Molly was one of seven children living there with her father and her mother and six other children, when her stepmother Alice was living nearby at Bad Creek with another seven children of the family. On 5^th May 1914 Mollie Collett married Joe Coleman, the same day he half-sister Betsey (above) was married with the approval of their parents.

43Q77

Samuel Collett was born at Clay County, Kentucky, on 12^th December 1895 and was the son of William Collett and his wife Alice E Collett who, for some reason, was not living with his family at Otter Creek in 1900. Instead, Samuel first appeared in the Leslie County census of 1910, when he was fifteen years old and living with his eldest married brother Manford and his family. That day Samuel was working as a labourer on his brother’s farm, when it is still not known where he was in 1900 aged five years. After 1910 Samuel Collett featured in all the following census returns, as detailed below.

On 5^th June 1917, Samuel Collett aged 22 years and born at Roark completed a World War One Draft Registration Card. By that day his occupation was that of a farmer, when he was a married man, who claimed exemption from the draft on grounds of needing to support his wife. He was described as being of medium height and slender build, with light brown eyes and hair.

According to the census return in 1930, the family was residing in a rented property on Bowens Creek Road in Bad Creek, Leslie County. Sam Collett, a farmer, was 35 and had married when he was seventeen years of age. His wife Minnie was 31 and was 14 when she married Sam. They and their five daughters had all been born in Kentucky, and they were Pollie who was 12, Edna who was nine, Ernesta who was six, Judie who was almost five, and Orna who was one month old. Around the middle of the next decade the family moved to Warbranch, West of Middle Fork, in Leslie County, where their home was in 1935, and again in 1940.

Samuel Collett was a farmer aged 46, Minnie Collett was 44 (sic), son Ernest Collett was 16 and a ‘new worker’. Judie Collett was 14, Orna Collett was 11, when the latest arrivals were Leonard Collett who was eight, Walter Collett who was five, and Farmer Collett who was two years old. One more child was added to the family and towards the end of the 1940s, the couple’s eldest son Ernest became a married man, after which he and his wife moved into the property next door to Sam and Minnie, which was how they were recorded in the census of 1950, by which time Minnie’s widowed mother was living with the family. Eight years earlier, Warbranch, Leslie County, was the family address included on the 1942 Military Draft Registration Card for Sam Collett aged 47, whose date of birth was as indicated above, and whose next-of-kin was his wife Minta Collett.

Sam Collett was 56, when his wife was recorded as Minta Collett 55 (sic) and just their three youngest children were still living with them. They were Leonard aged 18, Walter aged 14, Farmer who was 11, and daughter Lizzie Collett was seven years of age. The two older sons were already employed on their father’s farmer as farm helpers. Completing the family that day was Sam’s mother-in-law Martha Breck aged 84. Sam’s older son and daughter-in-law next door were recorded as Ernest Collett who was 26 and a mill worker in lumber manufacturing and his wife Edna M Collett who was 19.

Twenty-one years later, as Sam Collett, he died on 1^st September 1971 when he was at Essie living in Leslie County, and was buried at Bowens Creek Cemetery. On that occasion, his death record stated he had been born on 11^th December 1894.

43R83

Pollie Collett

Born in 1918 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R84

Edna Collett

Born in 1921 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R85

Ernesta/Ernest Collett

Born in 1924 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R86

Judie Collett

Born in 1925 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R87

Orna Collett

Born in 1930 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R88

Leonard Collett

Born in 1932 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R89

Walter Collett

Born in 1935 at Roark, Leslie County

43R90

Farmer Collett

Born in 1938 at Roark, Leslie County

43Q78

Joseph Collett was born at Clay County on 29^th May 1896 and was another child of William Collett by one of his wives. By 1920 he was living at Upper Red Bird in Clay County when he was described as the son-in-law of Preston Nolan, a general farmer, whose daughter was Ella Collett, and whose granddaughter was Della Collett. Joseph, another general farmer, and Ella, were both 20 years of age, while their daughter was thirteen months old. That family group was living at 21, not far from another Collett family at 16, which comprising Silas Collett aged 36 and a farmer, his wife Mahalby 30, daughters Nettie Collett 12, and Elizabeth Collett 10. The US Draft Registration on 27^th April 1942 confirmed he was self-employed and living at Asher Fork in Clay County, when Joe Collett was 46 and his place of birth was Leslie County. The name of his relative, for notification purposes was Mrs Ellen Collett. Joseph, who was known as Joe, was 56 when he died at Asher Fork in Clay County on 28^th September 1952 and was buried at Bear Creek Cemetery.

43Q81

George Dewey Collett, who was known as Dewey, was born on 11^th September 1899 at Clay County, and was a son of William by one of his two wives Alice – who died in 1901, or the much younger Catharine. As Dewey, he was 21 when he married Bertie Bolling at Esserville, Wise County in Virginia on 17^th January 1920. Bertie, possibly Roberta, was 17 years of age and born in Virginia, the daughter of Mollie Bolling. Curiously, Dewey’s parents were named as Billy Collett and Allie Fair Collett?

Their daughter Ruth was born in 1925 and they were confirmed as her parents when she married Edward Brock at Big Glades in Wise County on 15^th August 1942. Edward was 21 and the son of Jesse Brock and Martha Shook. Dewey’s son, and namesake, was born at Esserville, Wise County on 12^th September 1931 who, in November 1950, applied to the Social Program when he was residing at Salyersville, Magoffin Count, Kentucky. It was much later when Dewey Earlen Collett died on 23^rd April 2000.

Tragically, the couple had another daughter who was born at Robinson in Wise County on 2^nd February 1935, who died that same day. Their last child was another son, who was born on 3^rd August 1946, and he married Mary Frances Warren, aged 18, at Clintwood, Dickson County on 6^th September 1968, with the bride’s parents named as John Warren and Louise Blanche. George Dewey Collett was at Salyersville in Magoffin County when he died on 5^th December 1967 at the age of 68.

43R91

Ruth Collett

Born in 1925 at Wise County, Virginia

43R92

Dewey Earlen Collett

Born in 1931 at Esserville, Wise County

43R93

Lezia Collett

Born in 1935 at Robinson, Wise County

43R94

Ronnie Paul Collett

Born in 1946 at Robinson, Wise County

43Q84

Shelby Collett was born 20^th February 1917 in Leslie County and was the twentieth and last child of William Collett from his three wives, Shelby’s mother being the much younger wife, Emma Asher. His date of birth has been provided by two independent sources, the Second World War Draft Registration completed at Louellen in Harlan County on 8^th October 1945, and again at the recording of his death on 15^th February 1983 at Lejunior in Harlan County. Within the Draft Registration form his next-of-kin was named as Wily Collett, his father. After he died in 1983 his body was laid to rest at Evarts Memorial Gardens at Kildav in Harlan County.

Despite what is written above, it is known that Shelby Collett became a married after the Second World War, when the wedding of Shelby Collett, a bachelor, and Ruby Brock, a divorcee, which took place at Wallins Creek in Harlan County on 9^th February 1946. The witnesses were Nancy and Ben Brock. After they were married, they settled in Highsplint Mines where the childless couple was residing in 1950. Shelby Collett was 35, and Ruby Collett was 24, with Shelby employed as a coal loader for the Coal Mining Company.

43Q93

Margaret Frances Collett, who was known as Peggy, was born in Mexico in 1908 shortly after her parents were married. The US Census of 1920 listed Margaret as 12 and placed her and her family living at Alpine in Brewster County in Texas. Five years later in 1925 Peggy was living with her family at 104 Haynes Avenue in San Antonio when her father received the news that he and his brothers and sister were heirs to a fortune of $200,000 left to them by a distant relative in England. Following an interview with the San Antonio Light, the newspaper ran the headline “Miss Peggy Collett Elects to Get Education with Share of Fortune”. At that Peggy and her three siblings were all students attending a local public school and Peggy expressed a desire to enter a career in journalism. Tragically she died only eight years later at San Antonio in Texas in 1933 when she was only in her mid-twenties, so never did realise her life’s ambition.

43Q94

William Bruns Collett was born at Crystal City in Maverick County in Texas on 9^th November 1912. His second christian name was apparently the name of the medical attendant who assisted at his birth. According to the census of 1920, William was seven years old and was living with his family at Alpine in Brewster County in Texas. It would appear that William was married twice, the first time to (1) Anna Ruth Strong with whom he had a daughter. William later married (2) Jimmie Evelyn Petersen just prior to the Second World War with whom he had a further five children. The first of them was born at Mississippi, while the next four were all born in Texas. William Bruns Collett was only fifty-four years of age when he died at Lubbock County in Texas on 13^th October 1966. His wife Jimmie, who was born in Brazoria County on 8^th December 1921, died eighteen years after William, when she passed away on 24^th July 1984 at Lubbock.

43R95

Elizabeth Ann Collett

Born in 1935 at San Antonio in Texas

43R96

William James Collett

Born in 1941 in Mississippi

43R97

Beverly Sue Collett

Born in 1943 at San Antonio in Texas

43R98

James Robert Collett

Born in 1947 at McAllen in Texas

43R99

Sandra Lea Collett

Born in 1948 at Hidalgo in Texas

43R100

Sylvia Jean Collett

Born in 1957 at Bellaire in Texas

43Q95

Martha Elizabeth Collett was born at Alpine in Texas on 26^th January 1915 and was four years and eleven months old at the time of the US Census of 1920. At that time her parents, William F Collett and Maje Collett, were living at Alpine in Brewster County in Texas. Also listed were Martha’s two siblings Margaret 13, and William 7. Some years later Martha married Clyde Edgar and the marriage resulted in the birth of one child for the couple, Mary Patricia Edgar born at San Antonio in 1937. Martha was made a widow in 1976 when Clyde died at San Antonio. Martha lived in the original family home of her father William Francis Collett at San Antonio and, at the age of 93 has three grandchildren.

Her daughter Mary Patricia Edgar married Richard G Weil in San Antonio from whom she is now divorced, but not before the couple were blessed with three children, Marsha K Weil, Richard G Weil, and Melinda E Weil. By the time she was 95, and due to her physical limitations, Martha Elizabeth Edgar nee Collett was a resident at Morningside Manor. However, in January 2011 she was taken from there to Nix Hospital in San Antonio where she died on 30^th January 2011, just four days after her 96^th birthday. Following her passing, Martha was buried at San Fernando III Cemetery in San Antonio on Wednesday 3^rd February 2011. The obituary that was displayed at the Mission South Funeral Home read as follows:

“Martha E. Edgar born on January 26, 1915 went to be with the Lord on January 30, 2011 at the age of 96. She died peacefully, of natural causes, surrounded by loving family. She is preceded in death by her beloved husband Clyde Edgar, parents William and Maje Collett, and siblings Peggy Collett, Bill Collett, and Mary Turner. Survivors include her loving and dedicated only child Patricia Edgar Weil, grandchildren Marsha K. Williams (Steve), Richard G. Weil (Elizabeth), Melinda E. Taylor, six great grandchildren Matt, Ryan, Cole, Skye, Zeke, and Townsend, numerous nieces, nephews, and other loving family members and friends. Mrs. Edgar was born in Alpine, Texas. She was the niece of E. E. Townsend, Father of Big Bend National Park. She was a homemaker and a caregiver of loved ones throughout her amazing life. She gave of her time and effort unconditionally to those around her. She was a lifetime member of McKinley Avenue United Methodist Church, where she had many dear friends. She is also survived by her loyal canine companion, Sugar.”

Martha Elizabeth Collett was the sister of William Bruns Collett (above), whose daughter Sue Flanagan provided the details of her aunt’s passing. It was also Sue who kindly sent in the photograph on the right, showing Sue with her Aunt Martha which was taken during her 95^th birthday celebrations at Morningside Manor on 26^th January 2010.

43Q96

Mary Belle Collett was born at San Antonio in Texas in 1921. She married John Mack Turner and they had two sons before John’s accidental death in 1955 at Hannibal in Missouri. Mary Belle lived for almost another forty years after her husband died, until her death around 1994. Both of her sons were married and each presented Mary Belle with a grandchild. John Mack Turner was born in 1953 and his son is Troy Turner. Mark Townsend Turner was born in 1954 and died at San Antonio in 2007 and his daughter was Katrina Turner.

43Q98

Mary Elizabeth Collett was born at Atchison on 30^th July 1888. She initially attended a public grade school in Atchison but went to high school at a private College Preparatory School also in Atchison. She entered Wellesley College in 1906 and graduated with an AB degree in 1910 and she received her Master’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania to which she returned in 1917 for her PhD.

After securing a Fellowship in Biology at Clark University she took up a teaching post in the School of Medicine at the University of Buffalo. In 1922/23 she was awarded a Fellowship by the American Scandinavian Foundation for which she attended the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. On her returned to America, she spent one year teaching at Tulane University in New Orleans before completing thirty years teaching at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in 1954. Doctor Mary Elizabeth Collett, a college professor, died on 28^th June 1969 at Wellesley in Massachusetts and was buried with other members of her family at Mount Vernon Cemetery in Atchison.

43Q99

William Barrow Collett (the second) was born in Atchison, Kansas on 2^nd September 1895. When he was seventeen, he attended Culver Military Academy in Indiana. He later trained as an American Cadet with the Royal Flying Corps of Canada and became a Second Lieutenant at Fort Worth in Texas on 14^th February 1918. During the following week, he sailed to France with 139^th Aero Squadron where he learned to fly rotary engine Nieuports at Issoudon. The trained had not been completed when volunteers were asked to form 12^th Aero Squadron, the second American squadron which was equipped with A5 Avion Renaults. Four months later Lt. Collett was relieved to the command of the Ferry Pilot Landing Field at Gamaches on the Somme near Dieppe and Abbeville.

Following the Armistice, William was made officer-in-charge of field inspection, First Aviation Acceptance Park at Orly near Paris. Here he was offered the command of the Aeroplane Courier Service between Germany and the Peace Conference, but he declined as he wished to return to America. After the war he returned to Nortonville, Kansas in the early spring of 1919 where he renewed his work at the First National Bank where he had been employed in 1916. It was later that same year that he married Vera Frances Groff on 3^rd September 1919 at Nortonville. Vera was born on 13^th July 1890. It was during William’s time at the bank in 1916 that he had first met Vera. The five years following their wedding saw the couple blessed with three children, all of whom were born in Atchison.

It was at that same time in their life when William swapped banking for insurance. That happened between 1921 and 1925 when William Barrow Jr worked alongside his father William Barrow senior in the field of life insurance. At the end of that time William Jr and his wife and family moved to 7310 Wyoming Street in Kansas City, Kansas and the following year the family moved again, this time to Detroit, Michigan.

Less than four months after the attack on Pearl Harbour, William returned to active duty as a Captain in the Air Corps on 3^rd April 1942 and was assigned to Dow Field, Bangor, Maine as Post Intelligence Officer and Public Relations Officer. He was second in command at Dow Field which was the principal embarkation point for all B-17 Flying Fortresses going to Europe. In October 1942 he was promoted to Major and was sent to England and returned three year later in 1945. He was discharged as Lt. Col. Collett at the end of that year.

William Barrow Collett died from a heart attack at Evanston, Illinois on 17^th May 1956 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery – Section 3 Grave 2206A. Vera survived her husband by nearly thirty years when she died on 22^nd October 1985 at Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. She was buried with William at Arlington.

43R101

William Barrow Collett III

Born in 1921 at Atchison, Kansas

43R102

Groff Collett

Born in 1923 at Atchison, Kansas

43R103

Catherine Ann Collett

Born in 1924 at Atchison, Kansas

43Q100

William Mark Collett was the only son and eldest child of William Henry Collett and Emily King. He was born in the British Oak Inn at 36 Byrkley Street in Burton-on-Trent, where his father was the landlord, on 4^th August 1900, where he was also baptised on 3^rd September 1900. On the day of the census the following year, William M Collett was seven months old. His father died in 1910 and in the following year the three members of his family were living at 35 Derby Street in Burton-on-Trent, when William Mark Collett was ten years of age, his widowed mother Emily was 34, and his sister was Eveline was five. Just like his father, William also suffered a premature death, with the death of William Mark Collett was recorded at Burton register office (Ref. 6b 364) during the month of June 1927, at the age of only 27.

43Q101

Eveline Martha Margaret Collett was born in 1905 at 36 Byrkley Street in Burton-on-Trent, The British Oak Inn managed by her father William Henry Collett and Emily King. Her birth was recorded at Burton register office (Ref. 6b 117) during the last three months of the year. During the next nine years her father appears to have given up being the landlord of The British Oak and in 1910 the family of four was residing at 35 Derby Street in Burton where he died, when Eveline was only four years old. And it was at that same address that she was living with her widowed and older brother William (above) in 1911 at the age of five years. The later marriage of Eveline Martha Margaret Collett and Reginald H Payne was recorded at Burton-on-Trent register office (Ref. 6b 24) during the third quarter of 1927.

43Q107

Robert John W Collett was born at Burton-on-Trent on 22^nd July 1908 where his birth was recorded (Ref. 6b 443) during the third quarter of the year. He was 61 when he died in 1970, his death recorded at Lichfield register office (Ref. 9b 759) during the second quarter of that year.

43Q107

John Edwin William Collett was born at Burton-on-Trent during 1904, where his birth was recorded (Ref. 6b 456) during the third quarter of the year, the second child of John Barrow Collett and Clara Agnes Jones. His mother died, either during the birth or shortly after, and was six years old at the time of the Burton census of 1911 when he and his older sister Ivy were being raised by their paternal grandparents William and Emma Collett at The Albion Hotel in Burton-on-Trent. It was under his full name of John Edwin William Collett that on 20^th August 1932 when he married Edith Aileen Harvey at Winshill in Derbyshire. John, who was 28 years of age and confirmed as the son of John Barrow Collett, and Edith had only one child, their daughter Aileen. John and Edith were residing at of 57 Reservoir Road in Burton-on-Trent when John Edwin William Collett died there on 7^th September 1951 at the age of 47. His death was recorded at Burton-on-Trent register office (Ref. 9b 23), following which his Will was proved in London on 12^th November 1951, and named the executors of his estate of £2,422 9 Shillings and 5 Pence as his widow Edith Aileen Collett and her brother Leonard Arthur Harvey, a civil servant.

43R104

Aileen Collett

Born in 1935 at Burton-on-Trent

43Q110

Irene May Collett was born in Birmingham in 1915, where her birth was recorded (Ref. 6d 372) during the first three months of that year, and when her mother’s maiden-name was recorded at Tolliday instead of Tolladay, the daughter of John Barrow Collett. It was during the summer of 1940 that Irene M Collett married Edgar Peacock, with whom she had two sons. Their wedding was recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 6d 1603) during the third quarter of 1940. The birth of the first of their two sons was also recorded at Birmingham register, as follows: Robert J Peacock during the third quarter of 1949 (Ref. 9c 522) who, with Sandra Smith (born in 1955), had four children Kelly (now Kelly Plant), Joanne, Lee, and Gina. Three years after Robert was born, the birth of John K Peacock was recorded at Meriden register office (Ref. 9c 1170) at the start of 1953. His is married to Sue and they have three children Ben, Richard, and Marie Anne.

43Q111

Elizabeth Ruth Collett was born at Alum Rock/Alum Rock Road in Glebe Farm, east of Birmingham, during 1897, from where her family moved to Sheldon, north of Solihull, where her next sister was born. She was the eldest child of James Henry Collett and Clara Luckman and, as Ruth E Collett, she was three years old and living with her family at Lyndon End, off the Coventry Road, in Bickenhill, north-east of Solihull in 1901. Shortly after the census day that year the family settled in the Shirley area of Solihull where Ruth Collett was 13 years old in April 1911. It was towards the end of 1927 that the marriage of Elizabeth R Collett and Albert V Cetti was recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 1726), although no record of any children has been found. Ten years later, at the time of the death of her mother in 1936, Elizabeth Ruth Cetti, her husband Albert Victor Cetti a stockbroker’s clerk, and her younger brother Norman (below), were named as executors of her father’s personal effects valued at just over £1,143.

43Q112

Georgina Mary Collett was born at Sheldon, Birmingham in 1899, with her birth recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 627) during the last three months of that year. She was one year old in the census of 1901, by which time she and her family were living at Lyndon End, Coventry Road, Bickenhill, near Solihull, having been born in Birmingham. Ten years later, the Solihull census in 1911 incorrectly stated that Georgina May Collett aged 11 and attending school, had been born at Lyndon End in Bickenhill, an obvious mix-up with her younger sister (below).

43Q113

Dorothy Mabel Collett was born at Lyndon End, Coventry Road in Bickenhill, north-east of Solihull, during March 1901 and had only just been born on the day of that year’s census. Her birth was later recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 623) during the second quarter of the year. It was at Lyndon End that she and her two older sisters Ruth and Georgina (above) were living with their parents James and Clara Collett that census day. By 1911, 10-year-old Dorothy Mabel was attending school in Solihull, where she was living with her family, when he place of birth was confirmed as Lyndon End, Bickenhill. She never married and suffered a premature death of the age of 34, when her passing as Dorothy M Collett was recorded at Warwickshire register office (Ref. 6d 491) during 1935.

43Q114

Gladys Clara Collett was born at Solihull on 15^th August 1902, another daughter of James and Clara Collett. Her birth was recorded there during the second quarter of the year (Ref. 6d 660). After living in nearby Shirley, and them Small Heath, the family returned to Solihull where they were recorded in the 1911 Census, when Gladys Clara was eight years of age, and at school. Just over fifteen years after that census day, the marriage of Gladys Clara Collett and Charles Dear was recorded at the Warwickshire Meriden register office (Ref. 6d 1420) during the third quarter of 1926. The later death of Gladys Clara Dear was recorded at Warwickshire register office (Vol. 32 1643) in 1982, at the age of 79.

The first of the couple’s three children was born a year later, when the birth of Dorothy Dear was recorded at Huntingdon register office (Ref. 3b 326) during the summer of 1927. The family of three then returned to the West Midland, where the births of the next two children were recorded; Olive Dear at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 1125) during the first three months of 1932, and Charles D Dear at Birmingham register (Ref. 6d 489) in the first quarter of 1939. In all three cases, the mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Collett.

43Q115

Norman Noel Collett was born at Shirley in Solihull on 11^th December 1903, with his birth recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 682) during the first three months of 1904. At the time of the census of 1911 Norman was seven years old and at school when he was living with his family in Solihull. He was later employed as a wood and metal pattern-maker in the process of model-making for metal castings. During the summer of 1932, the marriage of Norman Noel Collett and Lilian B Evans was recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 137). Lilian was born on 24^th November 1910, with whom Norman had three sons. Norman was still a pattern maker in 1936 when he was named as one of the three executors of his father estate. In 2009 contact was made with Norman’s son David Luckman Collett (Ref. 43rz) who does not wish to provide any details relating to his family or those of his two brothers, the names of whom have been removed. Norman Noel Collett died on 12^th June 1996, the his death recorded at the Solihull North register office.

43Q116

Phyllis May Collett was born at Small Heath, Birmingham on 3^rd August 1906 and was the sixth and last child born to James Henry Collett and Clara Luckman. Her birth was recorded at Aston register office (Ref. 6d 292) during the first quarter of the year. By the time of the census in 1911, Phyllis May was their only child not attending school, when she was five years of age, and confirmed as having been born at Small Heath, in Birmingham. She never married and was still living within the Birmingham area when she died during November 1989. The death of Phyllis May Collett was recorded at Birmingham register office (Vol. 32 727) when she was 83.

43Q117

Cyril Frederick Collett was born at Sparkhill in Solihull on 30^th April 1894 following the marriage of his parents Frederick John Collett and Ada Marian Lea on 20^th January 1894. However, it was during the third quarter of 1894 that the birth was recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 521), perhaps nearer nine months after the couple was married. Sadly, during the summer of 1900 Cyril’s mother filed for divorce on the grounds of his father’s adultery and cruelty, which was granted by the High Court in London during the summer of the following year. At the time of the earlier census in 1901 Cyril F Collett was six years old when he was living with his mother and two younger sisters (below) at the Solihull High Street home of his maternal grandmother Mary Ann Lea. Having already lost his two younger brothers to infant death, both of Cyril’s sisters died within the next twelve months.

Thanks to Stewart Simpson in September 2024, where we did not previously know where Cyril was in 1911, he has now provided the information that he was serving as a Boy 1st Class in the Royal Navy aboard the armed cruiser HMS Berwick of the 4th Cruiser Squadron which was at anchor off Gibraltar. He does not seem to have been in the navy for very long, having only enlisted in 1910 and being discharged in 1911.

After that he joined the British Army and was a private, Service No. 13375, with the 2^nd Battalion of Worcestershire Regiment, when he was residing at Palmers Green in London at the start of the First World War. Tragically, he was one of the early casualties of war when he was killed in action on the Flanders Fields during the First Battle of Ypres on 31^st October 1914. His military record confirms that he was born in Birmingham, that he enlisted at Oxford, whose name appears on the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres. His death, at the age of twenty, meant that not one of the five children of Frederick John Collett survived to carry on the family line.

By way of explanation, Stewart revealed that he is not a family member, but an amateur military historian with a particular interest in some of the early battles of the Great War, one of which is the action at Gheluvelt on the 31st October 1914. It was here, on that day, that Cyril was killed in action during the famous charge of the Worcestershire Regiment at Gheluvelt Chateau that was instrumental in throwing the Germans back and, in all probability, prevented the Germans from taking Ypres and the Channel ports and perhaps even winning the war.

43Q118

Phyllis Mary Georgina Collett was born at Stechford near Yardley, to the east of Birmingham, either towards the end of 1896 or early in 1897, when her birth was recorded at Solihull (Ref. 6d 202) during the first three months of 1897. By the time of the census in March 1901, her mother had separated from her father, pending their decree absolute, which was granted three months later. On the day of the census Phyllis M G Collett was four years of age and living with her mother and two surviving siblings in the High Street of Solihull, the home of her grandmother. It was nearly nine months later that the death of Phyllis Mary G Collett was recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 73) during the final month of 1901, when she was five years old. It was also at Solihull, where Phyllis Mary Georgina Collett was buried on 26^th December 1901.

43Q119

Howard Collett was born at Solihull in 1898 and was the third child of Frederick and Ada Collett, whose birth was recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 634) during the second quarter of the year. It was also during that same three-month period that the death of baby Howard Collett was recorded at Solihull (Ref. 6d 316).

43Q120

Gordon Victor Collett was born at Solihull in 1899, another son of Frederick and Ada Collett. His birth was recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 635) during the third quarter of the year. Having already suffered the loss of his older brother in the previous year, the family may have temporarily moved to Birmingham just after Gordon was born, because it was at Birmingham register office that the death of infant Gordon Victor Collett was recorded (Ref. 6d 316) during the summer of that same year.

43Q121

Margery Martin Collett was born on 8^th November 1900, with her birth recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 297) during either the last three months of the year. She was the fifth and last child of Frederick John Collett and Ada Marian Lea, who was baptised at Solihull on 3^rd December 1900. Four months before she was born her mother filed for divorce from her father for reasons of his adultery and his cruelty. Having separated from her father, Margery was only five months old on the day of the census in 1901, she and her mother and her two older surviving siblings were living with Margery’s grandmother, Mary A Lee aged 64, on the High Street in Solihull. Sadly, she died one year later, when the death of Margery Martin Collett was recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 270) during the second quarter of 1902, following which she was laid to rest in Solihull on 16^th April 1902, aged seventeen months.

43Q122

Mary Jane Collett was born at Ancoats in Manchester in 1883, the eldest child of Peter Collett, formerly known as Peter Shawcross, and his wife Jane. In the 1891 Census she was living with her parents in Ancoats where she was eight years of age. Ten years later, at the age of 17, she was working as a cardboard box maker while living with her mother and brothers and sister in Manchester.

43Q123

Peter Collett was born at Ancoats in Manchester in 1886 and was living there with his family in 1891 and again in 1901 when he was four years old and 14 years of age respectively. On leaving school he took up work as a machine moulder, this being a similar occupation to that of his father who was a machine grinder. Out the outbreak of the First World War, Peter enlisted with the King’s Liverpool Regiment and became Private Collett 20137. Tragically, he was killed in action with D Company of the 12^th Battalion on 25^th September 1915 aged 28 and the sad news was reported to his mother Jane Cadman, formerly Collett, at her home at 62 Junction Street in Ancoats. He was buried at Estaires Communal Cemetery. Estaires is a town in northern France which was held by the British army from 15^th October 1914 and was the subject of fierce fighting and staunch resistance by the allied forces over the following years of the war, finally falling into German hands, on 10^th April 1918.

43Q124

Herbert Collett was born at Ancoats in Manchester on 14^th November 1888, following which his birth was recorded at Manchester register office (Ref. 8d 220) during the last three months of that year. It was at Ancoats that he was living with his family in 1891, when he was two, and ten years later when he was 12 years old. His father died during the first decade of the new century and his mother was subsequently married for a second time. By the time of the census in April 1911 Herbert Collett, aged 22 and from Manchester, was living and working at Hawarden in Flintshire to the west of Chester. He was still residing in the Manchester area where the death of Herbert Collett was recorded during December 1976 at the age of 88 years.

43Q127

Mary Elizabeth Collett was born at Salford in Lancashire on 29^th March 1891, the first child born to Alfred Thomas Collett and his wife Elizabeth Ann Barlow. She was born at 2 Heaps Court in Salford where her parents were living one week later, as recorded in the census of 1891. Her absence from the family home on that day may indicate that she was in hospital with some complication following the birth, while it was three weeks after that census day when Mary Elizabeth Collett was baptised at St Philip’s Church in Salford on 26^th April 1891. However, it was later that same year that the death of Mary Elizabeth Collett, who was under one year of age, was recorded at Salford (Ref. 8d 56) during the last quarter of 1891.

43Q128

Elizabeth Ann Collett was born at 4 Cobbett Street in Salford on 19^th January 1895, the second child of Alfred and Elizabeth Collett. Elizabeth was six years old in the census of 1901 when she and her family were residing at 15 Market Street in Salford. It was as Elizabeth Ann that she was recorded in the Salford census of 1911 when she was 16. It was also at 41 Brewery Street in Salford that she was still living with her widowed mother in 1923 and from where she married John Kershaw at St Phillip’s Church, Salford, on 22^nd December 1923. That was also the same time and place that her sister Alice (below) married Ernest Bebbington. John Kershaw was also born in Salford during 1897, the son of James Owen Kershaw. Tragically, they were only married for around eleven years when John died at Salford during 1934.

During those eleven years together, Elizabeth presented John with three children. Doreen Kershaw was born in 1925, Joan Kershaw was born in 1927 and Edna Kershaw was born in 1930. At the time of the Second World War Elizabeth and her three daughters were living at a dwelling in Shepherd Street in Salford which was hit by an incendiary bomb around 1941, following which the family then moved to Tennyson Street in Salford. Elizabeth Ann Kershaw nee Collett had been a widow for forty-five years when she died at Salford on 3^rd August 1979.

43Q129

Emily Collett was born at 15 Market Street in Salford 1897 and was baptised at St Philip’s Church in Salford on 27^th June 1897. She was four years of age in 1901 and was 14 in 1911 when she and her family were still living at 15 Market Street in Salford. She later married Edward Turner at St Phillip’s Church in Salford on 20^th September 1919, with whom she had two children. On their wedding day, Edward’s and Emily’s fathers were not in attendance, as the certificate described them as Alfred Thomas Collett deceased, a brass polisher, George Turner deceased, a cabinet maker.

Also on that day, Emily was 22 and a ticketer residing at 41 Brewery Street in Salford, and Edward was 24 and a maker-up living at 10 Bath Street in Salford. The second witness on their wedding day was Elizabeth Collett, Emily’s mother. Edward Turner was born in Manchester during 1895 and he died in 1943. Emily Turner nee Collett was living in Manchester when she died on 22^nd April 1975.

43Q130

Alice Collett was born at 15 Market Street in Salford on 7^th August 1899 and was baptised at St Philip’s Church in Salford on 30^th August 1899. She was just one year old in the census of 1901 and was 11 years of age in 1911 when she was still living at 15 Market Street with her family. On 22^nd December 1923 at St Philip’s Church in Salford, in a joint wedding ceremony with her eldest surviving sister Elizabeth (above), Alice married Ernest Bebbington. He was born at Salford on 7^th September 1899 and together they had two sons Ernest and Eric before his untimely death in Salford on 25^th January 1935. Alice Bebbington nee Collett was still residing in Salford when she passed away on 16^th May 1973.

43Q131

Sarah Ellen Collett was born at 2 River Place in Salford during the last three months of 1902, with her birth recorded there (Ref. 8d 147). It was on 3^rd December 1902 that she was baptised at St Philip’s Church in Salford. Tragically, it was two years later, during the last quarter of 1904, that the death of Sarah Ellen Collett was recorded at Salford (Ref. 8d 119), the second of the eight children of Alfred Thomas Collett and Elizabeth Ann Barlow.

43Q132

James Collett was born at 3 Arlington Court in Salford on 2^nd March 1905 and was listed as being six years of age in the Salford census of 1911 when he and his family were residing at 15 Market Street in Salford. It was during the second quarter of 1932, at Christ Church in Salford, when he married Emily Moss who was born at Salford on 10^th June 1908. Their wedding was recorded at Salford register office (Ref. 8d 24). James and Emily had one child and appear to have lived all their life in Salford, where their daughter was born, where her birth was recorded (Ref. 8d 105) early in 1943 when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Moss, and where James Collett died on 6^th September 1976. He was followed exactly twelve years later by his wife Emily Collett nee Moss, who passed away on 6^th September 1988.

43R105

Brenda Collett

Born in 1943 at Salford

43Q133

Elsie Collett was born at 38 Rigby Street in Salford in 1907, her birth recorded there (Ref. 8d 329) during the last quarter of that year. She was three years old in the April census of 1911, when she was the youngest child then living at 15 Market Street in Salford, the home of Alfred Thomas Collett and Elizabeth Ann Lowe, her younger brother (below) born less than two years after. When Elsie was thirty-five years of age, she gave birth to a base-born son in 1942, the birth of Norman Collett recorded at Manchester register office (Ref. 8d 11) during the fourth quarter of the year. Norman is understood to have been adopted by an Italian family when he was around seven months old, following the premature death of his mother. Tragically, Elsie Collett died on 4^th August 1943 while living in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, where she was buried at the Southern Cemetery. The death of Elsie Collett, aged 35, was recorded at Manchester register office (Ref. 8d 41) during the third quarter of the year.

43R106

Norman Collett

Born in 1942 at Manchester

43Q134

Alfred Collett was born on 30^th January 1913 at 5 Corporation Street in Salford, Lancashire, his birth recorded at Salford register office (Ref. 8d 26) during the first quarter of the year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Barlow. He was the youngest child of Alfred Thomas Collett and his wife Elizabeth Ann Barlow. He later married Elizabeth Ford and their only child was born just over nine months after they were married, their wedding recorded at Salford register office (Ref. 8d 122) during the second quarter of 1935. It was also while Alfred and Elizabeth were still residing in Salford that he died in 1980, although his death was recorded at Bury register office (Ref. 38 116) during the first three months6of that year, following which he was buried at the Agecroft Cemetery & Crematorium in Salford in 1^st February 1980, at the age of 67. His son Allan is married but he is the last of this family line, having no children. All the latest information was kindly provided by John Holland in spring of 2014, whose links to the Collett family are through his mother and his grandmother.

43R107

Allan Collett

Born in 1935 at Salford

43R1

Oliver Otto Collett junior was born in 1920 at Wapello County in Iowa. He married around the time of the Second World War and his son was born at Jefferson County in Iowa. Oliver was still living in Iowa state when he died at Polk County in 1997 at the age of 77.

43S1

Barry Oliver Collett

Born in 1944 at Jefferson County, Iowa

43R2

Wilkerson Collett, who was known Wilk or Wilkie, was born at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird in Clay County on 12^th April 1898 and was the first-born child of Preston Collett and Sarah Asher. As Wilkie Collett he was 13 years of age in the Upper Red Bird census in 1910. Although the record of his wedding has not been found, it was the census in 1930 that provided the ages that they were married, when Wilkerson Collett was 20 and his bride Phrona (aka Frona/Franie) Asher was 17, which places the event around 1918/1919. No census record for the childless couple has been identified in 1920. However, the census return for District 8 of Clay County in 1930 identified Wilk as 32 and a general farmer, Phronia as 28, Mollie was eight, Warden was five, Arlin was 2, and Clarence was one. Staying with them was Wilkie’s mother-in-law, 60-year-old Josie Fenimore (?).

In 1940 for the census at District 4 in Clay County Wilk Collett was 43 and a timber cutter who was living on Blue Hole Creek Road in the same house as in 1935. His wife Franie was 38, Walden was 15, Arlen was 13, Clarence was 11, Lousie was eight, Felcie was six, and Paul was three years old. Missing that day was the couple’s eldest child Mollie, whose wedding had already taken place thirty months earlier. Two years later, the US Draft Registration for the Second World War for 16^th February 1942 included Wilk Collett of Ashers Fork who had been born at Clay County on the date above, whose next-of-kin was Franie Collett, his wife, at a time in his life when he was employed by the Bledsoe & Ruth Lumber Company in Manchester.

According to the next census in 1950, Wilk Collett was 58 and an employer whose firm was the Black Rolling Private Company, where his two eldest children living at home that day were employed without pay. In addition to them, Wilk’s younger brother James (below) had his own timber cutting business, which may have been a joint venture with Wilk’s eldest marriage son Walden. On that day four members of the Collett were residing at Blue Hole Water, Red Bird, Wilk at number 77, Walden at 78, James at 79, and Willie (below) at 80. It was a similar story in 1930 and 1940, when Blue Hole Creek Road was the home of three related Collett families in the former, and a different three Collett families in the latter. In 1930 the three were living in adjacent properties, and they were Wilkerson (Wilk) and his two younger brothers Willie, and James (Jim) (below), and in 1940 it was Wilk at number 245, while at 241 and 242 were his father Preston, and his brother Willie. Wilkerson Collett, again as Wilk, was 78 when he died on 5^th August 1976 at Ashers Fork in Clay County and was buried in Collett Cemetery in Bell County, Kentucky. The couple’s eldest child, Mollie Collett, was 18 when she married Lawrence Jackson who was 21, their wedding registered at Clay County on 27^th November 1937, when her parents were confirmed as Wilk Collett and Frona Asher. Lawrence was the son of George Jackson and Mollie Mills.

43S2

Mollie Collett

Born in 1922 at Ashers Fork, Clay County

43S3

Walden Collett

Born in 1925 at Ashers Fork, Clay County

43S4

Arlen Collett

Born in 1927 at Clay County, Kentucky

43S5

Clarence Collett

Born in 1929 at Clay County, Kentucky

43S6

Lois Collett

Born in 1932 at Clay County, Kentucky

43S7

Felcie Collett

Born in 1935 at Clay County, Kentucky

43S8

Paul Collett

Born in 1937 at Clay County, Kentucky

43S9

Dora Collett

Born in 1940 at Clay County, Kentucky

43R3

William Collett, who was known as Willie, was born at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird in Clay County on 15^th April 1901, the second child of Preston and Sarah Collett. It was on 30^th November 1924, at Erose in Knox County, when 22-year-old Willie Collett, the son of Preston and Sarah Collett, married Lindima (aka Loedema) Ferrell, the daughter of W M Ferrell and Ellen Ferrell who was 18.

Five years after their wedding day, the census in 1930 recorded the couple and their two children at 242 Blue Hole Creek Road in Red Bird as Willie Collett who 26 and a general farmer, Loedema (as Louvenia) Collett who was 24, Ford Collett who was five, and Helen who was two years of age. Living right next door in 1930, at 241, was Willie’s father, mother, and four of their younger children, and further along the road at 245, was Willie’s older brother Wilk Collett (above), his wife, four children, and his mother-in-law.

Ten years after that day, it was the same four members of the family who were again residing at Blue Hole in Clay County in 1940, by which time William Collett was 35 and a farmer, Loedema Collett was 30 and their two children were 14 and 12. On either side of the family in 1940 were brothers Wilk (above) and Jim (below). It was sometime later, during the 1940s, that the couple adopted two young children to complete their family, perhaps after their own children had left home.

In the 1950 census for Blue Hole Water, Red Bird, Leslie County, Willie Collett was 48 and a farmer when his wife was Sallie Collett who was 39. By then Sallie two children from her previous marriage were described as the stepchild of Willie Collett. They were Jack Collett aged 11, and Christine Collett who was 10, whose original surname of Eldayea had been scored through. Again, as Willie Collett, he died in Bell County on 8^th July 1974 at the age of 73, and was buried at the Smith Family Cemetery in Ashers Fork, Clay County. Loedema Ferrell Collett, who was born in 1908 at Leslie County, Kentucky, died in 1947 at Blue Hole in Clay County.

Their daughter Helen’s husband’s surname was Rose, who were married between the late 1940s and later 1950s, since by October 1959, an application was presented to the Social Program for Helen Collett Rose in Chicago, whose mother was incorrectly recorded as Ludemia Firral (Loedema Ferrell). The application confirmed that Helen was born on 31^st March 1929 at Ashers Fork. Fourteen years later, in October 1973, a second Social Program Application was submitted, but of that occasion for simply Helen Collett, who may have been divorced or widowed by then. The later death of Helen Collett Rose was recorded on 6^th January 2002.

43S10

Ford Collett

Born in 1935 at Red Bird, Kentucky

43S11

Helen Collett

Born in 1937 at Red Bird, Kentucky

43S12

Jack Collett – adopted

Born in 1938 at Kentucky

43S13

Christine Collett - adopted

Born in 1940 at Kentucky

43R5

Nanna Collett (aka Ella) was born at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird in 1904 and the later marriage of Nanna Collett aged 22 and Thomas Slusher who was 45, was recorded at Roark, Leslie County on 23^rd May 1925, when the bride’s father was confirmed as Preston Collett, and the groom’s father as Fugate Slusher

43R6

Addie Collett was born at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird in 1906 and was 18 when she and Sherman Sizemore were married at Clay County on 13^th November 1924. The record of their wedding confirmed that Addie was the daughter of Preston Collett and Sarah Asher. Less than four months after that event, the marriage of Addie Collett and William J Rutledge took place at Roark, Leslie County on 5^th March 1925 when, once again, she was recorded as the daughter of Preston Collett. Interestingly, on 1^st March 1925, a plea was received by the authorities from Mr & Mrs Preston Collett of Roark that said “Please let W J Rutledge have a marriage licence for Addie Collett”.

43R8

Norma Collett was born at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird in 1909, and it was as Norma Collett, the daughter of Preston Collett and Sarah Asher that, at the age of 22, she married Lewis Ferrell aged 24 the son of Will Ferrell and Nancy Gross, at Erose in Knox County, Kentucky on 15^th July 1930.

43R9

Anna Collett was born at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird in 1911, another daughter of Preston Collett and Sarah Asher. She was 22 years of age when Anna Collett married John Jackson on 3^rd November 1933 at Gardner in Clay County.

43R10

James Collett was born in 1913 at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird, another son of Preston and Sarah Collett. Jim, as he was known, appears to have been married as least twice in his life since Jim Collett aged 25 (sic) was a farmer residing at Blue Hole Creek Road in Clay County in 1940, when his wife was Candida who was 23. Living with the couple on the farm that they owned, was Jim’s widowed mother Sarah Collett aged 65, who had with her, her younger son P L Collett (below) who was 21 and may having been helping his older brother Jim on his farm.

Two other Collett families were renting the next two adjoining properties, the first of them being Jim’s old brother Willie Collett (above) who was 35 and had living there with him his wife and their two Ford Collett and Helen Collett. Next door to Willie was the much larger family of older brother Wilk Collett (above) who was 43, who had his wife and six children living with him.

Six years later, for the marriage of 33-year-old Jim Collett and (2) Mary Farrell at Manchester in Clay County on 11^th May 1946, the bride was recorded as the daughter of Willie Farrell and Nancy Simpson, when the groom’s parents were confirmed as Preston Collett, deceased, and Sarah Asher. Four years after their wedding day James and Mary Collett were 37 years of age, when James was the owner of a company involved in the cutting of timber, perhaps even in partnership with his nephew Walden Collett, 24, the eldest son of Wilkerson (Wilk) Collett, james’ eldest brother. Also, by that time Mary had given birth to two children; Jaunita Collett who was eight, and Preston Collett who was seven years old. Living with the family in 1950, was Sarah Collett, aged 72, James’ widowed mother.

43R11

P L Collett, who is likely to be Pleasant Lee Collett, was born at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird on 6^th July 1913 and died on 13^th October 1987 at Arjay in Bell County from where he made a Social Program Application on 2st October 1975. On each of those occasions he was confirmed as a son of Preston Collett and Sarah Asher.

43R12

Pearl Collett was born at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird on 1^st April 1918 and was 59 when she died at Manchester in Clay County on 6^th September 1977. It was as Pearl Collett Smith that she died when her death record confirmed she was the daughter of Preston Collett and Sarah Asher, had been born on the date above, but at Ashers Fork a couple of miles to the west of Roark.

43R14

Malvaria Collett, who was known as Malvie, was born at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird on 10^th August 1922. Her older brother James (Jim) was married twice, with his second wife being a member of the Farrell family, so when Malvaria became a married woman, she made another connection with the same family. It was as Malvie Farrell nee Collett that she died at Martin in Weakley County, Tennessee on 3^rd November 1999, when her parents were confirmed as Preston Collett and Sarah Asher. The record of her passing, at the age of 77, gave her place of birth as Roark in Clay County.

43R15

Myrtle Collett was born at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird in Clay County on 20^th May 1924. She was the last child born to Preston Collett and Sarah Asher. Tragically, only seven months later, the death of Myrtle Collett was recorded at Clay County after she died at Roark on 8^th October 1925. The informant of her passing was the couple’s very recent son-in-law Thomas Slusher of Roark, the husband of Nanna Collett. It is interesting that the record of her infant death stated that her name had been changed from Dora. However, it is worth pointing out that no birth of Dora Collett, daughter of Preston and Sarah Collett exists.

43R17

Fred Collett was born at Asher in Leslie County, Kentucky on 1^st June 1917 and was the eldest child of Arthur Collett and Frances Morgan, who are known to have had at least seven children, although only four of the seven have so far been identified. During his life he was married to (1) Nora Brock, (2) Polly Joyce Morgan, and (3) Etta Mae Cress and he died on 22^nd June 2010.

43R18

Emanuel Collett was born at Asher in Leslie County on 31^st December 1918, a son of Arthur and Frances Collett. The US Draft Registration on 16^th October 1940 confirmed he was still living with his mother in Asher, Leslie County, his next-of-kin Mrs Frances Brock, when he was 21 and having no job of work. His father had died when Emanuel was eight years old, after which his widowed mother had married William Brock. On the 8^th April 1941 at Fort Thomas, Newport County, Kentucky, he was an enlisted man having the rank of private, his military record confirming he had attended grammar school and having been a farm hand working on a general farm, and that he was single without dependents. The Leslie County census in 1950 identified Emanuel Collett as being 31 years of age and married to Edna, with whom he already had three children by then. He was a farmer, when the couple’s three children were Edmond Collett who was three years old, Alfred Collett who was two, and Dexter Collett who had been born during July 1949, and was nine months old. He was a veteran of the Second World War and died as Asher on 10^th September 1979 at the age of 60, and was buried in Pleasant Collett Family Cemetery.

43S14

Edmond Collett

Born in 1947 at Asher, Leslie County

43S15

Alfred Collett

Born in 1948 at Asher, Leslie County

43S16

Dexter Collett

Born in 1949 at Asher, Leslie County

43R19

Corbett Collett was another of the seven children of Arthur and Frances Morgan (known as Francy) who was born Asher, Leslie County, on 16^th March 1920, and was six years old when his father died. All records found for him so far having used the spelling of his christian name as Corbit. By the time he was 21 according to the WW2 Draft Registration Form he was still living at Asher, although by that time, his next-of-kin was recorded as Francy Brock of Asher, indicating that his widowed mother had remarried. The draft form confirmed his date of birth as reported above, and also stated that he was missing two fingers of his right hand.

One year after the end of the Second World War the marriage of Corbett Collett, aged 25, and Oprah Muncy, aged 21, took place at Harlan, Kentucky on 9^th March 1946. Corbett was confirmed as the son of Arthur Collett and Francy Morgan, and Oprah as the daughter of R E Muncy and Nancy Griffith. By the day of the Leslie census of 1950, Oprah had given birth to two daughters, Shari-Lynn Collett who was three, and Joan who had been born during August the previous year, so was around eight months old. Their father, Corbit Collett, was 29 and had a farm, while his wife was incorrectly recorded as Orpha Collett aged 22. In 1950 Corbett’s home was No. 43, when their immediate next-door neighbour was William Brock, a farmer aged 53, whose wife was Frances (Francy) Brock aged 52 and the former husband and widow of Arthur Collett, Corbett’s parents.

It was at Asher that Corbett Collett died on 16^th April 1998 at the age of 78, with an alternative source claiming the same date, but with his death recorded at Perry County in Kentucky, some miles to the east of Asher. The informant of his death perhaps did not know his date of birth, as it was recorded as 15^th November 1920. Another government document reports that Corbett Collett (his son) was residing at Mozelle in Leslie County from June 1998 until March 2002.

Many other, so far, unidentified members of the Collett were living close by the family of Corbett Collett in 1950, at No. 43, and they were as follows: at No. 40 - farmer Emanuel Collett (Ref. 43R18) with his wife and their three children; at No. 41 – Clarence Collett 24, wife Nettie 19, daughter Janice Collett three, and sons Bobby Collett one year old, and Clifford Collett who was three months old and born in January 1950; Please note, this family features in the Appendix at the end of the file

at No. 42 – farmer William Brock 53, wife Francy aged 52, the former Francy Collett nee Morgan (Ref. 43Q20), Corbett’s widowed and remarried mother, the mother of Emanuel (Ref. 43R18); at No. 50 – married teacher Earl Collett (Ref. 43S16), the son of Elmer (below), and at No. 53 – farmer Elmer Collett (Ref. 43R39) and his large family

43S17

Shari-Lynn Collett

Born in 1947 at Leslie County

43S18

Joan Collett

Born in 1950 at Leslie County

43S19

Corbett Collett junior

Born after 1950

43R20

Troy Collett was born at Asher in Leslie County on 1^st April 1926, the seventh son of Arthur and Frances Collett. As a result of the death of his father when Troy was less than four months old and his mother’s subsequent marriage to Willie Brock, Troy was raised by his mother and stepfather until he was 15 years of age. At that time in his life Troy was not honest about his actual age and joined the Civilian Conservation Corps and worked on Mammoth Cave. He was still in his teenage years when he married (1) Ruth Muncy and although that the marriage produced a son Ross Collette who was born in 1944, soon after Troy abandoned his wife and their son, when he took a second wife after arriving in Ohio.

It was there that he married (2) Opsie H Couch who was also born at Leslie County. Once married the couple moved back to Leslie County where their seven children were born, although only the three listed below are known at this time. Troy’s occupation at that time in his life was that of a coalminer. Troy’s son Corbett was named after his brother, about whom nothing is currently known.

In 1964 Troy was crushed in the coal mine, resulting in a broken back and leg, plus his left lung was punctured by one of his ribs. His fighting spirit helped him to recover and even to regain his ability to walk using crutches despite being informed that he would never walk again. He was however, paralysed from the waist down and four years later the family moved to London in Laurel County, Kentucky in 1968, where Troy lived until he passed away on 19^th February 2003. Two years earlier in 2001, Troy Collett was residing at 2091 Somerset Road in London, Kentucky. According to one internet source he was related to Benjamin Collett who is most likely his grandson Benjamin Wesley Collette, the son of Troy’s son Denver Collette, who has been researching the family tree.

43S20

Ross Collette

Born in 1944 at Leslie County

The following are the children of Troy Collett by his second wife Opsie H Couch:

43S21

Corbett Leonard Collette

Born in 1946 at Leslie County

43S22

Mary Helen Collette

Born in 1948 at Leslie County

43S23

Nancy Sue Collette

Born in 1950 at Leslie County

43S24

Betty Collette

Born in 1952 at Leslie County

43S25

Dwayne Collette

Born in 1954 at Leslie County

43S26

Denver Collette

Born in 1956 at Leslie County

43S27

Glenda Carol Collette

Born in 1959 at Leslie County

43R35

Burchell Collett was born at Hayden, Bad Creek in Leslie County during 1906 and as Birchell Collette was four years old in the census of 1910 when living with his parents George and Elizabeth Collett. He later married Mollie Asher and their son was born at Harlan (to the south of Hyden) in Kentucky during May 1929, all three of them living at Bad Creek in Lesley County in 1930. The census conducted on 3^rd April listed the family as: Burchell Collett, a farmer of 23, who was married at 21 and was renting the family home at 5$ a month; his wife Mollie Collett was 31 and first married at the age of 17, Burchell being her second husband; and their son Junior Collett who was only eleven months old. Living six properties from that Collett family was the family of farmer Lillie Bowling and his wife and their son Ed, who employed 47 years-old widow Rachel Collett as a domestic servant, who had first been married at the age of 21.

The death of Burchell Collett took place at Covington in Kenton County, Kentucky on 8^th February 1959. His death record confirmed that he was 53 years old and had been a welder, who was born at Hyden and the son of George W Collett and Elizabeth Chappel. His wife Mollie Collett had already passed away fifteen years earlier during 1944. Whilst Burchell is an unusual christian name, it may not be a coincidence that there were two other Burchell Colletts born in Kentucky around the same time, thus raising the question that there was very likely a common link somewhere. The first of them, a cousin two steps removed, is included below, while the brief details for the other ones are included in Appendix Three at the end of this file.

43S28

Junior Collett

Born in May 1929 at Harlan, Kentucky

43R36

Reuben Collett was born at Bad Creek in Leslie County during 1909, the son of George William Collett and his first wife Elizabeth Chappel. He remained living with his family at Bowen Creek Road through 1910, 1920 and 1930 when he was thirteen months, nine years, and 23 years respectively. It was around 1933 when he married Mary who was born around 1913. The Bad Creek census of 1940 identified Reuben, aged 31 and a labourer with W P A, living next to his father on Bowen Creek Road who, by then, had taken a second wife following the death of Reuben’s mother a few years earlier. Mary Collett was 27 and by then she had given Reuben four children. They were Sallie Collett who was six, Martha Collett who was five, Walter Collett who was three and Ruth Collett who was one year old.

43S29

Sally Collett

Born in 1934 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S30

Martha Collett

Born in 1935 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S31

Walter Collett

Born in 1937 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S32

Ruth Collett

Born in 1939 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R39

Elmer Collett was born at Bad Creek, Leslie County on 24^th July 1905 where he was still living with his family in 1920 aged 14 when he was working with his father Elias Collett on the family’s farm. He was the first-born of the three known children of Elias and Carla Howard. Eight years later he married Delora and they had a sizeable family by 1950. Their first census together in 1930 recorded the young family at 73 Bowens Creek Road in Bad Creek where Elmer Collett was a farmer renting a property at the age of 24. Delora Collett was only 16 and married two years earlier at 14. The couple’s first two children were Earl and Elias who were two years old and three months old respectively. Living at 74 Bowens Creek Road was Elmer’s mother Carla with her father-in-law John W Collett, while at 75 Bowens creek Road was Elmer’s younger brother John C Collett with his wife and their first child.

Ten years later, the enlarged family was residing as 129 Loer Bad Creek, where farmer Elmer Collett was 34. Delora, as Lora, was 26, who was looking after her six children who were Earl aged 10, Pauline who was nine, Edith who was seven, Kenneth who was five, Susie who was three, and Fern Marie who was ten months old. By the time of the Leslie census in 1950 the couple’s eldest son was married and employed as an elementary school teacher, when Earl Collett was 21 and his wife Rose Nell Collett was 15, who we recorded at No. 50.

A few properties away, at No. 53, was Earl’s family, headed by Elmer Collett who was 41 (sic) was still farming. His wife Delora was 36, and their nine children that day were Edith Collett 17, Kenneth Collett 15, Susie Collett 13, Fern Marie Collett 10, John Collett eight, Marcus Collett six, Joyce Collett three, Paul Collett one, and unnamed baby daughter Collett – just born.

43S33

Earl H Collett

Born in 1928 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S34

Elias Collett

Born in 1930 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S35

Edith Collett

Born in 1933 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S36

Kenneth Collett

Born in 1935 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S37

Susie Collett

Born in 1937 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S38

Fern Marie Collett

Born in 1939 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S39

John Collett

Born in 1942 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S40

Marcus Collett

Born in 1944 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S41

Joyce Collett

Born in 1947 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S42

Paul Collett

Born in 1949 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S43

Unnamed baby daughter

Born in 1950 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R40

John L Collett ($) was born at Bad Creek, Leslie County, on 27^th November 1907, the second of the three children of Elias and Carla Collett and Carla Howard. The later census return in 1920 recorded his name as John C Collett which may simply have been an error from poor handwriting, or a transcription mistake. Certainly, his great-grandson Derrick Collett confirmed in 2024 that he was known in the family as John L Collett.

He was certainly John C Collett in the Bad Creek census of 1920 when living at 75 Bowens Creek Road, with his mother living at No. 74 and his older brother Elmer (above) at No. 73. John C Collett was 22 and had married when he was 18, a farmer, whose wife was Phrona who was 19 and to whom he was married when she 16 years of age. On that day their son Sheldon Collett was twenty-six months old. At 76 Bowens Creek Road was Sam Collett another farmer who was 35 and married with five children, who was Samuel Collett (Ref. 43Q77).

In the US Census in 1940 John and his family were residing at Bad Creek Precinct, Leslie County, where John L Collett was 32 and a salesman living on Bowens Creek Road in the property next to his parents’ farm. With him was his wife Phronia Collett, formerly Morgan, who was 28, together with their six children. They were Sheldon Collett who was 12, Mary Collett who was 10, Vernon Collett who was eight, Elias Collett who was six, Eugene Collett who was four years of age, and daughter Gladys Collett who was one year old. Two years later the Medical Board registrar in 1942 was named as John L Collett who signed his father’s completed US Army draft record on 27^th April 1942, and six years after that it was John L Collett who was informant of his father’s death in 1948.

By 1950, John was 42 and a stone mill worker employed in manufacturing stone, Phronia was 39, son Vernon was working with his father at 18, as was son Elias aged 15, Eugene was 13, Gladys was 11, when the two new arrivals in the family were Helen Collett who was four, and Laretta Collett who was two. Living right next door was their married son Sheldon with his wife Vina. When John L Collett died on 23^rd December 1992 he was living at Essie in Leslie County, and was buried at the Bowens Creek Cemetery, at the age of 85.

43S44

Ernest Sheldon Collett $

Born in 1927 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S45

Mary Collett

Born in 1930 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S46

Vernon Collett

Born in 1932 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S47

Elias Collett

Born in 1934 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S48

Eugene Collett

Born in 1936 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S49

Gladys Collett

Born in 1939 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S50

Helen Collett

Born in 1946 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43S51

Laretta Collett

Born in 1948 at Bad Creek, Leslie County

43R41

Della Collett was born at Bad Creek in Leslie County on 9^th September 1911 the third and last child of Elias Collett and Carla Howard. A Social Program Application dated on 26^th February 1973 at Hoskinston in Leslie County named Della’s parents as Elias Collett and Carty Howard. However, twenty-three years later the death of Della Morgan nee Collett was recorded on 12^th April 1996.

43R52

Maggie Collett was born at Bloomington Precinct No. 5 in Magoffin County, Kentucky on 6^th May 1904 and was five years of age in the census of 1910, the eldest of the five children of James Farmer Asher Collett and Rosa Lee May/Calloy. Just prior to the census in 1920 the marriage of Maggie Collett, daughter of J F Collett and Rosa Lee May and aged 16, and Alfie Caldwell aged 21 and the son of J Caldwell and Nancy Brock was conducted at Magoffin County on 2^nd April 1920. Alfie Caldwell was very likely related to Alice Elizabeth Caldwell the wife of William Collett, Maggie’s grandfather.

Around start of the Second World War, Maggie gave birth to a daughter and may have already been made a widow just prior to the birth following the death of Alfie. Maggie therefore returned to live with her parents at 167 Long Branch in Salyersville, within the Magisterial District No. 1 of Magoffin County, where she was recorded in the census of 1940. Curiously, it was as Maggie Brock, rather than Maggie Caldwell, that she 35 and a widow from Knox County in Kentucky, who had with her, her one-year-old daughter Jean Fay Brock After a second marriage, it was on 21^st February 1966 that, as Maggie L Heilman she made a Social Program Claim when she was confirmed as the daughter of Farmer J Collett and Rosa Lee May, born on the date provided above. Twenty-five years after that, Maggie L Heilman died on 13^th October 1991.

43R54

Herman Collett was born at Bloomington Precinct No. 5 on 3^rd July 1910, the third child of James and Rosa Lee Collett, who was one year old in the 1910 and was ten years of age in 1920, both time at Bloomingdale. It was on 29^th June 1929 that the wedding of Herman Collett and Maggie Alice Patton was recorded at Magoffin County when Herman was 20 and a farmer, the son of J F Collett and Rosa Lee Collett, and Maggie was 19 and the daughter of W M Patton and Cynthia Patton. One of the witnesses was Herman’s cousin Willie Collett (Ref. 43R3). Once married the couple settled at Gifford Precinct in Magoffin County, where they were recorded in the census of 1930 as owners of their own home, for which they had paid $600.

That year, before starting their family, it was just Herman Collett who was 20 and a general farmer, and wife Maggie Collett who was 19 and preparing for the birth of their first child. Also at that time, living immediately adjacent to their Collett farm was a much larger farming Collett family, that of Frank aged 48 and Rosa Collett. Their seven children were Walter 18 and helping on the farm, Mary aged 16, Albert aged 14, Billie aged 12, Lennard who was ten, Sam who was eight, and Ella Collett who was six. Where that family links into this family line has still to be discovered if, in fact it does. Over the next decade Maggie gave birth to two daughters and then two sons, with the six members living at 169 Long Branch within the Magisterial District No. 1 of Magoffin County in 1940. Herman Collett was 29 and a road project labourer with the W P A, his wife Maggie Collett was 23, and their four children were Genevia (sic) Collett aged nine, Reva Collett aged six, J W Collett was three, and Layne Collett was one year old. Living either side of the Collett family were the families of Willie and Cellie Collett at 168 – not yet identified, and Willie M Collett (Ref. 43Q75) at 170, a younger brother of Herman’s father James Farmer (Asher) Collett who was living at 167 Long Branch.

The US Draft Registration for the Second World War placed Herman Collett, born at Magoffin, still living at Salyersville on 16^th October 1940, whose date of birth was as stated above, an employee of the W P A, and the husband of Maggie Collett. Just after that, Herman and Maggie moved to Indiana, most likely accompanied by their eldest daughter who was later married there, and where Herman died on 1^st December 1943, his death recorded at Clark County.

43S52

Geneva Collett

Born in 1931 at Gifford, Magoffin County

43S53

Reva Collett

Born in 1934 at Gifford, Magoffin County

43S54

J W Collett

Born in 1937 at Long Branch, Magoffin County

43S55

Layne Collett

Born in 1939 at Long Branch, Magoffin County

43R55

Bee Collett was born at Bloomington Precinct No. 5 in 1914 another son of James Farmer and Rosa Lee Collett. Bee was six years old in the Bloomington census of 1920, and it was on 8^th March 1930, when he was 16, that he married Estill Adous who was 17 and the daughter of Abbott Adous and Molina Cook. Bee was described as a farmer and the son of J F Collett and Rosa Lee Calloy.

43R56

Allen Collett was born at Bloomington Precinct No. 5 in 1918 and was two years and one month old in the census of 1920, the fifth children of James Farmer Asher Collett and his first wife Rosa Lee May. It was just after the Second World War, on 11^th March 1946 at Garrett in Meade County, that 28-year-old bachelor and farmer Allen Collett married war-widow Cindy Whitt who was 26. The groom was confirmed as the son of Farmer Collett and Rosa Lee May Collett, when the bride was the daughter of John Morgan Whitt and Nancy Scott Whitt. The marriage certificate stated that the groom was living at Salyersville, and the bride at Garrett

43R57

Millard Collett was born at Gifford, Magoffin, Kentucky on 22^nd November 1925 and was 15 years old in the census of 1940 when he was still living with his family at 167 Long Branch, Salyersville, within the Magisterial District No. 1 of Magoffin County. The following year a Social Program Application was made out in the name of Millard Collett by his parents J P Collett and Rosa L May. Towards the end of the next year Millard Collett was 17 years old when he married Beatrice James 16 at Inez, Martin County near the state boundary with West Virginia, on 7^th November 1942. That day, the record of their wedding day confirmed that Millard was a son of J F Collett and his wife Rosella aka Rosalie, Rosa Lee. Beatrice was the daughter of Jasper W James and Addie James. When he died on 6^th September 2001 he was recorded as Sam M Collett, son of J P Collett and Rosa L May who had been born at Gifford in Magoffin County. Prior to that he had been living at Phoenix, Arizona, and was known as Sam Mil Collett and simply Sam Collett.

43R63

BURCHELL COLLETT was born at Clay County in Kentucky on 5^th March 1915, the fifth known child of John Collett and Dora Smith. When Burchell was four years old he was living with his family which was then living at Manchester in Clay County. After a further ten years he was 14 years of age and was still at the family home which was in District 8 in Clay County. Within the next few years Burchell Collett married Della and by 1940 Della had presented him with their first two children. The census that year recorded the family of four living at the home of Burchell’s parents in Magisterial District 2 in Bell County, Kentucky. Burchell Collett was 24, his wife Della was 20, and their two children were Lee Collett who was five and Leonard P Collett who was two years of age. It is possible that further children may have been added to the family after 1940. However, it was during June 1980 that Burchell Collett died.

It seems likely that one of the later children of Burchell Collett was Lindy Collett (#43s58) whose death was recorded at Pineville in Bell County, Kentucky, in 1943 when her parents were named Burchell Collett and Ella Slusher, who may also have been known as Della.

43S56

Lee Collett

Born in 1935 at Clay County, Kentucky

43S57

LEONARD P COLLETT

Born in 1937 at Clay County, Kentucky

43R72

Billie Collett was the only known son of Gilbert Collett and his second wife Ellen Collett, who was born at Harlan County during 1914. Six years after his father died, the marriage of Billie Collett and Margaret Honey was conducted at White Star and recorded at Harlan County on 13^th February 1932 when Billie was said to be 21 (sic) and Margaret was 18. Tragically, he was killed while working as a coalminer when the area in which he was working underground collapse. That happened on 8^th November 1950 at Closplint in Harlan County when his age was more correctly recorded as 38, after which he was buried at Jenson Cemetery on 11^th November. The death certificate confirmed that the cause of death was a crushed skull due to a slate fall in a mine.

43R74

Myrtle Collett was the second child of Willie M Collett and Sina Caudill but ended up as the couple’s eldest daughter when her old sister suffered a childhood death. She was born at Gifford, Magoffin County on 26^th November 1917 and was still living with her parents in 1940 at Magisterial District No. 1 in Magoffin County, where she was a seamstress. Eight years later, as Mrs Myrtle Blevins, she and her husband George Blevins, a farmer, were the witnesses at the wedding of her only brother Ollen Collett (below). Their son George Lawson Blevins was born at Salyersville, Magoffin County on 10^th November 1950 when his birth was registered at Magoffin County. The later death of Myrtle Blevins was recorded at Montgomery County in Kentucky during March 1975.

43R76

Ollen Collett was born at Gifford, Magoffin County on 11^th December 1923 and was recorded in various census returns with different names being with O. He was the only son in the family of ten children of Willie Collett and Sina Caudill. He was 18 years old when he completed the US Draft Registration Form at Magoffin on 30^th June 1942 and was inducted for military service on 21^st May 1943 at Huntington in West Virginia, for the duration of the war, plus six months. Her entered with the rank of private, and his military record confirmed that he had received a grammar school education, was a farm hand on his father general farm. What happened after the war is a little curious. First, on 16^th September 1946, the marriage of bachelor Ollen Collett and spinster Marie Collins took place at Paintsville in Johnson County, when one of the witnesses was Marie’s mother Josie Collins.

Then two years later, when Ollen Collett was nearly 25, he married Marie Collins, who was 21, at Elsie in Magoffin County on 5^th November 1948, and confirmed as the son of Willie and Sina Collett nee Caudill Collett. Elsie was the daughter of Beecher Collins and Josie Stacy. Despite their young ages, both were stated to be divorced, making each of them entering their second marriage. The witnesses were the former Myrtle Collett, Ollen’s sister, Myrtle Blevins, and her husband Gorgie Blevins.

Just after that strange recording, and within the two weeks after his twenty-eighth birthday, the marriage of Ollen Collett, son of Willie Collett and Sina Caudill Collett, and Etta Fay Caudill, daughter of Bill Caudill and Lisa Williams Caudill, was conducted at Salyersville, Magoffin County on 23^rd December 1951. Ollen was recorded in error as being only 27, while Etta was just 21, and once again, Ollen’s sister Myrtle Blevins was one of the witnesses.

Ollen Collett was two weeks short of his sixty-third birthday when he died on 29^th November 1986 with his death recorded at Fayette County in Kentucky, prior to which he had been living at Montgomery County, Kentucky.

43R77

Clara Collett was another child of Willie and Sina Collett who was recorded in census returns with different names; as Carrie aged three in 1930, and as Claire aged 14 in 1940, placing her year of birth around 1926-1927. However, as Clara she was born at Gifford on 6^th April 1925, another daughter for Sina Caudill Collett, with her birth registered Magoffin County five days later. It was at Salyersville that Clara Collett married Earl Collins on 30^th April 1945 in the presence of Rex Collins and Elsie Mae Collins, Clara’s younger sister (below).

Clara applied to the Social Program on 1^st November 1973 when she was residing in Salyersville and was confirmed as the child of Willie Collett and Sina Caudill. After a further twenty-three years, Clara Collins died at Lexington in Fayette County, Kentucky on 3^rd December 1996.

43R79

Elsie Mae Collett was born at Gifford, Magoffin County on 9^th March 1928, the daughter of Sina Caudill, did not feature with her family in 1930, but was eight years old and was living with her family at 170 Long Branch in Salyersville for the census in 1940. When Elsie Mae Collett married Rex Collins on 13^th April 1945 at Salyersville she was 18 and Rex was 20. Whilst the bride was described as a daughter of Willie Collett and Sina Caudill, the groom’s parents were interestingly recorded as Millard Collins and Mattie Caudill. The witnesses were Myrtle Collett, Elsie’s older sister (above) and Earl Collins. The known son of Rex and Elsie was Rex Collins who was born on 20^th March 1947. Elsie Mae Collett Collins died at Paintsville in Johnson County, Kentucky on 26^th May 2001 when she was 73, and was buried at Highland Memorial Park Cemetery in Staffordsville, Johnson County.

43R81

Virginia Collett was born on 30^th May 1936 at Salyersville, Magoffin County, another daughter of Willie and Sina Collett. It was as Virginia Ward that she died on 10^th August 2002, while thirty years earlier she applied to the Social Program in August 1971 when she was residing in Salyersville and confirmed as the child of Willie Collett and Sina Caudill. Also, as Viriginia Collett Ward, the wife of Raymond Ward, she gave birth to two daughters: Debra A Ward, on 6^th August 1957, and Patricia Lynn Ward, and two sons: Phillip R Ward on 14^th December 1960, and Willie Earl Ward on 23^rd September 1966, the births registered at Johnson County, Kentucky, the latter of whom died on 9^th December 1966.

43R91

Elizabeth Ann Collett, who is known as Ann, was born at San Antonio in Texas on 22^nd August 1935, the only child of William Bruns Collett and Anna Ruth Strong. She married Roger (Buddy) Kondoff on 20^th April 1957 with whom she had three children who were all born at San Antonio. They were Keith Brian Kondoff who was born on 20^th July 1958, Karen Elaine Kondoff who was born on 14^th October 1959 and Kevin Wayne Kondoff who was born on 16^th October 1960.

43R92

William James Collett, who is known as Bill, was born at Mississippi on 24^th November 1941. He was married, although none resulted in the birth of any Collett children. In 2008 Bill participated in the Collett DNA Project managed by Barry Collett of Iowa (Ref. 43S1).

43R93

Beverly Sue Collett, who is known as Sue, was born at San Antonio in Texas on 25^th March 1943. She married (1) Buford Ray Flanagan on 9^th April 1963 with whom she had two children. They were Laura Lynn Flanagan born on 9^th February 1966, who died on 7^th November 2011, and Daniel Ray Flanagan who was born on 24^th June 1970. Sue and Buford were divorced in 1976. Buford was born at Marion County in Alabama on 26^th July 1941 and he died at Garza County in Texas in 1984. Sue married (2) Jerry Donald Collier on 16^th February 1984 and they were divorced six years later in 1990, following which Sue resumed using the surname Flanagan. This photograph of Sue was taken in September 2009

43R94

James Robert Collett, who was referred to as Bobby, was born at McAllen in Hidalgo County, Rio Grande Valley in Texas on 27^th September 1947. He was a banker and, in his leisure time, he created beautiful Faberge style eggs. One such egg was gifted to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Museum where it is displayed to this day. Bobby never married and he sadly died at the age of just forty-three years and six months at Homestead in Florida on 9^th March 1991. This photograph of Bobby was taken around 1989.

43R95

Sandra Lea Collett was born at Hidalgo in Texas in the Rio Grande Valley on 20^th October 1948. Towards the end of the 1960s Sandra married William Charles Peters with whom she had two sons. Today Sandra is employed as a mitigation specialist working with defence lawyers on murder cases at Lubbock in Texas.

43S58

Bryan Scott Peters

Born in 1969 at Fort Worth in Texas

43S59

Jeffrey Lee Collett formerly Peters

Born in 1970 at Fort Worth in Texas

43R96

Sylvia Jean Collett was born at Bellaire in Texas on 17^th February 1957. Sylvia married Darrell Wilson in 1986 and the marriage produced one child for the Sylvia and Darrell. In May 1999 Sylvia married Robert Kyle and today they live at Hockley County in Texas. Their son Taylor Ryan Wilson was born on 3^rd May 1987.

43R101

William Barrow Collett III was born in Atchison, Kansas on 7^th August 1921 when his parents were living at 319 T Street. He graduated from Central High School in St Joseph Missouri and started college at Westminster College where Winston Churchill made one of his famous war-time speeches. He transferred to the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland shortly before the US joined World War II. He graduated in 1943 and married Dorothy Alyce Butler, who was known as Stormy, at Annapolis in September 1943 just before he was assigned to sea duty on the US cruiser Nashville. Dorothy was the daughter of retired US Navy Captain Willard/William Cornwallis Butler and his wife.

It is interesting to note that in 1944 a Japanese kamikaze pilot crashed his plane into the cruiser Nashville with the loss of 138 lives. The long separation was too much for them and they were divorced soon after William's return to the States. He then entered flight school and became a naval pilot and was transferred to Ottumwa in Iowa where he met his second wife Corrine Phillips who was born there in 1920. It was on 29^th May 1948 that William married (2) Corinne at West Orange, New Jersey and the couple originally settled in Florida before moving to Washington in 1951, where William was becoming proficient in the Russian language.

William used to fly with the navy, just at weekends, in order to retain his pilot’s rating. It was during one of those flights that he was tragically killed on 13^th January 1952 at Wayne City when the plane crashed into the frozen over Detroit River. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, where his father and mother had also been buried.

His obituary appeared in the Ottumwa newspaper and read as follows: Corrine Phillips’ Husband Dies in Navy Plane Crash. Lt. William B Collett III, U. S. Navy, was killed in a plane crash near Detroit on Sunday afternoon when flying a navy Beechcraft patrol plane from Washington to Detroit. He was the son-in-law of Mr and Mrs Howard Phillips of 1805 North Court Street. His wife, the former Corinne Phillips, was at home with their baby daughter in Washington, D. C. when she learned of the accident. Lieutenant Collett was a flying officer in the navy but for the past year he has been stationed in Washington, D. C. in intelligence duty. However, he maintained his flight status by flying regularly. It was on one of these routine flights that he was killed. Following the death of her husband, Corrine was remarried first to Bob Long and then to Dick Smith.

43S60

Cosette Louise Collett

Born in 1949 in Florida

43R102

Groff Collett was born at Atchison on 8^th May 1923. In 1926 the family moved to Detroit, Michigan where he attended Cooke School in Rosedale Park. In 1935 they moved to St. Joseph, Missouri. On 29^th June 1946 Groff married Lila Grace Wiggin who was born at Pittsburgh on 6^th April 1923. This took place at Oak Park in Cook City in Illinois. It was in Ohio four years earlier in 1942 that Groff had first met Lila. He was attending Kenyon College in Gambier in Ohio, while Lila was attending Dennison College in Granville, Ohio. They had four children. This photograph of Groff was taken in 1990

His college was interrupted by World War II and after teaching for a short period he joined the Navy where he became an Electronic Technician. It was when he was discharged from the navy in June of 1946 that he and Lila were married, following which they and then moved to Gambier, Ohio where Groff finish his degree in mathematics at Kenyon College. In 1947 they moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts where Groff entered graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his Master’s degree in Business and Engineering Administration in 1949. They moved to Appleton, Wisconsin in 1949 where Groff joined an organisation doing research for the paper industry.

In 1954 Groff joined Consolidated Papers in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin and became a Vice president in 1966. He retired in 1988 when he and Lila were still living in Wisconsin Rapids and, in 2020 their married daughter Leslie Moss moved her elderly parents to near where she and her family were living in DePere, Wisconsin. It is thanks to Groff’s generosity in kindly providing the details of his family that has enabled them to be added to this Staffordshire family line.

Just after the start of 2022, Groff’s daughter Leslie informed us of the sad news that he had passed away on 28^th December 2021. She also provided a copy of his obituary, as follows:

“Groff Collett, 98, recent resident of De Pere, Wisconsin, and long-time resident of Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, passed away on December 28, 2021. He was born on May 8, 1923, in Atchison, Kansas, to Vera Groff Collett and William Barrow Collett Jr. Groff attended Central High School, St Joseph, Missouri; Kenyon College and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a member of the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity. Groff married Lila Grace Wiggin on June 29, 1946, in Oak Park, Illinois. Groff had a successful career in the paper industry. In 1988, he retired from Consolidated Papers, Inc, as a Vice President in charge of Paperboard Products Division, #13 Board Machine, Stevens Point Specialty Papers Division and Castle Rock Container Corporation. Groff served in the US Navy from 1944-1946.

Groff was extremely active in community affairs. He served as the director on various boards including the American Red Cross, the Wisconsin Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, Rotary of Wisconsin Rapids, the South Wood County Y.M.C.A., the Wood County Unit of the Wisconsin Heart Association and the Riverview Hospital Association. He also served as Vice Chairperson of the Jobs Task Force of the South Wood County Economic Development Corporation. Groff was named the 1990 Citizen of the Year by the Wisconsin Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce. He worked extremely hard and was very active in his leisure time. He was intellectually curious and stayed abreast of and researched numerous topics including current affairs, finance and family genealogy. He loved the outdoors and shared this love with his wife and children. He also enjoyed travelling in his motorhome and numerous sports including skiing, golf, football, racquetball and camping. His quieter hobbies included playing bridge and reading.

He is survived by his wife, Lila Wiggin Collett, with whom he was married for 75 years and shared a wonderful life together. Children: Tama Mobisson, Chrisanne (Jeffrey) Waldo, Kent Collett, and Leslie (Stephen) Moss. Grandchildren: Shelley (Grant) Boulanger, Geoffrey (Donna) Mobisson, Kathrine (Katura) Mobisson-Brown, Laura (Imo) Mobisson-Etuk, Jidenna Mobisson, Kori (David) Burland, Michael Waldo, Kristin (Ryan) McClintock, Elizabeth (Edward) Chaisson, Jamie (Fletcher, Jr.) Stovall, Roberta (Matthew) Neuwirth, Jefferey (Chrissy) Collett, Gregory (Laura) Collett, Alexander (Rebecca) Moss, Laura Moss, Samuel Moss, and 22 Great Grandchildren. Siblings: sister, Catherine Buck, sister-in-law, Corinne Smith, niece and nephew: Dana Dunne and Parker E. Wiggin, III.”

43S61

Tama Louise Collett

Born in 1948 at Boston, Massachusetts

43S62

Chrisanne Collett

Born in 1949 at Appleton, Wisconsin

43S63

Kent Groff Collett

Born in 1952 at Appleton, Wisconsin

43S64

Leslie Wiggin Collett

Born in 1961 at Wisconsin Rapids

43R103

Catherine Ann Collett was born at Atchison on 15^th November 1924. She graduated from Central High School in St Joseph in Missouri in 1942. Four years later Catherine and her family moved to Chicago where she was a teacher at a nursery school in Oak Park. A little later she was an assistant teacher at the Girl’s Latin School of Chicago. After a spell at a school in Elgin, Catherine returned to Boston where she had undertaken her earlier training and she graduated from Boston University with a degree in Nursery School Education in 1950. She then returned to Chicago to live with her parents. On 10^th May 1952 Kate, as she was called by the family, married Robert (Bob) Louis Buck in Chicago. Bob was born on 1^st October 1921 at Lakewood in Ohio. In 1965 the couple moved to Barrington in Illinois where Kate still lives today and where Bob died on 31^st March 2009.

43R104

Aileen Collett was born at Burton-on-Trent where the birth was recorded (Ref. 6b 25) during the first quarter of 1935, when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Harvey. She was the only child of John Edwin William Collett and Edith Aileen Harvey. She was just twenty-years-of age when her first marriage to (1) Geoffrey C Hawkins was recorded at Burton-on-Trent register office (Ref. 9b 86) during the second quarter of 1955. No children have been identified for that first marriage, while the later marriage of Aileen Hawkins and Ronald G Thomson was recorded at the East Staffordshire register office during February 1989. Aileen was understood to have still been alive in 2013, but no details have been forthcoming.

43R105

Brenda Collett was born at Salford on 13^th March 1943 and was the only child of James Collett and Emily Moss. She never married but had a very full life and died on 12^th January 2024 in Salford. Her birth as recorded at Salford register office (Ref. 8d 698) when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Moss.

43R107

Allan Collett was born at Salford on 25^th November 1935, the only child of Alfred Collett and Elizabeth Ford. His birth was recorded at Salford register office (Ref. 8d 32) during the first three months of the year, when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Ford. As Alan Collett, aged 24, he married Moira Botham, the event recorded at Salford register office (Ref. 10f 132) during the first quarter of 1960. The couple did not have any children, while after sixty-three years together, it was also as Alan Collett that he died on 18^th March 2023.

43S1

Barry Oliver Collett was born at Jefferson County in Iowa in 1944. He is married and his son was born in Lee County in Iowa.

43T1

Barry Oliver Collett junior

Born in 1968 at Lee County, Iowa

43S3

Walden Collett was born at Ashers Fork, in Clay County on 12^th April 1926, the second child and eldest son of Wilkerson Collett and Phrona Asher, - Wilk & Franie. In the census of 1930 he was five years of age when he and his family were living at 245 Blue Hole Creek Road and was 15 years old in the census of 1940, again at Blue Hole. He was referred to as Walden Collett of Arjay in Bell County when an application was made in 1943 to the Social Program when his mother was confirmed as Franie Asher. Two years after that, when he was 19, Walden married Pauline Roark, aged 16, at Rook in Bell County on 15^th December 1945. The groom was confirmed as the son of Franie Collett, when the bride was the daughter of Lawrence Roark and Bernice Smith.

By the time of the next census in 1950 four members of his Collett family were living in four adjoining properties, with Walden and his family living immediately adjacent to his parents, home. It was appear that, while his father had his own business and store, Walden and his uncle and next-door neighbour Jim Collett had opened up a timber cutting company in which they were both described as employers. Walden Collett was 24, his wife Pauline was 19, by which time they had three children living with them at 78 Blue Hole Waters in Red Bird. They were Suther aged three, a son, but with F in the gender column, Esther May who was one, and Walden James who had been born there in March that year. The census was on 1^st April, so he could have been anything from one day old to four weeks.

Just less than forty-six years after that census day, when Walden Collett was 70, he passed away on 1^st January 1996, with his death recorded at Bell County, after which he was buried at the Smith Family Cemetery in Ashers Fork, Clay County. For both the registering of his passing, and his burial, he was referred to as Walden Collett senior, indicating that he and Pauline had a son with the same name – as confirmed above. The son’s second forename appears to be in honour of his uncle and ‘business partner’ James Collett.

43T2

Suther Collett

Born in 1946, at Red Bird, Kentucky

43T3

Esther May Collett

Born in 1948, at Red Bird, Kentucky

43T4

Walden James Collett

Born in March 1950, at Red Bird, Kentucky

43S14

Edmond Collett, whose date of birth is not known, was the son of Emanuel Collett and the grandson of Arthur and Frances Collett. He was a successful lawyer in Kentucky and was also one of the largest landowners in the state. He was one of three men charged and convicted of conspiracy in the use of false absentee ballots in the US election of 1977. The case was reported in the Kentucky newspaper on 29^th October 1980, when the three co-conspirators were each fined $5,000 and sentenced to four years in prison. One of the men named with Edmond was C Allen Muncey who may have been related to the wife of Troy Collett, the younger brother of Edmond’s father Emanuel. The only other known fact about Edmond at this time is that he has a daughter Angela.

43T2

Angela Collett

Date of birth unknown

43S20

Ross Collette was born at Leslie County in 1944, the son of Troy Collett and his first wife Ruth Muncey. Sadly, his father left his mother for another woman when Ross was still a baby and, in fact, Ruth also looked after Ross’ half-brother for a short while. Ross later married Sharon Kaye Caudill and it was Ross and Sharon’s daughter, Angela Collette, who kindly provided details of her family line from Sarah Collett (Ref. 43N2) and Dillion Asher, whose children all retained the Collett surname.

43T3

Angela Collette

Date of birth unknown

43S21

Corbett Leonard Collette was born at Leslie County on 26^th March 1946, the son of Troy Collett and his second wife Opsie H Couch. Corbett was named after his father’s brother and was referred to as Little Corbett. He attended college and later joined the Coast Guard. Corbett went on to have three children of his own, Joseph Troy, Stacy, and Debbie. He was only fifty years old when he passed away on 3^rd November 1996 at the age of 50. It was his daughter Debra Lynn Collett, now Debbie Lee, of Richmond in Indiana, who made contact in 2014 and supplied the latest details about her family. Joseph Troy Collett is her half-brother, her father having been married twice.

43T4

Joseph Troy Collett

Date of birth unknown

43T5

Stacy Collett

Date of birth unknown

43T6

Debra Lynn Collett

Date of birth unknown

43S26

Denver Collett was born at Leslie County another son Troy Collett and his second wife Opsie H Couch. All that is currently known about Denver is that he is married to Melissa and that his son Ben has researched the Collett family and was building a website in early 2014. The couple’s other son Dustin (Dusty) Collett was born in 1982. Nothing has been heard from Ben since 2014.

43T7

Benjamin Wesley Collett

Date of birth unknown

43T8

Dustin Clay Collett

Born in 1982 at Louisville, Kentucky

43S44

Ernest Sheldon Collett ($) who was known as Sheldon, was born at Bad Creek, Leslie County on 20^th December 1927 and was the first-born child of John L Collett and Phrona Morgan. It would seem he lived his whole life in Kentucky, including places like Stinnett, Essie, and 160 Daniel Branch Road in Essie where he was residing during the summer of 1993. It may have been there that he died on 27^th May 2010, at the age 82. He was two years old in the Bad Creek census of 1930, was 12 years old in 1940, and by 1950 Sheldon Collett, aged 22 and a stone mill worker in the manufacturing of stone. His wife Vina Collett was 17 with the recently marriage childless couple living next door to Sheldon’s parents.

Thanks to Sheldon’s grandson we know for sure the he and Vina had a some Douglas who was born in the 1950s, although there may have been others in addition to Doug as he was referred to by his son Derrick.

43T9

Douglas Collett ($)

Date of birth unknown

43S49

Gladys Collett was born at Bad Creek, Leslie County on 18^th January 1939, the sixth of the eight children of John L Collett and Phronia Morgan. She was one year old in the 1940 census when living with her family at Bowens Creek Road. She was married four times during her life, the second time on 6^th June 1968 when, as Gladys Collett Roberts, she became Gladys Collett Sizemore, the wife of Hughie Sizemore, when Hughie’s mother’s name was Rebecca Collett, the wife of Willie Sizemore. It was on 8^th September 1980 when the last marriage of Gladys Collett Sizemore and Ray Morgan, a possible member of her mother’s family, took place at Lee County in Virginia. Ray was 49, the son of Dennis and Nerva Morgan, while Gladys was 41 and the daughter of John L Collett and Phronia Morgan. By the time Gladys passed away on 21^st May 2004, she also had another name she was known by, and that was Gladys Partin applicable in 1978, presumably via her second marriage.

43S52

Geneva Collett was the eldest child of Herman Collett and Maggie Alice Patton and was born on 26^th February 1931 at Gifford, Magoffin County in Kentucky. She was thirty-two when she married Dale Hoke Coleman at Knox County, Indiana, on 26^th June 1963, when she was confirmed as the daughter of Herman Collett and Maggie Alice Patten. Dale was the same age as Geneva, having been born on 11^th March 1931.

43S53

Reva Collett was born at Gifford, Magoffin County, in 1934 and was another daughter of Herman and Maggie Collett. She was very young when she married Warden Caudill at Magoffin County on 23^rd December 1947, when she was confirmed as the daughter of Herman Collett and Maggie Alice Patten.

43S57

LEONARD P COLLETT was born at Knox County in Kentucky on 2^nd November 1937, the second child of Burchell and Della Collett. He was two years of age in the census of 1840 when he and his family was staying with his paternal grandparents John and Della Collett at Magisterial District 2 in Bell County, Kentucky. Leonard later married Lola Cloud with whom he had a son after the couple settled in the town of Dowagiac in Michigan.

43T10

MARK COLLETT

Born in 1965 at Dowagiac, Michigan

43S58

Bryan Scott Peters was born on 24^th July 1969 at the Carswell Air Force Base at Fort Worth in Texas. Today Bryan lives in Wisconsin.

43S59

Jeffrey Lee Collett was born as Jeffrey Lee Peters on 18^th November 1970 at Carswell Air Force Base at Fort Worth in Texas. He is known as Jeff, and when he was sixteen years of age, he legally changed his surname to his mother’s maiden of Collett. Nowadays, Jeff lives at Watford in Hertfordshire, England, with his wife Karen. Jeff works in the field of information technology for a Boston based company, while Karen is a Special Educational Needs Teacher.

43S60

Cosette Louise Collett was born in Florida on 28^th March 1949. Her father William Barrow Collett (the third) died before she was three years old, following which her mother remarried. By 1990 she was living at Coon Rapids in Minnesota.

43S61

Tama Louise Collett was born in Boston, Massachusetts on 14^th October 1948. She attended public schools in Wisconsin Rapids and then entered Rockford College in Illinois. While a student there she developed a relationship with a foreign student and delivered a baby girl out of wedlock. The father of the child decided not to continue the relationship so it was agreed that the baby should be offered up for adoption and was fortunate to be selected by an outstanding family. Today the child of Tama Louise is married with two children of her own, and both she and her husband, currently living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, have a good relationship with the Collett family.

Tama married Oliver Udemmadu Ogbonnia Mobisson on 4^th October 1969 at Cambridge in Suffolk City. He was a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was born at Awo-Idemili, Orlu in Nigeria on 23^rd April 1943. The marriage produced four children for Tama and Oliver, the first three born in Massachusetts and the fourth at Wisconsin Rapids. They are Geoffrey Emeka Mobisson born 10^th May 1970 at Cambridge, Kathrine Chinyere Mobisson born 10^th June 1972 at Lynn, Laura Nneka Mobisson born 10^th March 1975 at Cambridge, and Jidenna Theodore Mobisson who was born on 4^th May 1985.

Tama and Oliver Mobisson lived in Nigeria from 1985 until 1991, after which Tama returned to Wisconsin Rapids. It was during the following year that she joined Pilgrim Healthcare as a staff accountant. Oliver was Professor Oliver Mobisson at the Enuga State University, where he was a computer scientist at the forefront of modern computer technology. When Tama returned to America in 1991, he stayed on in Nigeria to carry on his development work, but in March 1995 he suffered a stroke, at which time Tama flew out to Lagos and returned with him to Boston.

43S62

Chrisanne Collett was born at Appleton, Wisconsin on 24^th December 1949. She married (1) Douglas Harold Freund on 30^th June 1979 at Wisconsin Rapids. Douglas was born at McHenry in Illinois on 14^th May 1956, and his marriage to Chrisanne produced two daughters for the couple. They were later divorced and, on 24^th July 1997, Chrisanne married (2) Jeffrey Mark Waldo who brought two adopted Korean children into the marriage. The four children from her two marriages are Kori Elise Freund born 10^th January 1982, Kristin Ashley Freund born 24^th February 1985, both at Woodstock in Illinois, Michael Lee Waldo born 21^st February 1984, and Elizabeth Ann Waldo who was born on 24^th October 1988.

43S63

Kent Groff Collett was born at Appleton, Wisconsin on 13^th November 1952. He married Constance Hagen on 22^nd January 1972 at the Moravian Church in Wisconsin Rapids. During the first six years of their life together Constance presented her husband with four children, including a set of twins. They were later divorced. After high school Kent attended Bucknell University in Pennsylvania and after his marriage he earned his degree in marketing from the University of Wisconsin. In 2009 Kent was working as a manufacturer's representative and was living in St. Louis, Missouri.

43T11

Jamie Marie Collett

Born in 1972 at Madison, Wisconsin

43T12

Roberta Ann Collett

Born in 1977 at Wisconsin Rapids

43T13

Jefferey Charles Collett

Born in 1978 at Fond du Lac County

43T14

Gregory Groff Collett

Born in 1978 at Fond du Lac County

43S64

Leslie Wiggin Collett was born Wisconsin Rapids on 17^th August 1961. She attended public schools in Wisconsin Rapids and later earned a degree in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin in Platteville, Wisconsin. It was at Wisconsin Rapids that on 1^st October 1988 Leslie married Stephen John Moss who was also born in Wisconsin on 23^rd March 1961. They have three children and in 2009 were living in DePere, Wisconsin, where they were still living on 2021. Their three children were born at Green Bay in Wisconsin and are Alexander Stephen Moss born 30^th December 1990, Laura Kathrine Moss born 24^th January 1994, and Samuel Patrick Moss who was born on 11^th April 1998.

43T7

Joseph Troy Collett was the son of Corbett Leonard Collett, although his date and place of birth is not known. He is the half-brother of Debbie Lee, formerly Debra Lynn Collett, who provided the details of his family. In 2014 Joseph was living in Alabama and has a daughter Hailee Collett and a son Payton Collett. Through his marriage Joseph also has another child, the daughter of his wife, who has also taken the Collett family name, she now being known as Stacey Collett.

43U1

Hailee Collett

Born circa 1992

43U2

Payton Collett

Born circa 2006

43T8

Dustin Clay Collett was born at Louisville in Kentucky on 9^th October 1982, a son of Denver and Melissa Collett. He was raised in Ohio and when his family moved to Tennessee, Dustin remained in Ohio where he continued his schooling. Known as Dusty, he was a senior and a business management major at Northern Kentucky University, but tragically passed away on 7^th May 2005.

43T9

Douglas Collett ($), who is known as Doug, was born in the 1950s, a son of Ernest Sheldon Collett and his wife Vina.

43U3

Derrick Collett ($)

Date of birth not unknown

43T10

MARK COLLETT was born at Dowagiac in Michigan on 19^th December 1965, the only known child of Leonard P Collett and Lola Cloud.

43U4

Natalie Collett

Born in 1989 at Dowagiac, Michigan

43U5

JASON COLLETT

Born in 1990 at Dowagiac, Michigan

43T11

Jamie Marie Collett was born at Madison in Wisconsin on 16^th August 1972, the eldest of the four children of Kent Groff Collett and Constance Hagen, who were later divorced. It is from her grandfather’s obituary that we know, at the time of the death of Groff Collett, at the end of 2021, Jamie was married to Fletcher Stovall junior.

43T12

Roberta Ann Collett was born at Wisconsin Rapids on 19^th May 1977. On 11^th January 2003 she married Matthew Neuwirth at St Louis in Missouri with whom she has a son Nicolas David Neuwirth who was born on 12^th February 2008 at the Missouri Baptist Medical Centre in St Louis.

43T13

Jefferey Charles Collett was the twin brother of Gregory (below), who was born at Fond du Lac in Fond du Lac County on 3^rd December 1978. He married Christina (Chrissy) Brianne de Venney on 29^th July 2006 at the First Christian Church in Columbia, Missouri and has a son who was born during the following year.

43U6

a Collett son

Born in 2007 at Columbia, Missouri

43T14

Gregory Groff Collett was born at Fond du Lac County on 3^rd December 1978, twin brother of Jefferey (above) and the youngest child of Kent Groff Collett and Constance Hagen who, sometime after he was born, were divorced. It is known that Gregory later married Laura, with their names amongst those listed in the obituary of his grandfather Groff Collett, who died at the end of 2021.

43U3

Derrick Collett ($) may have been born in the 1970/80s, while it was in October 2024 that he made contact with new information which has assisted in tracing his family line back to 1620 in England.

43U4

Natalie Collett was born at Dowagiac in Michigan on 19^th June 1989 and is the daughter of Mark Collett and Lola Cloud of Dowagiac. She married Russell Dilley, from whom she is now separated, while her son was born at Tucson in Arizona in 2017 at the home of her father.

43V1

Ethan Jase Collett

Born on 05.08.2017 at Tucson, Arizona

43U5

JASON COLLETT was born at Dowagiac in Michigan on 15^th August 1990, the son of Mark Collett of Dowagiac. It was Jason who kindly provided the details relating to his sister Natalie (above) and his nephew Ethan. In 2017 Jason and his father Mark were residing in Tucson.

APPENDIX ONE – SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS

Wednesday 4^th February 1925

30 YEAR SEARCH FOR HEIRS OF $200,000 ESTATE ENDS WITH THE FAMILY FOUND HERE

William Collett of 104 Haynes Avenue, a travelling tariff inspector for the Southern Pacific Railroad will become joint heir with four others to a fortune estimated at $200,000. The announcement terminates a search for missing heirs carried out since 1894. Information of the legacy reached San Antonio Tuesday morning in a letter to Chief of Police T O Miller asking him to assist in finding Miss Helen Collett who lived at 608 West Craig Place in 1916. Inquiries developed the fact that Miss Collett had died in 1919, but a brother William Collett lived on Haynes Street. Collett was in Houston on a business trip and Mrs Collett called at police headquarters and conferred with the Chief of Police in establishing the identity of the heirs. The letter confirming the information was sent by a law firm in Leicester, England and said that the estate had been held in trust since 1894 for the heirs of Mrs Elizabeth M Collett. Mrs Collett died several years ago at Moberly in Missouri. The family originally numbered six children, and five of them are still living. Beside William Collett of San Antonio the other participants are Miss Minnie Collett of Moberly, Mo; Mrs Katherine Barker of Crystal City, Texas; Robert Collett of St Louis; and Arthur Collett of Seattle, Wash. The letter did not have the legator and members of the Collett family could give no indication of the benefactor as several near relatives are known to be living in Leicester. The Collett family came to America fifty years ago and settled in Missouri. William Collett was born in that state. Later he spent several years in Mexico before going with the Southern Pacific. He has lived in San Antonio for five years.

Later correspondence dated 18^th May 1925 from Toller, Poohin & Wright (Solicitors) at 2 Wycliffe Street in Leicester, England revealed the amount of money in trust was in fact only £670 and that the benefactor was Miss Catherine Mary Simons who died on 2^nd April 1892. She was the sister of Elizabeth Martha Simons (Mrs Elizabeth M Collett in the article above) who married Robert Collett and who together with their first two children emigrated to America in 1867. It was Robert and Elizabeth who had the six children that are referred to in the newspaper article above. Robert Collett is Ref. 43O10 and his six children were: Arthur Collett born in England and of Seattle (Ref. 43P56); Minnie Collett aka Mary Elizabeth born in England and of Moberly (Ref. 43P57); Katherine Louise Barker nee Collett (Ref. 43P58); John Robert Thomas Collett of St Louis (Ref. 43P59); and William Francis Collett aka Willie of San Antonio (Ref. 43P61). The deceased sixth child was the aforementioned Helen Maude Collett aka Nellie (Ref. 43P60)

APPENDIX TWO TWO COLLETT BAD BOYS – Cases 1 and 2 (go to Appendix Two in Part 60 for Cases 3 to 7)

Case 1

In addition to bad boy Thomas Collett (Ref. 60N5 - previously Ref. 43o5), who was arrested for burglary in 1821 and subsequently transported to Tasmania, there were other members of the Collett family who suffered the same fate. This appendix includes two of them, not yet identified as belonging to any of the known Collett family lines. The first of them is George Collett who married Arabella Lawman at St Mary’s Church on St Marylebone Road in London on 21^st May 1803, who was baptised at St Bartholomew’s Church in London on 2^nd February 1783. He was the likely son of Henry Collett and his wife Sarah, as referred to under Ref. 43M13 in the main body of this family line. His eldest son is the first of our two bad boys. Other bad boys, previously detailed here can now be found in Appendix Two within Part 60 – The Cambridgeshire Line from Tamworth in Staffordshire to Australia.

A2n1 A2o1

Henry Collett was married to Sarah and their son George was born in London in either late 1782 or early 1783. Following the marriage of George Collett to Arabella Lawman in 1803, the couple initially settled at Sacombe, just north-west of Ware in Hertfordshire, where their first child was born and baptised. That child was followed by at least five more, but only after the family had moved into the Putney area of London.

A2p1

John Collett

Baptised on 25.03.1804 at Sacombe, Herts.

A2p2

Mary Anne Collett

Born on 11.02.1806 at Putney

A2p3

Sarah Ellen Collett

Born on 21.01.1808 at Putney

A2p4

Jane Weedon Collett

Born on 28.03.1810 at Putney

A2p5

Anne Agnes Collett

Born on 21.09.1812 at Putney

A2p6

George Collett

Baptised on 09.01.1815 at Putney

A2p1

John Collett was baptised at Sacombe near Wareham in Hertfordshire on 25^th March 1804, the eldest of the six children of George Collett and Arabella Lawman. John Collett was the great great great grandfather of Carlene Smelt of Queensland in Australia. It was in Surrey on 30^th December 1822, at the age of eighteen, that he was tried and convicted of housebreaking and, together with his accomplices William Sawyer and John Perry, he was given a life sentence. The three of them then arrived in Australia during 1823 on the sailing ship ‘Commodore Hayes’ with 220 other convicts.

The following notice was published by the Police Office in Hobart on 17^th March 1825. Runaway John Collett, 5 feet 7 inches, with dark brown eyes, dark brown hair, 22 years of age, a labourer, tried at Surrey in December 1822, sentenced to life, arrived in this Colony per Commodore Hayes in 1823, native of Sandon (in Hertfordshire), scar on left cheek bone and one on left side of upper lip, absconded from the Prisoners' Barracks on December 21^st 1824. Reward £2.

John later married Elizabeth Ives on 1^st January 1832, Elizabeth having been born in England during 1814. Their daughter Sarah Roseanna Collett (1833-1919) was born in Tasmania and she later married Richard William Thompson in Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land, Tasmania, with whom she had seven children. John Collett and Elizabeth Ives also had three other children before he died at the age of 32, following which he was buried at St David’s Park in Hobart, Tasmania, on 6^th May 1837.

During his married life John Collett, who was living at Oatlands during the autumn of 1834, was called as a witness in two cases of cattle stealing. In the first of them on 9^th December 1834 John Collett had been employed as a servant on the farm of Mr Cawthorne for the previous six to seven years, when George Steel and Samuel Pullen Wells were charged with stealing an ox belonging to Mr Riley which had been grazing on Mr Cawthorne’s land. During the second court case on 10^th March 1835, John Collett was living at Oatlands and lodging there with him and his family was the accused James Goodwin, who was charged with stealing four oxen from the Sutherland brothers farm in Launceston, some seventy miles away from Oatlands. The presiding Judge ruled that there was no evidence to convict the prisoner of stealing the beasts, in as much, as the witness Collett had sworn that the prisoner had not been away from his house, at any time, sufficiently long enough to have gone to Mr. Sutherland's farm and return. Neither did it appear that he had received the four bullocks with a guilty knowledge. He therefore entered a verdict of not guilty. However, perhaps for some other reason, the prisoner was still remanded to gaol.

A2q1

Sarah Roseanna Collett

Born circa 1832 in Tasmania

A2q2

a Collett child

Born circa 1834 in Tasmania

A2q3

a Collett child

Born circa 1835 in Tasmania

A2q4

a Collett child

Born circa 1837 in Tasmania

A2p2

Mary Anne Collett was born at Putney on 11^th February 1806 and was six years old when she was baptised at St Mary’s Church in Putney on 18^th October 1812 in a combined ceremony with her three younger sisters (below).

A2p3

Sarah Ellen Collett was born at Putney on 21^st January 1808 and was three years of age when she was baptised with her three sisters on 18^th October 1812 at the Church of St Mary in Putney.

A2p4

Jane Weedon Collett was born at Putney on 28^th March 1810 where she was baptised on 18^th October 1812 with her three sisters at St Mary’s Church.

A2p5

Anne Agnes Collett was born at Putney on 21^st September 1812 and was four weeks old when she was baptised at St Mary’s Church in Putney on 18^th October 1812, it being a joint baptism ceremony with her three older sisters, the four daughters of George Collett and Arabella Lawman

Case 2

The second case is that of Oliver Collett which took place at Knox County Circuit Court in Barbourville, Kentucky in October 1815. Who Olliver or Oliver was is still not known for sure, except that he may have been the eldest son of William Collett (Ref. 43M4) who was named in the tax lists for Clay County and, who was a chain carrier for John Gilbert in Clay County during 1810. It was on a murder charge that Oliver was up before the Judge. In the end the jury found him to be not guilty of the murder of John Haynes, but that he was guilty, without malice aforethought, of manslaughter, and was sentenced to six years confinement in the Jail and Penitentiary Home of the State in Frankfort.

Another school of thought suggests that Oliver Collett may have been Olliver Sizemore, a surname that appears many times within this family line. Apparently, some people in Eastern Kentucky attempted to avoid being called upon to serve with the military, some of whom took the name Collett. In those days, Kentucky did not strictly or accurately record the dates of births and deaths, so it was easy for them to do change name and subsequently vanish, their original identity gone or changed forever. As a result, there is a lot of confusion among people who are, or are not, from the Collett family line in Eastern Kentucky, and Oliver may well be one of them.

APPENDIX THREE – THE FAMILY OF THE OTHER BURCHELL COLLETT OF KENTUCKY The first Burchell (Birchell) Collett born 1906-1959 can be found at Ref. 43R8 The second Burchell Collett 1915-1980 can be found at Ref. 43R29

The third, so far unknown, Burchell Collett (born in 1907) was 20 years old when he married Pauline who was 19 and in 1930 Burchell was described as a home owner of 23 years living at Precinct 35, Hazard City in Perry County, Kentucky from where he was employed as a mechanic with the railroad company. The house was valued at 500$, where also lived Pauline who was 21 and their two children George W Collett who was seventeen months and Ada M Collett who was four months old.

APPENDIX FOUR – THE OTHER COLLETTS OF KENTUCKY WITH THE MAJORITY IN LESLIE COUNTY

In the Leslie census of 1950, there were TWENTY-TWO Colletts by birth and only three of them, Corbett Collett and daughters Shar-Lynn and Joan, have been located in the main body of this second section of Part 43. Of the remainder there was a previous mention of one of them in this appendix who has been brought forward to start this append. He is Clarence Collett, born in 1926. In 1950 his details at No. 41 were as follows. Clarence Collett was 24 and with no stated job of work, his wife was Nettie Collett aged 19, and they had three children, with the family added to over the following fifteen years. Those three children were daughter Janice Collett who was three, and sons Bobby Collett who was one year old, and Clifford Collett who was three months old and born in January 1950.

There later son Arthur previously featured in this appendix - Arthur Collett was born on 7^th June 1963, the son of Clarence Collett and Nettie Mosley. He later married Carrie Jean Couch, and died on 18^th June 2010 and was buried at Osborne Cemetery in London, Kentucky.

Sadie Roark was born on 19^th January 1918 at Leslie County, the daughter of Jonathan Roark and Bertha Collett. She married Jesse Roark and died on 17^th April 2010.

Rose (Rosie) Asher Collett was born on 29^th January 1922 at Ashers Branch in Hyden, Leslie County. She was the daughter of Richard Asher and Lucy Hensley, and she married Frank Collett. She died on 31^st December 2009 at Leslie County and was buried at Bowens Creek Cemetery in Essie, Leslie County.

Grant Collett was born on 3^rd December 1923, the son of John Collett and Elizabeth Cox. He married Nancy Jane Baker and died on 10^th December 2009 at Williamsburg in Kentucky.

Hailey Collett was born on 26^th June 1924 at Red Bird, Bell County in Kentucky, the daughter of Silas Collett and Catherine Asher. She married Silas (Babe) Brock and died on 25^th November 2009 at Pineville in Bell County, when she was buried at Pinelawn Cemetery in Pineville. Silas Collett, who had been born in Kentucky and was seven years old in 1910, was the youngest child on the day of the census living at Left Fork in Bell County with his parents Thomas Collett, aged 50 and from Kentucky, and Ellen Collet, aged 44 and from Virginia. The other children were Robert Collett, who was 15, George Collett, who was 13, and Finley Collett who was 11, all born in Kentucky. It is now known that Thomas Collett and Ellen Collett were married on 29^th July 1904 at Slusher in Bell County, with their wedding day registered at Bell County.

The Reverend Joe Charles Collett was born on 7^th December 1925 at Harlan County in Kentucky, the son of Wiley J Collett and Delia Lyttle. He married Hosea Lewis and died on 7^th September 2009 at Dayton in Ohio. Wiley Collett was eight years old in the census of 19t10, one of four children on that day living at Left Fork in Bell County, Kentucky with his parents Joe Collet, aged 34, and Catherine Collet, aged 29, who had been married for 15 years during which they had given birth to five children, one of which had died by then. All members of the family born in Kentucky and the three siblings of Wiley were his sisters Ollie Collett, who was 13, and Nancy Collett who was four, and his brother Shelby Collett who was 10 years of age.

Essielene Epperson was born on 31^st October 1931 and was the wife of Matthew (Matt) Collett. She died at London in Kentucky on 19^th September 2009.

Clyde Collett was born on 12^th March 1936, the son of Dewey Collett and his wife Ruth. He died on 21^st August 2006 at South Point in Ohio and was buried at Bowens Creek Cemetery in Essie, Kentucky. Dewey Collett was an unmarried man of 24 in the census of 1930 when he was living in Bell County with his family. He was the son of Hiram Collett, aged 53, and his wife Polly who was 53, both of them from Kentucky, as were Dewey’s siblings Edward Collett who was 18 and Lawrence Collett who was 16. Twenty years earlier, according to the census in 1910, Hiram Collett, aged 28, was living at Left Fork in Bell County with his wife Pollie Collett, who was 25, and their four eldest children. They were daughter Cordie Collett, who was eight, son Dewey Collett, who was seven, and daughters Haly Collett, who was three, and Bertha Collett who was one years and two months old.

Tommy Collett was born on 24^th January 1940, the son of Edward Collett and Oka Lee Shepherd. He married a lady with the surname of Arce and he died on 13^th January 2002 at Fayette, CO.

Oakie Shepherd was born on 6^th April 1941, the daughter of Roy Shepherd and Rose Collett. She later married David Collett and died on 5^th January 2010.

Helen Collett was born at Leslie County on 3^rd February 1942, the daughter of Fred H Collett and Lucy Roark. She married Farmer Collett and died on 10^th November 2009 at Somerset in Kentucky.

Wayne Collett was born on 14^th May 1943, he married Mildred Gilbert, and he died on 4^th June 2010 at Atlanta.

Eunice Collett was born in Leslie County on 12^th April 1945, the daughter of Reuben Collett and Mary Whitehead. It seems likely Mary was the sister of Nettie Whitehead who married John R Collett (Ref. 43P29) in Leslie County. Eunice Collett was married two times; her first husband was (1) Oakley Morgan, while her second husband was (2) Curtis Lee Collett. Eunice died at Hazard in Perry County, Kentucky on 26^th January 2010.

Lana Rue Hacker was born at Laurel County in Kentucky on 24^th February 1946, the daughter of James Harvey Hacker and Laura Collett. She married Samuel Ernest Begley and died 14^th January 2010.

Wilma Collett was born in Leslie County on 28^th April 1947, the daughter of Elizabeth Sizemore Collett and Charlie Hoskins. She later married Howard P J Holland and died in Leslie County on 3^rd September 2009, following which she was buried at Bowens Creek Cemetery in Essie, Kentucky. It may be of interest that: (a) Joel Dyer Collett (Ref. 43O4) married Emily Jane Sizemore in 1865; (b) their son Thomas Joel Collett (Ref. 43P39) married Mary Sizemore in 1889; and (c) Chester Lee Sizemore, who was born in Kentucky during 1910, was living with the family of Pleasant Lee Collett (Ref. 43P32) and his wife Lottie Collett and their son Dewey Collett who was 20 at Clay County in Kentucky on the occasion of the census in 1920. In addition to these, Manford Collett (Ref. 43Q65) married Nancy Sizemore in 1898.

Darrell Allen Collett was born in Bell County, Kentucky on 1^st July 1955, the son of William (Willie) Collett and his wife Loshia (Lucia). He married Jessie Chloe Collett and died at Pineville, Bell County on 19^th December 2009. He was then buried at Collett Cemetery in Essie, Kentucky.

Linda Ruth Collett was born in Leslie County on 9^th January 1957, the daughter of Carl Collett and Hazel Barrett. She first married (1) Charlie B Brown, and later married Wilburn Partin. It was at Leslie County that she died on 20^th February 2010.

Della Rosa Barrett was born in Leslie County on 11^th March 1964, the daughter of Elmer Barrett and Fern Collett. She married Clarence Dewayne (Wayne) Simpson and died on 2^nd June 2010 in Leslie County.

Ernest Sheldon Collett was born in Leslie County on 27^th December, the son of John L Collett and Phronia Morgan. He later married Vina Osborne and died of 27^th May 2010, when he was buried at Bowens Creek Cemetery in Essie, Leslie County.

Ruth Saylor was born at Ceco, Letcher County in Kentucky on 12^th February, the daughter of James Saylor and Pearlie Collett. She married Robert Leroy Scott and died in Lincoln Park, MI on 16^th June 2006 and was buried at the Jenson Cemetery in Jenson, Kentucky.

Special Notice: The Second Memorial Service at the Little Creek Cemetery in Red Bird, Beverly, Kentucky, took place on Sunday 8^th October 2006 at 11 a.m. The event was organised by Mitchell and Elaine Asher during 2005. Close to 100 people were in attendance and it was a most moving ceremony with the Reverend Ted Collett presiding over the service. Elias Collett performed beautifully on the fiddle.

The Reverend Ted Collett, the son of Hazel Collett nee Roark, also presided at the Sixth Memorial Service honouring deceased descendants.