This page contains some notes on a family whose origins we are researching. Some families we know more about than others, but we hope that by publishing this summary here we can make contact and exchange data with people who can help to complete the picture.
Our Rutley research covers the area around Zeals and Kilmington, where Wiltshire meets both Somerset and Dorset. We are interested in the following groups of people who bore this surname, although we have not yet established whether or not they are all part of the same family.
Robert Rutley (no details known)
Gasper Rutley (1710 - 1778) and Anne Cleeves (1709 - 1776)
John Markey (1750 - 1817) and Elizabeth Rutley (buried 1838)
William Markey (1778 - 1851) and Ann Rutley (1778 - 1867)
William Rutley (buried 1779) and Unity Forward (1750/1 - 1819)
Ann Rutley (1778 - 1867) and William Markey (1778 - 1851)
The Markey family lived in the area around Stourton and Zeals, in Wiltshire but right on the border with both Somerset and Dorset (for details see the Markey surname page). At her marriage in 1771 Elizabeth Rutley was living in Kilmington (then in Somerset but now in Wiltshire). William Rutley was married in 1772 in Mere. He was then living in Gillingham in Dorset, although there is no evidence to suggest that he was born there. The name was sometimes spelt Rutly or Routley.
Gasper and Anne Rutley also lived in Kilmington. Among their children baptised there were William in 1745 and Elizabeth (Betty) in 1750. Although they are the only likely candidates we have found so far, we have nothing to connect the William Rutley who married Unity Forward to Kilmington, and later records for the Elizabeth Rutley who married John Markey suggest that she was born around 1744.
Please contact Chris and Linda Warren if you can help us to untangle the relationships within this family.