The Genealogy Of The Annett Family SUIVEZ RAISON   Annett families are now dispersed across the globe but wherever they are to  be found there are sure to be several members quietly working at the genealogy  of their own particular branch. The current explosion of interest in our  predecessors has been fuelled by many factors, not least the greater ease of communication in a variety of ways. When Capt. Stephen Frederick Annett began  his forays into the past in the years between the two world wars and into the  1950's he had to rely on letters to the parish where he wished to have a search  made, as well as making enquiries from those members of the family he already knew. His financial resources and his knowledge of and access to many types of public record were all limited. Nevertheless he amassed a great deal of  information and established the fact of the Annett Family's descent from religious and economic refugees from the continent. He also showed the different ancestry of those whose family name was Annetts rather than Annett. It was clear that this other family was one native to this country and based in that area known as Wessex; in other words that area around  the borders of Wiltshire, Hampshire and Berkshire. Whilst Stephen concentrated on his own family other workers have done the same on the various Annetts families. Stephen also noted the existence of Annett families in Ireland and in  Scotland but never had the resources or the time to extend his enquiries to those countries even though he corresponded with several holders of the family  name in America. Today there are available a multitude of records which can supply information  on the family structure and lives of family members. What is more this is ever  easier to access as is the work and discoveries of other workers through the medium of the world wide web. Many overseas families can trace their forebears to an ancestor who, for a variety of reasons, made the break from the U.K. to begin again in pastures new. For all who are interested this father and son team  have put together this web site making available the knowledge they have garnered from Stephen and their own original work. Many Annett families have passed down to them some folk memory of being  descended from immigrants even though details are conspicuously absent. Much of  this lore is indeed true. England experienced much immigration from the  continent; this tended to come in waves caused by conditions in their own country. Sometimes the cause was religious persecution at others an economic  one. Stephen managed to trace the ancestry of one English family to one of three brothers, Rolphe Annot, who became naturalised after the requisite seven years residence and must therefore have arrived in England around 1555. He was  domiciled in Northumberland and members of the family remain there still. One  brother, Rowland, a weaver, was recorded as living in London and also becoming naturalised. The third brother, Peter, was arrested in Dunkirk, then a Spanish  province, for possessing heretical books including the bible, and was burnt at  the stake. A transcript of his trial is extant and gives all the details of his crime and punishment. Staunchly Protestant, members of the family early embraced Methodism and played prominent parts in the economic life of the northern countries and, in the 19th century, the introduction of better cattle and horse breeding and a dairy industry. One member of this family returned to France after marriage to a Roman Catholic, and where the children from his three  marriages established a French branch with links to the silk trades with China  and the industry in France itself. Another migrated south and began a further  branch based around the districts of Sunbury, Walton and Hampton where they practised their various trades and professions. In the middle of the 16th century a certain Thomas Annot of Lowestoft gained notoriety and the attraction of the Elizabethan authorities  through his entrepreneurial activities in the English Channel. He appears to have instigated the capturing and robbing of Spanish shipping on their lawful  business, then handling the cargoes landed on the beach. On 28th May 1561 one of Annot's servants, Robert Burman, was questioned about one such act  of piracy. He testified as to what had happened and also stated that he had been  offered a 'foreign holiday' by Annot to prevent his being questioned. No action  seems to have been taken, despite the complaints by the Spanish merchants, for Elizabeth was on the throne and her sympathies were with her own. At the end of the 16th century and in the early years of the 17th century there was much immigration into the south eastern  counties of England. The textile and horticultural industries were much enriched  by the skills of the newcomers although their arrival also stirred up local  antagonism from time to time as economic conditions experienced a reverse. Kent in particular was the destination for many and among them was a number bearing  the family name. Canterbury, Seven Oaks and Seal all supported Annett families; descendants are in the area to this day whilst some were inexorably drawn by the magnet of the capital and settled in areas like Wandsworth and Battersea. Now  members have traveled even further to Australia where one eventually provided  hospitality to a member of another branch and was amazed to discover that his  guest's father could send him his own family tree. The particular family source that branches tend to look back to is the arrival in England of refugees from France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685. This treaty had allowed members of the protestant faith in France freedom to practice it without persecution and brought to an end many years of internal religious strife. Revocation of this freedom led to a wave of immigration by the Protestants known as Huguenots. Many of these people were skilled tradesmen and professionals and brought their various skills to  England quickly taking root in their new land. Some were soon absorbed into English society and their French names became anglicised; others entrenched themselves into close knit refugee communities which endeavoured to maintain the  habits and practices of past days. Some of these families are recorded in the congregations of the foreign  churches they established; thus before 1685 French churches existed in towns  such as Canterbury, Colchester, Dover, Faversham, Glastonbury, Ipswich,  Maidstone, Norwich, Rye, Sandtoft, Sandwich, Southampton, Stamford, Thetford, Thorne Abbey, Whittlesea, Winchester and Yarmouth. The registers of the Walloon  or 'Strangers' church at Canterbury, noted for early references to 'Annot's,  record several versions of the family name. There was Nicholas and Pieronne  Hannet in 1638 whilst in 1691 the late Samuel Hannot was referred to as a native of Guienne, France. (The 'H' was not pronounced in French). In 1694 John and  Susan Annett registered the baptism of their son, John, in the Quaker church at Colchester. In 1673 two members of the Clockmakers' Company in London each took an apprentice; one was a Nicholas Annat the other a Charles Annott. In 1606 a John  Hannat was regularly employed as a mason by the borough of Plymouth in work  about the rebuilding of the shambles and Guildhall. At the century's end a Richard Annett was contracted by the Navy in 1693 to build rope-houses, storehouses and thirteen officers' residences at Point Froward, Plymouth. By  that year there had been another wave of immigration from France occasioned by  renewed persecution of the reformed church. Many of these Huguenots outclassed  their Catholic fellow citizens in commerce, marine adventure, industry and  technical skills and these gifts they brought to England. Many more French churches came into being in the English provinces although London was by far the most popular choice of location. There were no fewer than sixteen Huguenot  churches in and around the area of Spitalfields catering for the religious life  of the forty to one hundred thousand, estimates vary, who came to England. The main waves of refugees came between 1681-82, the largest between 1686-88 and the third from 1698-1700. It is probable that some 15,000 settled in the neighbourhood of Spitalfields where the more prosperous built elegant houses and then Bethnal Green. They worked in every branch of the luxury silk trade, but  there were cutlers, watchmakers, instrument makers, jewellers, opticians,  locksmiths, hatters, glovers, goldsmiths, silversmiths, surgeons, tailors and  workers in all the luxury trades. Church entries from 1689 to 1716 list 59  trades from 679 persons; no less than 53 were connected with the sea, a not  surprising fact when many must have come from the coasts of Normandy and Brittany. A small settlement had developed in the village of Sunbury by 1703 and by 1709 twenty-four of the parishioners assessed to pay poor relief were French.  Their names recur in local records at least until 1748 and some possibly into the 19th century. French Street, Sunbury remains to remind one of this colony's existence. The family name in several variants are to be found in  several of the registers of the Huguenot churches so that there can be little  doubt that French Huguenots of this period gave rise to some of the Annett families of today. In the 18th century members of the Northumberland family went overseas to America and there founded what is now the Annett Family of Gaspe.  This family has been well researched and recorded by Kenneth Annett and his  discoveries published in book form. One member of that family returned to  England, settled in Suffolk and there a branch of the Gaspe tree flourishes in its old soil. An Annett Family of Somerset also provided the forebear of a further Canadian family. Here the family lore is of Sarah Dunning, a daughter of Lord Ashburton, marrying her father's coachman, William Annett, and having a son, Robert, born in 1781. This Robert married a Sarah Mines and in 1829 his son  Phillip and sister Louisa left for Canada with a neighbour named Silcox. Mrs. Bertha Annett Maw has produced a brief history and genealogy of this family,  1829-1951, thanks to contributions from many of its members. The correspondence of Stephen also reveals the existence of other Annett families in the USA, some  of whom now carry on researching their links. It was late in his investigations into the family origins that Stephen postulated the theory that the Annett name had an earlier and different geographical location from that of France and the Low Countries. He came to believe that the family first originated in Lombardy where the family Annetti  were recorded in the 16th century. The Duchy of Milan and the plain of Lombardy in general became part of the Spanish dominions in the early years of the century when it was immediately subjected to the offices of the Inquisition. Many followers of the reformed religious persuasion left to escape the persecutions and confiscations of Cardinal Carraffa who was determined to  root out all heretics. France was at that time safer for followers of the new  ways until their own wars broke out. Details of this family were supposed to be described in the 'Historical, Heraldic and Genealogical History of the Annetti'  held in the College of Heralds, Rome. However, this has yet to be tested by a visit or other communication. The origins of members of this widespread family are certainly continental and were clearly among people of a free thinking, industrious nature, unafraid  to set out into the unknown in search of a better life, people who do well in  their chosen métier and scale the heights of their trades and professions. There is clear evidence from members of today's families that these characteristics are undiluted.