Welcome to the St. Helena Seale Family data base.
Years ago when I began searching records for the Seale family
of the Island of St. Helena I was only interested in my direct
line of ancestors. Since I was born and raised on the island of
Key West, Florida, not nearly as remote as St. Helena, I became
intrigued with the history of that island. I began to read the
minutes of the Council of the East India Company and before I
realized it, I was looking for every recorded person with the
Seale name on the Island up to 1834 when the last of my line died
there. Subsequently, I have now found Seales that were on the
Island much later than that date, after the British Crown took
over rule from the East India Company. The Seale and Other Related Family?s database has been prepared
after extensive study of the Birth/Baptism, Marriage, Death Records
and some Wills from the Island of St Helena. Hundreds of hours
have gone into this research; plotting out time lines to try and
make sure that putting together families are feasible, and then
the preparation of the database. I do not claim that all of the
family connections are correct, but to the best of my knowledge
they all work. I feel that this is a fairly good piecing together
of events that occurred between 200-300 years ago. This is certainly
a starting place for anyone who wants to take a particular Seale
line and do their own research. For the individuals that I could
not, with some assurance, place with families, I have listed them
singly and noted this. Colleen Eldredge E-mail address: rpeld@gate.net
The records that I have studied have come from many sources. There
are individuals that deserve my heartfelt thanks for their patience
in answering my questions or supplying me with information. Others
gave me moral support. Dr. Alexander Schulenburg was very supportive
providing me with data that he researched during his travels to
the island. For several years we talked by E-mail and he answered
whatever questions he could. Carol Archibald of the University
of the Witwatersrand was also invaluable with input of dates for
Birth/Baptisms and Marriages. She was very kind and willing to
help me on my search. Moral support and help came from my friend
Ian Bruce), who is researching the Bruce family from St Helena
and the Bruces have a tie with the Seales. Kenneth and Francis
Gould of Florida had research done by G. W. Tatham who was the
Archivist of St. Helena in the late 1970?s and I have read their
notes. Through Ian Bruce, the late Mr. Trevor Hearl of Cheltenham,
England sent me notes on some of the people that are in my database.
Mr. Hearl authored an introduction in the new edition of the book
St Helena 1502-1938 by Philip Gosse, so Mr. Hearlwas quite knowledgeable on the Island
of St Helena. Mr. Hearl passed away in 2007. The microfilm that
was used in the research were the St Helena Parish Registers,
the Early Records of St Helena, 1681 to 1769 and film from the
Family History Library of the Mormon Church, 1769 to 1825. There
were three books that also provided information: A St Helena Whos Who, by Arnold Chaplin and Roots and Recollections, by Hugh Janisch, along with the above mentioned one by Philip
Gosse. There are other persons that I have corresponded with via
E-mail and have exchanged pieces of information but these are
too numerous to name, so I will say, "Thank you all."
If anyone finds errors and can back up their corrections with
documents I would like to hear from you and I will change my database
accordingly. For some of the individuals that are my direct ancestors
I have more information concerning them than the notes of the
database reflect. If anyone is doing research on these particular
people, please contact me and I will be happy to share my notes
with you.
Belle Isle, Florida, USA
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