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Abbess is a surname which I believe came over to England from France with the Huguenots. The International Genealogical Index lists Abbesses going back to the 16th Century, in Cambridge, Bedfordshire, Lincolnshire, Hertfordshire and Staffordshire, with varied spellings of the name. Most of these as yet cannot be connected with our branch of the family.
This family tree is the culmination of years of work by various members of the Abbess family in England.
Most notably, Allenby Abbess researched and collected together the majority of the basic information, and distributed copies several years ago. Sadly, he died in 1998, but the project is ongoing, and his family is continuing the research.
Jean and John Peters have also done a great deal of research over the years, and their contributions are included.
Back in 1996, John Abbess in Australia had come across a book of “Abbesses of the World”, in which were published addresses of some members of the family. He hadn’t realised before then that he had relatives anywhere but Australia. He wrote letters to the names in the book, and received lots of replies. One letter went to my parents, Vic and Margaret Abbess, one to my brother Jonathan Abbess, and one to my aunt Miriam Abbess, who was then aged 80. My aunt immediately telephoned John, feeling that there was no time to lose, since she was in the twilight of her life, and contact was made. Sadly, she died a year later, but that phone call led to the discovery of a larger family tree than John had ever dreamt he had!
It had not been long before that time, that I had first made contact with Jean. I had discovered that my great grandfather, Samuel George Abbess, had been buried in a churchyard quite close to where we live. In searching for his grave, the church office informed me of the grave of Ronald Abbess, Jean’s father and Samuel’s son. I did not know who Ronald was at that time, and tried various means of finding out – to no avail. In desperation, I put a notice in a local newspaper’s “search for a relative” column, and Jean answered. Thus another branch was added to the family tree.
The current search is for Irene Abbess’s daughter. If anyone out there has any information, or even a clue, about her, we’d be very pleased to hear it! We’re also investigating a story about William Abbess, who was a clockmaker in Surrey during the first half of the 20th century. The story goes that he used to visit the Houses of Parliament once a week to wind the clocks there – including Big Ben! Any substantiation of that story would be much appreciated!
On this website, you can see much of the family tree as it stands at present. If you spot any details which are wrong, they can easily be corrected, so please let me know. For privacy reasons, I’m excluding details about living people, unless they specifically give me permission to include them, which makes the current generations a little boring, as everyone is called “son” or “daughter”! If there’s anything else that anyone wishes to be excluded, please let me know, and I’ll remove it immediately. Conversely, if there’s anything you’d like me to add, I’ll be very happy to do so. It would be nice to have more details of some of the grandparents/great grandparents etc., such as their professions, what they achieved in their lives, or little anecdotes about them. Also, photographs of them, or of yourselves. All could be included. Please let me know of any new babies born, so that I can add them too.
Finally, I’d like to thank all contributors to the family chart, and to say, “keep the information coming!!” All further updates will be gratefully received!
Liz Donald, née Abbess
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