Stolliday family overview
The Norfolk Stollidays joined the Finch family tree in 1930 when Gerald Wilfred Finch married Gertrude Maud Daisy Stolliday (who was usually known as Tina) in Croydon, Surrey. See my ancestors below for more details.
My known Stolliday ancestors:
- My great-grandparents:
Arthur Albert Stolliday (1875-1935) married fellow Great Yarmouth native Elizabeth Mary Ann Wetherall (1876-1952), worked mostly in the pub trade and moved to London.
- My 2nd great-grandparents:
Edward Stoliday (1849-1938) came from Salhouse in Norfolk and married fellow villager Harriet Goulty (1848-1936). He worked as a fisherman out of Yarmouth.
- My 3rd great-grandparents:
William Stoliday (1809-1903) was an agricultural labourer in Norfolk and married Sarah Rose (1817-1886).
- My 4th great-grandparents:
James Stoliday (c1772-1832) married Mary Gay (1781-1820) of Ingworth.
One of the more unusual names in my family tree, Stolliday may derive from a nickname for a valiant, ‘strong-armed’ person, the Middle English ‘stalward or stalworth’. Some of my Stolliday ancestors worked in the fishing industry of Great Yarmouth, at least one was transported to Australia for petty crimes, and others gambled away their livelihoods and lived lives of poverty working in the fields of Norfolk.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, families with the Stolliday surname were heavily concentrated in Norfolk, which is where my branch comes from. In our branch, the name has been spelled any number of ways, including Stoliday, Stolody, Stolladay and Stolady. It’s also been corrupted into Holiday/Holliday and Stolworthy.
They’re not the easiest of families to trace and I’ve so far been unable to go back beyond James Stoliday, who may have been born in around 1772. His actual birth date and where he was baptised remains a mystery. Was it that he migrated to Norfolk from elsewhere? Or was he linked to the Stolworthy family, which is also evident in East Anglia at this time?