1. I'm astonished by the Gatrell web in the US - quite new to me. How and when did they get there?
2. My father believed we originated among Gloucestershire miners, Gatrell being derived from 'Gathercoal'= 'Gatterell' etc.
We pronounce our name with the stress on the 'a'; in the US we find strangers naming us stress the 'e': which is the common practice among you Gatrells?
3. In Tetbury Church (Gloucs) is the effigy of a Sir John Gastrell, dated 1586.
4. Tetbury has several Gastrells, Castrells, Gatrells in the phone book: so it does seem a common Gloucs. name.
5. My grandfather Charles, b.London, was an illiterate soldier (I've traced his volunteer papers in the PRO: he signed with a cross in the 1870s).
6. When discharged after service in India and the Boer War, c.1903, he could sign his name.
7. He married a servant girl Mary Spicely, and had Charles, my uncle (b.1900) and Arthur, my father (b.1903). Charles had no children, and I'm Arthur's only child.
8. I have some info about Charles's brothers etc, mainly London craftsmen; but I've done no systematic research as yet.