John Alley's Father

As I mentioned in the welcome post, I've had to redo my family tree (which was comprised of decades of work from my family and distant cousins -- as well as the extensive work I did myself). I've got several branches back and then I've hit the brick walls I'd previously hit all those years ago.

The Alley Family

I wanted to link their website here, but I can't find it for the life of me. *sighs*

Anyway, everyone who's an Alley knows that our common ancestor is John Alley.

John Alley was born in 1460, most likely in Buckinghamshire, England. He married a woman named Agnes and had three children, from what I remember. The only child of his I have listed for John and Agnes is my ancestor William Alley, who was Mayor of Great Wycombe (or Wickham or Wicomb or any other alternate spelling).

John Alley's death is always listed as "after August 11 1506", which means that he was mentioned in an official document (or something of that nature) -- probably his own will -- on that date. What's known about his death is that he was buried in the churchyard of the Chapel of Our Blessed Lady Wicomb.

Who's John's Daddy?

What's interesting about John is that he's the deadend of the Alley line: no one knows for sure who his father is. Through my research, I've come up with two likely candidates who were both born roughly thirty years before John.

The first was Willelmus Alley. Sources are divided as to whether this man was born in Bucks or Brittany France. But if he was born in Bucks, that would make him extremely likely to be John Alley's father or some other close male relative, at least.

Then there is John d'Alee or John de L'Aly -- or any number of variant/similar spellings. He was also born in the 1430's and he was born in Brittany, France. What makes him likely is that it seems that his surname would be the continental original spelling of Alley. Another thing that's obvious is: his name is John. Medieval people often named their children after themselves.

The Daddy Question

So who's the father? That's what I want to know, because if we knew for certain, we could finally trace the Alley line prior to the 1400's.

What I'm looking for right now is details about the early Alleys. Any definitive evidence or even clues would be a major help in tracing them back further. I really think we can solve who the father is if we all put our heads together.

Are you an Alley?

If you have an Alley in your family tree and you're not sure whether or not you're descended from my line of Alleys, let me know and we can see if we find any common names between your line and mine. I'm a pretty recent Alley descendant. My great-greatgrandma's maiden name was Alley, so I'm fairly confident we can find a connection.

Oh, and by the way: Most Alleys are cousins to the actress Kirstie Alley. She's my 7th cousin, once removed -- some people are related even closer. Kirstie's genealogy can be found on the Alley homepage. If anyone finds it, definitely link me!