Now today’s discovery doesn’t actually relate directly to me (that I know of!) and of course I’m merely continuing my habit of armchair genealogy research but this morning I searched for an ancestor through my paternal great-grandmother Martha Ida (“Mattie”) Childress (m. William Benjamin Coile) and followed her line back to William Hugh Childress of Jamestown (circa 1599, Cantley, South Yorkshire to 1649, Jamestown, Va).
Becoming intrigued to know more about Cantley, as I usually do when finding an ancestor’s place of origin, especially those in distant lands, I googled ‘Cantley, Yorkshire’ and discovered Cantley Hall, Old Cantley, and other interesting details of William Hugh’s early surroundings.
The most surprising find was Flying Childers a famous thoroughbred horse never heard of before by yours truly who is woefully lacking in knowledge about race horse history! Guess I must consider horse racing and breeding a branch of study I’d never expected to ken in my lifetime!
Here’s John Seymour’s 1750 painting of Flying Childers described in 1753 as, “The fleetest horse that ever ran at Newmarket”; painting now held by the vmfa museum
stricklands' blog 