In a fresh attempt to trace early birth, marriage and death records to complete the family tree back to the 1660s, I have tracked down a possible indirect ancestor that may shift some dates around.

When searching backwards in time to find new ancestors i've always gone with the 21-year rule. If I find a birth of an ancestor in say 1700, I will always start 21 years earlier to find their parents' marriage.

Assuming the birth is of the first child, it is unlikely that the parents will have been minors when they got married, thus the marriage, in this example, would have been around 1699/1700 and the father's birth no later than 1779.

So far this has worked a treat and I have found no end of records this way. However, this new find is throwing up some interesting numbers.

Pierre Guillon and Marie Sacré were married on 10 November 1723 in Saint Martin-de-Fraigneau, Vendée, France. I have estimated Pierre's birth to therefore be around 1702 but have not yet found this. His marriage record shows his parents' names and his uncle's death record shows his grandparents' names.

His marriage record only shows his mother as Marie Guillon, not with her maiden name, which is quite unusual. However the indirect ancestor record I have found relates to a Jean Guillon born to Pierre Guillon and Marie Moreau in 1692. It is the right area, right parents names and is the only child to Pierre and Marie that I can find in that area and time period. I can only therefore assume that this is Pierre (married 1723's) older brother.

The entries at this end of the tree are a little bit vague and so only the records I find that have a suitable match are included. There are a number of other Guillon families in the parish that were having children in the late 1600s, but I cannot place them. Mathurin Guillon keeps cropping up, as does Pierre Guillon and his wife Jeanne Goguet (sometimes spelled Boguet). As soon as I find concrete evidence linking them to the tree, they will be added.

The excellent genealogy website Ancestry.co.uk recently added Criminial Registers covering 1791-1892 to their vast database and of course my first search was for anyone named Guillon.

Lo and behold Jean Victor Valentin Guillon, born 1820 in Fontenay-le-Comte, was charged with assault in Devon in 1866! His trial, on 27 February of that year, concluded that he was guilty and he was sentenced to 4 months imprisonment.

At this stage only the above is known, though it is clear the trial took place at Exeter Castle where all main court hearings for the county were held at the time.

Interestingly it also provides evidence to suggest that he, if not the rest of the family, was already travelling between the Channel Islands and the UK mainland as early as 1866. The 1861 census shows Valentin on his own as a lodger in St Helier, Jersey, indicating that the family moved to the Channel Islands some time between 1861 and 1871 and that's all we've known up until now. He could have lived on the Islands alone but it's unlikely he would have lived away from his family between 1861 and 1866.

At some point in the future I intend on visiting the Devon County Record Office at Exeter for details of where he could have been imprisoned. Chances are, the building may have survived even if it's no longer a gaol.