James CODDINGTON ^6,14

   Other names for James were James CUDDINGTON and James QUIDDINGTON.

  General Notes:

An Innkeeper at Bletchingley (Blechingley), Co. Surrey, from about 1567 to his death in 1606. Although the Parish registers in Bletchingley date from 10 Nov. 1538, the first appearance of James' name in that parish was at the baptism of his daughter Elizabeth, 1 Jan., 1567/8. It is assumed, therefore, that James and his wife and older children lived in some neighboring parish and removed to Bletchingley in that year. The name was usually spelled Quiddington/Quidyngton/ or Quedington on Bletchingley registers. James was buried at Bletchingley 16 Oct. 1606. There is no record of probate of his estate in the Perogative Court of Canterbury, the Archdeaconry, Court of Surrey, or the Consistory Court of Winchester.
He married (perhaps ca. 1558) Joan ---- (whose maiden name may have been Stockdale) who was a legatee in the will of her son-in-law Thomas Maddocks in 1608 as "my wife's mother." and was buried in Bletchingley 20 Dec 1622. As widow Quiddington, she had her husband's innkeeping license continued to her, 2 Mar 1606/7 [Lambert, Bletchingley, ii.423]. [Actually the record for the widow Quiddington reads: James Quiddington's widow had his alehouse license continued to her. Ibid.; December 10th, at Godstone...and widow Quiddington and Thomas Yonge still held licenses.
NOTE: Alfred Uvedale Miller Lambert mentions a John Coddyngton as tenant of Sir Nicholas Carewe, Knight, at Blechingley 3 Nov. 14 Henry VIII (1522).

By March 1975, John Insley Coddington, the eminent American genealogist and student of Coddington genealogy, had come to the conclusion that no genealogical connection exists between the three different tribes of Coddingtons in England, who apparently originated de novo in the counties of Lincolnshire (and adjacent Nottinghamshire), Cheshire, and Surrey. (a fourth in Hertfordshire apparently did not become the name of any family.) None of these are close to each other.
The first governor of Rhode Island, William Coddington, certainly lived in Lincolnshire during his first marriage to Mary Mosely, and his first two sons were baptized in the church at Boston. At the time there was a large family of Coddingtons in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, and J. I. Coddington supposed that their name originated from the small village and parish of Coddington, Nottinghamshire, which was about four miles west of the border with Lincolnshire. This family bore arms, "Gules, a cross Or, fretty azure."
The second tribe of Coddingtons, concentrated in the county of Cheshire, probably drew their name from a parish named Coddington or Codington or Codyngton. There are a number of Coddington families mentioned in 16th and 17th century Cheshire records, and both the Coddingtons, Baronets, of Lancashire (who became extinct about 1917) and the Coddingtons of Holm Patrick, co. Dublin, later of Oldbridge, Co. Meath, Ireland (cf. Burke's Irish Family Records, 1975, p. 252) descend from these Cheshire Coddingtons. These also bore arms "Gules, a cross Or, fretty azure, with the addition of four trefoils argent."
The third tribe came from a manor and parish, now part of the parish of Ewell in county Surrey. Nearly all Coddingtons in America stem from this branch, originated by Stockdale Coddington who followed his son John to Boston in about 1640. The manor Cuddington in Ewell was acquired by Henry VIII and razed to build a palace for Anne Boleyn. This family arms were "Gules, a cross Or, fretty azure." The connection of Stockdale to the manor family is not proved, but as there were numberous Coddingtons who flourished in the parishes of Ewell, Reigate, Dorking, and elsewhere in Surrey, and were of yeoman class, they probably all descend from younger sons of the manorial family.
In a letter to Mrs. Wanda Greene Nielson, J. I. Coddington wrote "As far as I can see (and I have studied the question for almost sixty years), there is NO CONNECTION genealogically between the three tribes of Coddingtons in three different parts of England."
The main line of the Surrey Coddingtons was traced by J. I. Coddington, but this concerned only the line of eldest male sons. Although it seems very likely that Stockdale (or his father James) must have sprung from this clan, the linkage is probably via a series of one or more younger sons, not the main line.
Finally, the DNA STR (single tandem repeat) values at 43 loci on the Y chrosomome of five probable Stockdale (son of James) Coddington descendants have been analyzed to date. All are identical at all 43 loci. For only 37 matching loci, the probability of a "most recent common ancestor" within 7 generations is supposedly 95% (ex http://www.familytreedna.com/faq2.html). These Stockdale descendants are identical at 43, and are about 13 generations remote from James Coddington. This haplotype derives from Haplogroup I1a, an almost exclusively European ethnic group possibly identified with the Gravettian culture (venus figurines, etc.) that flourished ca. 25-18,000 years ago. It is now most frequent among Scandinavians and Anglo-Saxons. James' ancestors, therefore, probably arrived in England via Saxon or Viking immigrations. ^{14,316,317,318,319}

  Noted events in his life were:

• He worked as an innkeeper from 1567 to 1606 in Bletchingley, , Surrey, England. ¹⁴

James married Joan [STOCKDALE?] in 1558 in Bletchingley, , Surrey, England. (Joan [STOCKDALE?] was born Ca 1537,¹⁴ died <1612> and was buried on 20 Dec 1612 in Bletchingley, , Surrey, England ^6,14.)