The earliest Gee family we can definitely identify are the Leicestershire Gee's. Their lineage stretches from the time of Chaucer to the present.

Rothley (pronounced "ROW-thley") is a small village on the River Soar northwest of Leicester. It appears in the Domesday Book under the name Rodolei and belonged to the king. The name may have come from the Anglo-Saxon for 'meadow in a clearing'. Today it is an upscale community but in the Middle Ages it was quite rustic.

The name Gee doesn't appear in the Domesday Book, which was written before surnames became common. Here is the page covering Rothley and here is the translation.

At Domesday there was a priest, 29 villeins and 18 smallholders. There were two ploughs for the king's land and six shared by the villeins. There was one mill and two woodlands, one for the king and one shared by the villeins. Using an estimate made in 1331/1332, the villeins held around 400 acres.

Rothley adjoins and is closely associated with the village of Mountsorrel. Mountsorrel has a high hill where Hugh d'Avranches (also called Hugh Lupus, or Hugh "the wolf"), the first Earl of Chester, built a castle in 1080. Hugh Lupus was the son of Richard, Vicount d'Avranches and probably a companion of William the Conqueror.

By 1151 Robert le Bossu (Robert "the Hunchback"), Earl of Leicester, had acquired the castle. Remember that John de Joi, possibly one of the earliest Gee's, witnessed Robert le Bossu's charter for Leicester nine years later.

Alexander

There were other possible ancestors in the area. However Alexander Gee of Rothley remains the earliest Gee to whom any living Gee can trace continuously from modern times.

The History of Beverley, compiled by George Paulson (1829) shows the descent from Alexander Gee through about 17 generations to the 1800's. AlexanderL1 . We don't know exactly where he lived in Rothley or his occupation. He must have been born around 1380-1400 AD. We know that Alexander had sons: EdmondL2, who married Grace, the daughter of Thomas Baskerville, and RichardL2, who married a daughter of John Villiers, esq. EdmondL2 and Grace had a son, JohnL3, who married the daughter of Thomas Nevill of Holt.

JohnL3 had two sons, RobertL4 and JohnL4, and a daughter. And this JohnL4 had sons RogerL5, HenryL5 and ThomasL5.

In the next chapter we will follow HenryL5's son WilliamL6 to Yorkshire. The herald's visitation to Leicestershire in 1619 shows HenryL5 with an older son, EustaceL6, who inherited the family's property in Rothley. This pedigree shows that EustaceL6 married the daughter of Cornelius Gee and also shows a grandson, EustaceL8. The same pedigree shows Cornelius as the father of the wife of HenryL5, and EustaceL6's father.

However property records show that this EustaceL8 was the son and heir of Cornelius Gee. At the time of the sale in April, 1629, he was living at Sutton Bonington, in county Nottingham. He had married the daughter of a clergyman from Sutton Bonington, they later moved to Derby.

Location

The precise location of the Gee land in Rothley is difficult to determine. There are land ownership records from Rothley Manor in the 1580's. A bond describes land Eustace Gee (this would have been EustaceL6) owned near Rothley common. In September 1578, Henry Clyff deeded to Robert Palmer "half an acre of land is called the Harpe Strynge between the lands of John Danvers and the lands of William Tarry on the south and the land of Eustace Gee, and adjoining the Swallowgate."

In June 1582, William Palmer deeded land to Robert Palmer "1/2 acre of land adjoining [Le Oldefyelde], above Croshed, extending to the lands of Eustace Gee on the north and the lands of John Danvers on the south… A rood of land in Le Woodfyeld above Lyllandes with the land of John Parker on the north and the land of Eustace Gee on the south… ½ acre of pasture in Le West Fyeld with the land of John Parke on the east and the pasture land of Eustace Gee, now in the occupation of William Barnard, on the west…1/2 acre of land adjoining [land in Le Oldefyelde], above Croshed, extending to the lands of Eustace Gee on the north and the lands of John Danvers on the south…1/2 acre of pasture in Le West Fyeld with the land of John Parke on the east and the pasture land of Eustace Gee, now in the occupation of William Bernard, on the west…1 ½ roods of pasture situated in Sileby and Mylne, the land of the said Eustace Gee on the east and the land of John Danvers, esq., on the west."

In December 1584, Richard Marshall deeded to Walter Perkyn "…1/2 acre of land called the Nether Furlong, between the land of Eustace Gee, gent., on the east and the land of Robert Palmer on the west…"

In October 1587, Agnes Martyn deeded to Walter Perkyns "…1 rood of land called Longelande, the land of Eustace Gee on the west and the land of Thomas Jewatt of Mountsorrel on the west… One ½ rood of furze, a furlong in length, between the land of Eustace Gee in the south and the land of Robert Martyn in the north…"

In November 1596, Thomas Needham deeded to Thomas Simpson "…one rood lying south of the town situated in the furlong called Long Bronsall between the property of Thomas Simpson in the occupation of Walter Perkyns, and the land of Eustace Gee, in the occupation of Thomas Marshall… ½ acre of land called the Linkefield or the Lingefield situatiod on the field strip called Dame furlong between the tenements of Eustace Gee, in the occupation of Clement Fuldes, and the tenement in the occupation of Thomas Jarratt, in the occupation of the said Thomas…"

In December of that same year Thomas Bacon deeded to Thomas Munke "1/2 acre of arable land situated in the Woodefield of Rothley, in the tenure of Thomas Munke, with the property of Eustace Gee on the one side and the land of Thomas Jarrett of Mountsorrel on the other side. Consideration: 4 marks."

The final Rotley Manor estate record for Eustace Gee is when he and his wife Ann and his widowed mother Elizabeth sold their properties to Robert Cooper of Cudlipp[?], Leicestershire. This sale covered (1) Chester Place in Rothley, where Elizabeth was living and previously Frances Gee, also a widow and one of the daughters of Nicholas Ellin, two closes totaling about 16 acres which were previously three fields adjoining Chester Place and various properties, about 130 acres in all .

A survey of the estate was made by the enclosure commissioners c.1781 and a valuation of the manor was made at that time. By the time of the enclosure, no Gee's owned land in Rothley.

Other property was owned in Silby, adjacent to Rothley on the northeast, and Thurcaston on the southwest. Land in Mountsorrel is also possibility--we know William left money in his will for (roads?) there. The two towns have long been closely linked.

The family business

Leicestershire was famous in medieval times for its wool. The production of woolen cloth was England's premier industry from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries. Up to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and William III, wool made up two-thirds of all English exports.

Leicester was famous for "long staple" wool. The fibers were several times longer than the short fibers of wool used for fill. The longer fibers made it ideal for weaving.

Initially Leicestershire's long staple wool was exported, primarily to Flanders, known for its weavers, the best in Europe. By 1258 England prohibited the export of wool to encourage its own weaving industry, although frontiers were always leaky.

Instead, Flemish weavers were encouraged to move to England and brought their skills with them. With this influx of technology, by around Alexander's time Leicestershire was producing finer woolen products than just simple cloth.

Export

The River Soar runs beside Rothley and Mountsorrel. Very unusual among rivers, the Soar flows mostly northwards, like the Nile. It flows north toward Nottingham, where it connects with the Trent and empties near Hull.

The rivers were the highways of commerce. What roads there were dated from Roman times. But taking wool and woolen cloth to market was a relatively short journey downriver to Hull.

But before we move to Hull, we first need to turn to Chester.