"It is 3pm on 17 October 2006. I am sitting in the archive office at Powderham Castle, Devon, having tea with Lady Katherine Watney, sister to the Earl of Devon.

I have just been asked if I would like to become a member of the Courtenay Society. The society is for descendants of the Courtenay family. My answer is yes. I am quietly reflecting to myself thinking this is a long way from the modest council house in Southend-on-Sea, where I was brought up and I think back to when it all started.

My late father Bill was a long distance lorry driver.He used to park his lorry in a lay-by round the corner, in the front window he left a sign saying driver at 61 Newington Avenue.One day when I was in the lorry with my dad I picked the sign up and looked at it to find it was a copy of an old will.

This will was by my great great grandfather William G Stedman Thomas in which the properties were listed that had been left to his family.

I asked my dad about the will. He replied that his father, who died before I was born, had left some of the same properties to his own children twenty odd years before. This intrigued me and I wanted to find out more about the history of my family. Being only about ten-years-old it was a while before I realised the sort of family I was descended from.

Years passed and with the help of the old will I went to Wales, and one after another found the properties mentioned and realised that at one time they must have been an affluent family.

When I returned to Essex I went to my local library where I found a small book called The Geneologists Guide, this book had listed in alphabetical order any family names which have been mentioned in articles, in books, in magazines etc. When I looked up Stedman there were many mentions of the family in old history books so I started to order these books from the library and photocopy all relevant pages and started to build up a picture of the family origins.

I had a photocopy of William G Stedman Thomas' will which I sent off to the National Library of Wales and asked them for any information about the family.

They told me I was descended from an old Welsh gentry family.There were several branches of the Stedmans, the main family coming from Strata Florida Abbey in Ceredigion, where the family bought the Abbey at the dissolution of the monasteries.They built a house from the stones of the abbey.

There was also a branch of Stedmans at Dolygear House in old Breckonshire. To my amazement staff at the library sent me a copy of the family pedigree going back 500 years.

The staff at the National Library also told me that William G Stedman, my great great grandfather, was a well known historian, antiquarian and geneologist, with many of his papers held at the National Library.I have always wondered why I felt so driven, maybe William is hwelping.

In the pedigree document sent to me it states that the Stedman family on many occasions intermarried with several other Welsh gentry families such as The Vaughan family, Earls of Lisburne, the Powell family of Nanteos, the Pryse family of Gogerddan.

So now it was off to Wales again but before I go I decided to write to the present Earl of Lisburne and ask him for some help with my research. I asked if it would be possible to visit Trawscoed, his family seat in Wales.

He invited me to visit him at his present home where I had afternoon tea with him and spoke of our families.

He informed me about a book called A Welsh House and It's Family, written by Gerald Morgan.

In this book there were many mentions of the marriages between the Vaughan and Stedman family.

I Wales, I visited Trawscoed. We spent many hours looking inside the special rooms there, especially the library. Then we went to Nanteos which is now a hotel/conference centre.

We decided to spend some time in the very house where my ancestor Richard Stedman had married Ann, daughter of Lord Powell of Nanteos.

Then we went to Gogerddan where my ancestor married the daughter of Lord Pryse.

Then it was time to visit Strata Florida, home of the Stedmans for several hundred years. My, wife, daughter and I spent a whole day at the ruins of the abbey and the house built from the stones of the abbey thanks to the present owners who gave us the keys to the house and allowed us to look at ouor leisure.

It was the most strange feeling I have experienced to look around the house and the small chapel where there are two engravings on the wall to remember my ancestor Richard's children, who died in infancy.

On our trip we were able to find the old manor house at Dolygear. We met the present occupiers and were able to tell them some of the history of the house that they did not know.

Recently I found the name Courtenay in my papers so I decided to do some research. I found that my great, great grandmother, Julia Elizabeth Stedman Thomas was the granddaughter of Lady Lucy Courtenay of Powderham Castle.

I got in touch with the archivist at Powderham Castle and was invited to take my historical papers to show them. Consequently I have joined the Courtenay society...and my journey continues."

Article by Bob StedmanThomas