All the right words, but not necessarily in the right order, etc. etc.

And a bonus witch because I’m feeling generous.

It’s been 36 hours and I’m still fighting the urge to rebind every single book I own.

Thank you! Of all my odd 2am creative experiments, this might be my favourite.

I’m also fairly sure someone’s car is being repossessed across the street as I type this.

Reform, Essex?

I haven’t, I’ll give it a go — thanks!

No worries! I *should* have said that it was a way of finding fresh joy in the song, but I’m just not sure that joy was the emotion that the band were trying to evoke. Fresh resonance, then. You know what I mean.

A heat map of the name distribution might be the best I can do — that bright red bit is maybe two days’ ride from Manningtree.

I should say, given the nature of the records of the time, the family’s name goes from Ede to Edes to Eade to Edes over the course of about 200 years, and the same person often uses more than one spelling (well, if it was good enough for Shakespeare…)

So, I have a John Ede (various spellings) being born in Manningtree parish in 1775. I have all his descendants, but no-one before him. Then I have a John Edes in legal records and church records in the same borough in the 1640s. He has nine children. I don’t know his origin, he’s just there.

Balance of probability vs reasonable doubt, I mean. I know you can’t be certain.