I may be related to a Tollesbury Cannibal: I am definitely related to a Tollesbury Pirate

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I don't know what your family's like, but it looks like I've got a cannibal and a pirate in mine.

In June I made the worrying discovery that I may be related to one of the Tollesbury Cannibals. He was Thomas Dudley, the captain of the the yacht Mignonette, which foundered on her maiden voyage from that Essex village to Australia in 1884.

The crew took to an open boat and killed and partly consumed the 17-year-old cabin boy. After they were rescued, two of the survivors, including Dudley, were tried for murder and the third gave evidence against them. Dudley was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, but the service was commuted and he served just six months in prison.

My reason for thinking we are related is that Dudley's mother was a Susannah Carter from Tollesbury, and my mother's mother was also a Carter from Tollesbury. This, incidentally, also suggests the possibility that I may be related to the snooker player Ali Carter, who grew up in the village.

The Tollesbury Pirates were a group of five fishermen from Tollesbury and Mersea Island who found themselves charged with piracy after a clash with fishermen from Burnham-on-Crouch. The latter, the Pirates thought, were damaging the oyster beds at the mouth of the River Blackwater.

As, according to an article in The Essex Family Historian, the judge began proceedings by saying of the case, "it seems to me a very great waste of time", it was perhaps no great surprise when they were all acquitted. The verdict was greeted with applause from the Tollesbury and Mersea fishermen who had packed the caught.

One of the acquitted men was Stephen Appleton and I remember meeting an Appleton relation in Tollesbury when in was a little boy. [Later. After a little online research, I believe she was Stephen's granddaughter.] Appletons married into both the Carter family and the Gurton family - that was my grandmother's mother's maiden name - so I have no doubt that I am related to him.

Incidentally, my Gurton great-grandmother may have been brought up as one of the Peculiar People, but I think that's enough family peculiarity for now.