D is for ....

My maiden name, Doubell, isn't particularly common, which is useful when you're researching a family tree. So far I'm only back to the early eighteenth century, but I hope to find some more generations sometime.
Of course, every time you find a record of the name, you wonder if they might be a relation. It's possible, as I've proved to be a direct descendant from two couples who each had eleven children, so there are lots of them out there. I've yet to prove a connection to the lot who in Victorian times kept a pub in East Grinstead, where I went to school, but I'm pretty sure there's no direct link to the one who was sentenced to hang for murdering an exciseman in the early 1700s. He was imprisoned in Horsham, where I often go for a shopping trip, but was proved to be innocent and was released.
Victorian Doubells who I'd love to claim were married in Newgate prison and in the beautiful St. Clement Dane's in London, the RAF church.
Although it's an unusual surname in the UK, it is well represented in South Africa, thanks to a pair of brothers who went there in the nineteenth century, to escape the long arm of the law !
So there's still a lot to learn, and since there's a thought that it's of French origin, maybe one day I'll find the very distant ancestor who came over with William the Conqueror.

Oh, and D's also the Roman numeral for 500, and this clocks up my five hundredth consecutive entry here.
I think I'll keep going ...