Angie Kitcher writes from Canada:
In the Preface of the book, he states that the description of Godwin Pride was suggested by a photograph of the late Mr. Frank Kitcher; this is an ancestor of mine, he could be a great-uncle.
Also my great-great grandfather, David, went to London to testify at a hearing about inclosures. This was in June of 1875 when he was about 42 years old.
There is also a place called Furzey Lodge, where my cousins live. I have one cousin that is a verderer, one is the head agister and others are commoners.
So you see I found this book very interesting.
Jean Puckle Davidson writes from the USA:
I was looking at the page about Edward Rutherfurd's novel The Forest, and was pleased to see that someone else had a question about the surname Puckle.
It is a very old English surname, occurring in Kent at least as early as 1066. My father's family was Puckle. There is mention of the Puckle Gun, which I understood to be in the Royal Armory in London. James Puckle was a lawyer, I thought, as well as an inventor. I am not a descendant of his. The Puckle family was in Norfolk, Kent, London, Surrey and Sussex I believe.
I was wondering if there was any way to get this information to Mr. Rutherfurd? I know that there are many places in England and Australia that are Puckle or Puck this or that, but they are not necessarily related to a surname.
Roy Isbell writes:
My father's mother was a Whitaker, descended from Robert Hugh and Margaret Whitaker. Margaret was a daughter of Alice and John Lisle.
Over the past year I have been in contact with a dozen descendants of the Lisle daughters. Apparently most of them left England. I have read where Alice was four-months pregnant with daughter Ann when John Lisle fled to Switzerland, and I would have preferred Rutherfurd had used the name Ann instead of inventing the Betty character or perhaps made Betty a granddaughter or something. However, aside from changing Alice's maiden name to Albion, I love the book and was sorry that the Alice chapter was deleted from the audio abridgement.
Last udated February 2005