Eric Hadley-Ives

Sir Eric Joseph Orsay Hadley-Ives, MSW, Ph.D., KOE

I use this page as my home page, so here you will find the links I use most often.
Flag of the Hadley-Ives Family
The image above is the Hadley-Ives family flag. If you click on it, you'll get directed to the Ives family crest. The crest and family coat of arms was granted to my maternal grandfather's grandfather's grandfather, Jeremiah Ives of Colton, son (perhaps) of Jeremiah Ives of Catton Hall and grandson of Justice Ives (Jeremiah Ives the elder). (I note perhaps above because my grandfather had it from his grandmother, the wife of Jeremiah Ives of Colton's grandson, that Jeremiah Ives of Colton was a descendant of Jeremiah Ives of Town Close, a first cousin once removed of Jeremiah Ives of Catton Hall; also, Frances Buckle Ives, the wife of Jeremiah Ives of Catton, made no mention of any direct descendants in her will, yet her supposed grandson, my grandfather's great-grandfather Ferdinand Ives, was living at the time, and was a rather prominant person, having recently been the J.P. for Norfolk). At any rate, regardless of his lineage, the coat of arms granted to Jeremiah Ives of Colton has been passed down in our family and now hangs on the wall in my mother's home. It is unlikely to be the coat of arms for you if your surname is Ives. As far as I can tell from my genealogy research and family lore and letters, there may be very few other descendents of Jeremiah Ives of Colton. Jeremiah Ives of Colton's son Ferdinand Ives (my ancestor) had a sister named Rachel Anna Ives who married Reverend Dacre Barrett-Lennard, and they had children, but I don't know if any descendants remain today. On the other hand, the basic design of a chevron sable on a field argent with three moors' heads goes back in the Ives family to at least a generation earlier than Jeremiah Ives the Elder (Justice Ives), and may actually go back much earlier, so it's possible that we do have some very distant cousins whose crests and coat-of-arms would be similar to the one we carry.

As to the Hadley coat-of-arms, I just picked this one because I liked its design, prefering it over many other similar designs used by Hadleys from the part of England where my Hadley ancestors originated. It seems in the United States there are four different major Hadley branches going way back to the 17th Century in New England. There are the descendants of George Hadley of Ipswich (d. 29 Sept. 1686), the descendants of Dennis Hadley (b. circa 1650 - 1741 or 1742) of Sudbury, the descendants of Simon Hadley (or Symon Hadley) who came to America in 1712, and the descendants of Benjamin (1684-1776) and Mehitable Hadley. I'm a descendent of Benjamin and Mehitable. Some sources (including some relatives who put up a marker on Benjamin Hadley's grave back around 1910) claim that Benjamin was a descendant of George Hadley of Ipswich, although I think the evidence for this is very doubtful. Other sources claim that Benjamin Hadley was a son of Dennis Hadley, but again, I think there are facts which cast extreme doubt on this connection. With Benjamin Hadley (1684?-1776) having mysterious origins, I think some Hadley descendents could invent a design to represent our branch of the Hadley family. Such a design might incorporate elements of the State Seal of Vermont. I would have suggested the city seal of Brattleboro, VT, since Hadleys helped settle that corner of Vermont and my ancestor Ebenezer Hadley, Sr. (son of Benjamin and Mehitable) helped charter that town in 1753, but the city seal incorporates the Victorian city hall in its design, and most of Benjamin Hadley's descendents were long gone from Brattleboro when that city hall was built.

The flag above was designed by Sebastian Hadley-Ives for a seventh grade project. The flag is for the United States of America, as an alternative to the stars and stripes.