Eeles was a prominent surname in the Oxfordshire villages of Charlbury and Leafield. My greatgrandmother was Martha Eeles, born in Charlbury in 1841 and died near Baltimore, Maryland in 1928. She married Sylvester Siford who was born in nearby Leafield. A Leafield web site claims there were 47 Eeles living in Leafield in 1851. Martha and Sylvester moved out of the Leafield area and settled near Carlisle, England where their son, Benjamin(my grandfather) was born in 1882. Sylvester was a gardener and a mole catcher on a bishop's estate near Carlisle. It was sometime during my grandfather's early childhood that they came to America.