The founder of his wife's family was plain William Smith, who died in 1626; this William Smith's son developed into Thomas Smyth, and died a baronet in 1668; Sir Thomas Smyth's great-great-grandson, the seventh baronet, was known as Sir William Smijth, and died in 1823. Gill's father-in-law,--Vicar of Camberwell and Chaplain to George IV.--was the ninth baronet. On June 10, 1839, he assumed the name of Bowyer by royal license, and was styled Sir Edward Bowyer-Smijth. In this the Vicar was practically following the lead of his younger brother, a captain in the 10th Hussars, who assumed the name of Windham by royal license at Toulouse on May 22, 1823, and thenceforth signed himself Joseph Smijth-Windham. The contagion infected Gill. After his marriage to Miss Bowyer-Smijth, third daughter of the ninth baronet, Gill became a diligent student of genealogy, heraldry and county-history. It might be excessive to say that he was attacked by the _folie des grandeurs_; but he does appear to have felt that, since the Smiths had blossomed into Bowyer-Smijths and Smijth-Windhams, a man of his ability was bound to do something of the same kind for the ancient house of Gill. And something was done: a great deal, in fact. The first-fruits of Gill's enterprise are garnered in _The genealogy of the family of Gylle, or Gill, of Hertfordshire, Essex and Kent, illustrated by wills and other documents_ which he printed in 1842. At this first stage he acted with praiseworthy caution, signing his pamphlet with the initials G. G. If he was ever known by so vulgar a name as James--the name of the patron-saint of Spain--he had evidently got rid of it by 1842. At Pembroke in 1823 his initials were J. G. W. G., according to the _Oxford University Calendar_: nineteen years later they were G. G. This advancement passed unnoticed, and the delighted investigator continued his researches. These were so successful that, according to Gill's shy confession wrung from him long afterwards, "as the old annals, parish registers, tombs, wills. &c., wrote our name Gyll, we, by sign manual, returned to that orthography in 1844": (see _Notes and Queries_, March 24, 1866, vol. ix., p. 250). The English of this avowal is bad, but the meaning is clear. Henceforward Gill is transfigured into Gyll. These easy victories led him to enlarge his plan of campaign, and thus we find in the 1846 edition of _Burke's Landed Gentry_ the pedigree of the family of Gyll of Wyrardisbury, which contains the statement that on October 13, 1794, the head of the house (of the Gylls of Wyrardisbury), "William Gyll, Esquire, Captain 2nd Regiment Life Guards, and Equerry to H. R. H. the Duke of Sussex" married "Lady Harriet Flemyng, only child of the Right Hon. Hamilton Flemyng, last Earl of Wigtoun, and had issue" our author, and other children with whom we are not concerned here.