{"id":1743,"date":"2014-06-26T19:57:10","date_gmt":"2014-06-26T23:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/?p=1743"},"modified":"2015-07-11T04:50:31","modified_gmt":"2015-07-11T08:50:31","slug":"but-well-never-be-royals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/?p=1743","title":{"rendered":"But we’ll never be royals"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been exploring my family tree a bit more and found some interesting things.\u00a0 Full disclaimer: I went pretty far back, like to the 1500\u2019s and beyond, so I don\u2019t have census data or birth certificates for a lot of this stuff.\u00a0 But I\u2019m not making any new claims.\u00a0 I mostly just explored large family trees that I am far from the first to study. I still need to do some more digging, but when lineages trail off into English nobility, it makes sense there would be records of this stuff despite its age; keeping track of family relations was very important to the way these ancestors lived and did business with each other.\u00a0 Still, I\u2019m far from a genealogy expert, so don\u2019t go sourcing this in your scholarly works.<\/p>\n

In the interest of not being too boring, I\u2019m not going to give the names of all spouses here.\u00a0 As I said, I\u2019m not making any new claims, so all that info is out there somewhere with a bit of Googling or Ancestry.com searching.<\/p>\n

So here we go: my great great grandmother Katherine Burns (1878-1963) of Tennessee was daughter of Edmond Burns (1854-1904), son of Levin Burns (1828-1863), son of Wilson Burns (1782-1843).\u00a0 His paternal grandfather, Adam Burns (1736-1799), came to colonial America in the 1750\u2019s from Scotland and fought in the American Revolution.\u00a0 Wilson\u2019s mother was Mary Wilson (1762-?), daughter of Wadsworth Wilson (1725-?), son of Thomas Wilson (1691-1744).\u00a0 Interestingly, Thomas\u2019s maternal grandfather married Eleanor Sprigg, who was related to philosopher Francis Bacon.\u00a0 This would make Bacon a distant cousin, if not for the fact that Sprigg was in fact Thomas\u2019s grandfather\u2019s second wife, while we are descended from his first.\u00a0 So, no Bacon for us.\u00a0 At least not through Sprigg.<\/p>\n

Thomas Wilson married Priscella Kent (1701-1744).\u00a0 On her father\u2019s side, Priscella was descended from Benois Brasseur (1620-1663?), a Huguenot from France.\u00a0 She was the daughter of Mary Wadsworth (1680-1718), daughter of Elizabeth Claggett (1662-1711), daughter of Captain Thomas Claggett (1644-1703).\u00a0 Thomas Claggett journeyed to colonial Maryland in 1670 from England, so from here on, we\u2019re exploring English ancestry.\u00a0 Thomas Claggett\u2019s maternal grandfather was Sir Thomas Adams<\/a> (1586-1667), who was elected the Lord Mayor of the City of London in 1645:<\/p>\n

\"thomasadams\"<\/p>\n

Sir Thomas Adams
\n<\/strong>13 x great grandfather<\/p>\n

Thomas Claggett\u2019s descendants also include historical figure Thomas John Claggett<\/a>, the first bishop of the American Episcopal Church.\u00a0 Thomas Claggett\u2019s father was Edward Claggett (1606?-1673), son of George Claggett (1563-1638), son of Margaret Godden (1529-1574), daughter of Joyce Lovelace (1500-?).\u00a0 The Lovelace family seems to have been quite a prominent one, so there\u2019s more to explore there.\u00a0 It is very likely Joyce was somehow related to the poet Richard Lovelace<\/a>, though I have not yet sought the connection.\u00a0 Joyce was the daughter John Lovelace (1478-1546).\u00a0 Some resources say that John was a member of the Grand Jury that indicted Anne Boleyn.\u00a0 John\u2019s mother was Laura (or Lora?) Peckham (1436?-1482).\u00a0 The Peckham family also seems to have been a prominent one.\u00a0 Laura\u2019s father was James Reynolds Peckham (1410?-1454), son of Reginald Peckham (1386-1407), son of James Peckham (1340-1400), son of John de Peckham (dates start to get fuzzy around here, 1320?-1363?), son of Margery Aldham or Audham (?-?), daughter of Sir Thomas de Audham and Isabel Montacute.\u00a0 (Disclaimer: While there\u2019s a definite connection between Margery Audham and Sir Thomas de Audham, it\u2019s hard to be exact about the relation, because resources never seem to mention the family as a whole; only a piece of the family here and another piece there.\u00a0 So I think it\u2019s possible that Margery could have in fact been a granddaughter of Thomas de Audham and Isabel Montacute, but until I do some more digging, I\u2019m just listing her as a daughter, as resources suggest.)<\/p>\n

What makes Isabel Montacute interesting is that she was part of a Montacute \/ Montague \/ Monte Acuto family, a huge family that includes some highly prominent descendants.\u00a0 According to this book<\/a>, Isabel\u2019s father was a William de Montacute, son of Drue de Montacute, son of Drue de Monte Acuto, son of Richard de Monte Acuto, only son of William de Monte Acuto, only son of Drogo de Monte Acuto (1040-1125), my 29 x great grandfather.\u00a0 Resources say that Drogo de Monte Acuto\u2019s name means \u201cDragon from the Mountain Peak\u201d and that he came to England from France with William the Conqueror and fought with him in the Battle of Hastings.<\/p>\n

The Montague family has many interesting branches to explore, but of particular interest is a Philippa (or Philippe) Montagu, a 6 x great granddaughter of the aforementioned Drue de Monte Acuto, my 26 x great grandfather.\u00a0 Philippa married Sir Roger de Mortimer<\/a>, whose descendants include a lot of British royalty.<\/p>\n

Which means cousins!\u00a0 So there you go.<\/p>\n

\"kinghenry\" <\/strong><\/p>\n

King Henry VIII
\n<\/strong>14th cousin, 13 times removed<\/p>\n

\"bloodymary\"<\/p>\n

\"elizabeth1\" <\/strong><\/p>\n

Bloody Mary and Queen Elizabeth I
\n<\/strong>15th cousins, 12 times removed<\/p>\n

\"queenofscots\"<\/p>\n

Mary, Queen of Scots
\n<\/strong>16th cousin, 11 times removed<\/p>\n

Queen Victoria
\n<\/strong>25th cousin, twice removed<\/p>\n

Princess Diana<\/strong>
\n27th cousin, twice removed<\/p>\n

Queen Elizabeth II
\n<\/strong>27th cousin, twice removed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been exploring my family tree a bit more and found some interesting things.\u00a0 Full disclaimer: I went pretty far back, like to the 1500\u2019s and beyond, so I don\u2019t have census data or birth certificates for a lot of this stuff.\u00a0 But I\u2019m not making any new claims.\u00a0 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[263],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gI4B-s7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1743"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1887,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743\/revisions\/1887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}