Introduction
| 'I was
simply knocked out by your astonishing
webpage.' - A reader's comment, April 2006. I think perhaps your
family tree is one of the most extensive,
incredible, well-illustrated family
tree/histories on-line that I have ever seen.
It took me more than an hour just to read
through some of it.' - A
reader's comment, June 2006 (a Professor by
the way).
'A magnificent
achievement.' - A reader's comment, October
2006.
'Absolutely
fascinating and a tour de force... what an
incredible voyage through history (and
geography).' - A reader's comment,
February 2007.
'I was so
fascinated by your amazing site and the
immensely readable format that I was up until
the small hours, reading... many
congratulations on putting together such an
astonishing document.' - A reader's comment,
March 2008.
'zzzzzzzzzz' - The five other
readers.
|
Very many families have connections to
people who have done interesting or worthwhile things
(someone must have invented the traffic light) but in
my own researches I have been surprised at how many
of these there are. Not all of these connections are
exactly 'worthwhile' but they certainly provide
variety. Here, off the top of my head, are some of
them:
- one
of the men who financed Christopher Columbus'
discovery of America and was never repaid
(I'm still trying to figure out a way to make
some money out of that - what does 500 years
cumulative compound interest work out as, I
wonder?);
- an
English Duke (the last of his line) who was a
member of a real-life 'League of the Scarlet
Pimpernel', which concealed some 4000 Jews
and Allied soldiers from the Nazis during
World War II; a story that was made into a
famous film starring Gregory Peck (OK, it's
called 'The Scarlet & The Black'), which
some say was Peck's best film;
- two
Prime Ministers, one of whom was
assassinated;
- a
Spanish knight, a member of one of the most
illustrious families in Spain, who was one of
the leaders of the first modern revolution
(called 'The War of the Communities'
1520-1521), executed in 1521, who is one of
the great heroes of Spanish history (with a
curious connection to The Mask of Zorro). He
and his companions were known as the 'Caballeros Comuneros'
(that is effectively 'Communist Knights') and
they rose against against the Holy Roman
Empire of Charles V - but the Empire struck
back;
- a
recent pretender to the throne of Portugal
(not related) who 'nicked' (illegally
adopted) a title granted to a branch of my
mother's family, namely 'Countess of
Penafiel';
- another
woman, related by marriage to my mother's
family, who was, at that time, according to
some, the real Queen of Portugal;
- a
possible link to one of the richest treasure
wrecks in the world (mainly gold, rubies and
diamonds) estimated to be worth $1 billion,
which has been lying in deep water 18 miles
off the Azores for the last 400 years (If you
feel like lending me, say, $10 million on the
security of any legal interest I might have
in this treasure, please get in touch. Quite
a good bet I would have thought. No? Oh well,
just an idea.);
- the
first Governor of a united Canada, who
declined the office of Chancellor of the
Exchequer;
- a
family home which featured in 'The 39 Steps',
the adventure story by John Buchan.
- a
man who some believe was the real William
Shakespeare (based on de-cyphering a secret
message on Shakespeare's tombstone amongst
other things);
- another
(unrelated) man whose portrait, it appears,
has long been held to be the best portrait of
Shakespeare ('the Mona Lisa of Shakespeare
portraits'), which has caused a huge row
between the Stratfordians and the Oxfordians,
the two principal protagonists in the
Shakespeare 'authorship debate';
- the
author of 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' (who was
also one of the founders of the Trade Union
Movement);
- his
sister, who was one of the founders of the
British Red Cross, who Florence Nightingale
described as 'a noble army of one' (on
account of her work for pauper children), who
was the first female civil servant, who was
painted by Millais and who was the model for
the heroine of the greatest work of fiction
in the English language; that is 'Dorothea'
in 'Middlemarch' by George Eliot;
- his
daughter, who lived and worked amongst the
poor in the East End of London and was
practically a living saint (as well as a
Communist); it was said of her that 'Her lice
were her glory'. Gandhi insisted on meeting
her when he visited London in 1931;
- his
father, 'Squire Brown', the archetypal
English squire;
- the
founder of the Amateur Athletics Association;
- a
man who fought at the Battle of Khartoum and
who later commanded the 11th Division at the
landing at Suvla Bay (Gallipoli campaign) on
6 August 1915, one of the most disastrous
episodes of WWI;
- 'Waterloo
William', the youngest officer at the Battle
of Waterloo;
- a
kind bank manager (possibly the only one in
the history of the world);
- a
Victorian woman, who seems to have been a
walking disaster area and who 'grew up to wreak havoc
on almost everyone she met' (her
recent biography is called 'Inside flap, The
Disastrous Mrs. Weldon: The Life, Loves and
Lawsuits of a Legendary Victorian');
- the
'father of the Brigade of Guards' who was
(and remains) the longest serving General in
the British army;
- 5
members of the same immediate family who,
amongst them, worked for over 90 years
(1880-1972) for Barnardos, the children's
charity;
- a
man who found an enormous fortune and then
died saying "Gold! All for you,
everything is straight in London." and
without telling anyone where it was. Curses!
Actually I suspect that these are Funds
in Chancery, and I think the chap
had found proof of his entitlement as heir or
co-heir of unclaimed funds or property,
possibly lands in Staffordshire, but I am too
lazy to follow it up;
- an
Earl who died in 1972 without issue leaving
an estate which today must be worth tens of
millions pounds (Liverpool City Council are
still looking for the rightful heirs);
- a
banker to the royal family (and the Secret
Service) who died penniless in 1840. My
personal theory is that he loaned the money
for the rebuilding of Windsor Castle and
wasn't repaid; I'm thinking of a repossession
order. Just joking. He did in fact lend lots
of money to the Prince Regent (a very silly
thing to do given that the Prince Regent was
a complete spendthrift) who did spend vast
amounts on various building projects,
including the Brighton Pavillion;
- another
banker, from the same family, whose family
bank also went bankrupt in 1923 (that's two
family banks that have gone under), as a
result, I suspect, of being defrauded by a
close friend and business partner of the 1st
Duke of Fife (who married Princess Louise,
the third child and eldest daughter of King
Edward VII). When the fraudster, an earl,
died in 1923 investigations into his almost
certainly criminal activities were not
pursued, primarily, I suspect, on account of
this royal connection and the possibility of
embarassing disclosures;
- Britain's
most famous gardener - a lady;
- a
reputed lover of Catherine the Great, Empress
of Russia;
- a
great-aunt who was painted by John Singer
Sargent;
- the
man who invented the Victorian workhouse
system, with the best of intentions, and
about whom Karl Marx was rather rude (no
manners some people). I think he is the
original 'toady of the bourgeoisie', though
actually he was a man of iron principle and
was sacked for his support of the Catholic
Church in Ireland (he suggested that the
rich, minority Protestant Church in Ireland
might like to give some of its money to the
impoverished Irish Catholic Church - an idea
that went down like a lead balloon);
- this
same man also prevented a war between Great
Britain and the United States;
- a
man who escaped from the Black Hole of
Calcutta, received an enormous 'gift' (read
'bribe'), equivalent to many millions of
pounds in today's money, from the Nawab of
Bengal (I like to think of a casket of
jewels) and who used the money to buy an
estate back in England (there's a picture of
his house) - he also married (without
apparently ever being aware of the fact) the
premier baron(ess) of England;
- the
man who led the 'Mutiny on the Bounty'
(actually an extremely distant relation by
marriage but I had to put him in);
- a
baronet and his wife (a famous seller of
up-market ladies underclothing) who escaped
from the Titanic in a half-empty lifeboat
(actually, a letter written shortly after the
disaster has come to light (in 2007) which
makes it clear that they were completely
blameless);
- a
vicar and his wife who didn't (she refused a
place in a lifeboat in order to stay with her
husband);
- a
lady, the mother of the Shakespeare suspect
(above), who is reputed to have poisoned
three of her four husbands and who had so
many children she is known as 'The Mother of
Wales';
- one
of her husbands, the instigator of the London
Stock Exchange, whose house is reputed to
have been built by the Devil (actually this
idea was dreamed up by some brainless locals
who, I suspect, saw brick kilns burning in
the dark - it was the first brick-built house
in Wales apparently);
- a
Knight of the Carpet (I've no idea either -
it sounds like some after-dinner game);
- the
man to whom Shakespeare wrote his most
mysterious poem, The
Phoenix & The Turtle (it's
supposed to be some sort of secret
Rosicrucian code - but actually it is a very
beautiful poem about love, the phoenix, and
constancy, the turtle dove);
Beauty,
truth, and rarity,
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclosed, in cinders lie.
Death
is now the phoenix' nest
And the turtle's loyal breast
To eternity doth rest,
Leaving
no posterity:
'Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.
Truth
may seem, but cannot be:
Beauty brag, but 'tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.
To this
urn let those repair
That are either true or fair
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.
- the
man who de-cyphered the secret plans of the
Spanish Armada;
- a
man who shot his lover's husband as they were
coming out of church after their wedding,
carried the lady off and married her on the
same day, so that she was 'maid, widow and wife
twice in the same day';
- the
man generally held to have been the flower of
chivalry and the greatest knight in
Christendom - ever (his name was William
Marshall (1146-1219), Earl of Pembroke, and I
seem to remember that, at one tournament, he
broke 47 lances in one day - he is one of the
Knights Templar buried in the Temple Church,
London);
- the
Blue Knight of Gwent (he fought at Agincourt)
and his wife the Star of Abergavenny;
- the
man who reputedly crowned Henry VII on the
battlefield after Bosworth;
- a
reputed bastard son of Henry VII, brought up
by Henry VII at Court, described in an elegy
written shortly after his death as 'a man of
earl's blood and of kingly line'. Henry VII
recorded personal information in a secret
notebook but this notebook was stolen and
destroyed by a pet monkey, so by a
preposterous turn of fate the truth about
Henry's possible son has been lost to
posterity;
- a
man (called 'Sir John of the Thumbs' because
he had two thumbs on each hand) who killed a
dragon - and don't you dare tell the people
of Denbigh ('Dimbych' means 'no more dragon'
in Welsh) that their dragon
didn't exist;
- a
hook-nosed Norman knight, nicknamed 'The
Wolf', who kept his father-in-law in a cage
(sounds like the ideal Sunday lunch guest -
'A small sherry perhaps, Mr. Wolf?');
- the
owner of the smallest palace in the United
Kingdom - namely me (undiscovered until
2002);
- the
man who owned the poshest kitchen sink in the
world, made from pink marble;
- El
Cid, Lady Godiva, who were real people,
Alfred the Great and King Arthur, who it
seems pretty certain was also a real person;
- all
the usual suspects, including kings, queens,
princes, dukes, earls and so on and so forth;
- several
Saints;
- and,
of course, me - 41st Baron of Mordington
(which title - being a lordship
of regality or palatinate, no
less - I acquired by mistake, believe it or
not), clearly the most distinguished of the
lot!
I have
been trying to find a descent from the man who
invented the 'whoopee cushion' but without any luck
so far.
The
pedigree which follows is, I would guess, fairly
typical for an English family of gentle descent
('gentle' being a euphemism for bad barons,
mischievous marquesses and dastardly dukes) and it is
of interest for that reason. Many such families will
include amongst their ancestors kings and queens,
princes and princesses, heroes, villains, cowards and
thieves; men who have fought (and some who have left
their bones) on the most famous battlefields in
history, including Crecy, Agincourt, Flodden Field,
Bosworth, Khartoum, Waterloo and Inkerman (to name
but a few); some who were victorious and some who
weren't; some who were executed for treason or who
suffered for their beliefs (but usually their greed!)
and many who, in the words of Thomas Hughes, have
'for centuries, in their quiet, dogged, homespun way,
been subduing the earth in most English counties, and
leaving their mark in American forests and Australian
uplands'. There is also a noticeable preponderance of
men of the church, the army and the law and there are
many connections to people who, in one way or
another, have made some small contribution to the
rich tapestry of English, Welsh and Scottish history.
Background
The
following is an extract from a document called 'The
Descent of Hughes', with later additions, which was
prepared by a local historian (Ivy Curzon), who was
not related, and given to my grandfather, Oliver
Senior, many years ago. The original document traced
a single line of descent from Henry VII's reputed
natural son, Sir Roland de Velville (1474-1535). I
have amended this to show a proven line of descent
from Edward I, 'Hammer of the Scots'. There are
numerous lines back to Edward I and earlier kings and
further lines to Edward IIII. Some of these are
indicated.
Conventions
Where
I have been unable to read the original clearly this
is indicated with a question mark in brackets.
Question marks not in brackets are question marks on
the original document. I have also added some
comments and minor details. These are preceded by an
asterisk. In a number of instances, I mention that
one individual is descended from another i.e. Anne
Perceval from Henry I, King of France. Where this is
the case it means I have a pedigree tracing the
descent.
The investigation
The
story behind my investigation into this family tree
may be of interest - it is something of an Internet
success story. My grandfather gave me the pedigree (page 1, page 2, page 3) in about
1980, along with some other papers. A year or so
later I was visiting a bookshop in Tunbridge Wells
and came across a biography of Henry VII. This
mentioned Sir Roland de Velville but said that he was
probably a Breton mercenary who came to England with
Henry VII, then plain Henry Tudor, in 1485. This was
not unexpected - although, interestingly, the
Dictionary of Welsh Biography, under Katheryn of
Berain, refers to Sir Roland as 'a natural son of
Henry VII'. I took no further action until
1997, some 17 years later, when I wrote to the
College of Arms to see if they had any further
information. They pointed me in the direction of two articles
about Sir Roland. Reading these I quickly
became convinced that Sir Roland was Henry VII's son
but it was also evident that definitive proof was
unlikely to be forthcoming.
I
decided to look into various other families mentioned
in the family tree, such as Salusbury (of Lleweni as
I later found) and Griffith of Penrhyn. The Descent
of Hughes mentions that Sir Roland's wife was a lady
called 'Agnes Griffith, daughter of William Griffith
Fychan of Penrhyn' but went no further. 'Agnes
Griffith' didn't sound like the sort of person who
might have interesting connections (How wrong I
was!) but, nonetheless, I searched for the
words 'griffith' and 'penrhyn' on the Internet using
HotBot. It found this, which is a
list of books about Welsh genealogy in the Library of
Congress. This list included the following entry:-
The Welsh families
of Penrhyn : a genealogical history of the Griffith
family, Lords of Penrhyn, and the Williams family, of
Cochwillan and Penrhyn 1985 E.H. Douglas Pennant.
[Bangor, Gwynedd] : E.D. Pennant, 1985. LC: CS71.G853
1985 Dewey: 929/.2/0942
Not
being a genealogist (at that time - I am now a
confirmed bore on the subject) and having no idea
where to look (the Library of Congress isn't exactly
round the corner), progress might have been slow or
non-existent had I not made contact, through the soc.genealogy.medieval
newsgroup, with some very helpful people, both in the
UK and the US. One of these very kindly sent me a
huge GEDCOM file with details of about 5,000 people,
which enabled me to link the Griffith family to most
of the feudal aristocracy and royal houses of Europe.
Other people have sent me pages and pages of
information on various families, numerous photocopies
of articles and pages from books, photographs,
inscriptions and so on. I was really amazed at (and
grateful for) the reaction.
Since
then I have checked all the people shown below to
other sources and have fleshed out some of the
detail. I have also discovered a number of additional
genealogical links. Through the Internet and the
extraordinary kindness of others I was able to
achieve in months what could well have taken years.
Interesting aspects
One
interesting aspect of this family tree is that over a
period of 500 years (1200 to 1700 or thereabouts), of
13 families shown 10 were of royal descent
and 1 was descended from a reputed royal child and
also from one of the 15 'royal tribes' (i.e.
families) of Wales. The two remaining (Goushill and
Troutbeck) may have a royal descent but I am not
aware of it. Most of the 10 families have more than
one line back to royalty so there are numerous lines
back to William the Conqueror, more than I would care
to count (Note - I have now written a program
which can count descents. At the moment I have over
20,000 distinct lines of descent from Charlemagne).
Some of these are indicated. Two other
families shown here (after 1700), the Edens and the
Hammersleys, also have numerous royal descents, in
fact the Edens more than any other.
The 13
families referred to are as follows. Those with a
royal ancestry are indicated with an asterisk.
- De
Bohun*
- Badlesmere*
- Fitzalan*
- Goushill
- Stanley*
- Troutbeck
- Griffith
of Penrhyn*
- Stradling
of St. Donat's*
- Bulkeley
of Beaumaris*
- Wynn
of Gwydir*
- Salusbury
of Lleweni
- Norris
of Speke*
- Perceval*
Most
of these families go back, one way or another, to a
number of royal houses, including those of England,
Scotland, Wales, Ireland (including the High Kings of
Tara), France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, The Holy Roman
Empire, Byzantium, Wessex and the early English
kingdoms, Italy, Holland, Luxembourg, Poland,
Burgundy, Portugal, Hungary, Bohemia, Serbia,
Bulgaria, Kiev (through the marriage of Henry I, King
of France, to Anne of Kiev), Novgorod and so on. It
is also worth noting that most of the families
mentioned here have died out in the male line and
also that most of the marriages shown are between
cousins, sometimes quite close cousins. Some quite
interesting people from whom the Hughes are descended
are not listed here. They include Lady Godiva
and El Cid.
Sources
All
the people shown have been checked to secondary
sources (usually more than one), such as the
Dictionary of National Biography or other
publications. One error in the original document was
found, which came from 'Burke's Landed Gentry', as
shown below. Almost all of these sources have been
pointed out to me by others, so I claim no credit.
The sources include:
- The
Dictionary of National Biography
- The
Dictionary of Welsh Biography
- Harleian
Visitations (various)
- The
Marquis de Ruvigny's 'The Plantagenet Roll of
the Blood Royal'
- The
Complete Peerage
- Britain's
Royal Families by Alison Weir
- Burke's
Peerage and Baronetage (Various editions)
- Burke's
Landed Gentry (Various editions)
- Burke's
Dormant and Extinct Peerages
- Burke's
Extinct Baronetcies
On the
Hughes Welsh ancestors:
- Byegones
relating to Wales and the Border Countries
- Ormerod's
Miscellanea Palatina
- Calendars
of Salusbury Correspondence
- Denbighshire
Pedigrees by Lewis Dwnn
- History
of the Gwydir Family by Sir John Wynn
- History
of Powys Fadog
- A
Genealogical History of the House of Yvery
(in The Society of Genealogists in London)
- Ancient
& Modern Denbigh by John Williams
- Pedigrees
of Anglesey and Caernarvonshire Families by
J. E. Griffiths
- Morganiae
Archaiographia
- Old
and Extinct Familes of Glamorgan
The American connection
Some
descendants of the Hughes listed here emigrated to
the US. Further information on the Hughes family in
America can be found in 'An American Saga - William George
Hughes (1859-1902)' by Garland Perry, PO Box
200, Boerne, Texas 78006-0200 (ISBN 0-9646196-1-1 and
CIP 95-75913), which has a useful bibliography.
William
Hastings Hughes (1833-1909). He established
a business importing sherry. After his first wife's
death in Spain in 1864 he and his four children lived
with his sister Jeanie at Elm House, Battersea. In
1878, following Jeanie's death in 1877, he moved to
New York and, a few years later, to his brother's
(Thomas) Utopian settlement in Rugby, Tennessee. In
1858 he married Emily Clarke (1838-1864) daughter of
George Clarke (1809-1874), Archdeacon of St. David's,
and Anna Eliza Frances Senior, sister of Nassau
William Senior. They had four children:
William
George Hughes (1859-1902). He emigrated
to the USA in 1878 and built up a substantial
ranch of about 7,000 acres near Boerne, Texas. He
employed an ex-member (reformed) of the Jesse
James gang. He married Lucy Caroline Stephenson
in 1888 and had three children, Jeanie (b 1889),
George (b 1892) and Gerrard Hastings (b 1895).
Gerard (1861-1894). He emigrated
to the USA in 1882 and became a partner in his
brother's Texas ranch. No issue.
Henry ('Harry') (1862-1896). He
emigrated to the USA in 1879 and became a partner
in his brother's Texas ranch and later worked for
John Murray Forbes (see below). No issue.
Emily (b 1864). Following Jeanie
Senior's death in 1877 she accompanied Jeanie's
mother, Margaret, to Thomas Hughes's Utopian
colony at Rugby, Tenessee in 1881. She married
Ainslie Marshall in 1902 and had one child,
Harry, who farmed at Sotik, Kenya. Harry did not
marry and died in 1964. She probably died in
about 1939 in Kenya. Her last letter to Oliver
Nassau Senior, her cousin, is dated 1936.
William
Hastings Hughes married, secondly in 1887, Sarah
Forbes (1853-1917), daughter of the great
American railway magnate, John Murray Forbes of
Boston (1813-1898). They had two children:
Walter
Scott Hughes (1888-1953). He married,
firstly in 1924, Dorothy Pease (1896-1956), by
whom he had one son, John Hastings Hughes
(1925-1985), and, secondly in 1931, Paula Mason
(1903-1995), by whom he had three children,
Margaret (1932-1979), Kathryn (b 1937) and Arthur
(b 1943).
Dorothea Hughes (1891-1952). She
married David Simmons (1889-1960), a wealthy
planter of Castle Daly, Jamaica, in 1929. They
had no children.
Thomas
Hughes (1822-1896). Author of 'Tom Brown's
Schooldays', founded the historic town of Rugby,
Tennessee in 1880. He had nine children as
follows:
Evie
(1848/9-1856) She died young.
Maurice (1850-1859) He died
young.
James ('Jim' or 'Pip') (1853?-1914)
He emigrated to the USA in 1874 and established a
business selling racehorses and polo ponies.
Caroline (1854?-1906) She
married Rev. Fraser Cornish of London.
John ('Jack') (1856/7-1888)
Mary ('May') (1860-1941) She
dedicated her life to the poor and needy of the
East End of London and eventually became a
Communist. She did not marry.
Arthur (b 1863?)
George ('Plump') (b 1865) He
emigrated to the USA in 1882 and became a rancher
in Texas, eventually establishing his own ranch
at Stanley Farm, North Topeka. He married Lena
Cogdell and had three children, Tom, George and
Caroline.
Lilian ('Lily') (1867?-1912) She
married Rev. Ernest Courtenay Carter in 1889,
vicar of a poor parish (St Judes) in the East End
of London. They had no children and were both
drowned in the Titanic disaster of 1912.
What's not included
The
original document included a list tracing Alfred the
Great's descent from Adam, as presented to the Pope
by Ethelwulf during his visit to Rome, but this is
not included here. Of more interest perhaps is
Charlemagne's ancestry, which apparently goes back to
Roman senatorial and imperial families, or the
pedigrees of the Welsh princes, which apparently go
back to about 100 B.C. The ancestry of the British
royal family can also be traced back to Byzantine
Emperors, the High Kings of Tara (Ireland) and to Muhammad, though the
latter is disputed (but not apparently by Muslims).
This document only goes back as far as Mérovée,
founder of the Merovingian dynasty. I have seen
lineages traced back to, amongst others, Julius
Caesar, Constantine the Great and Joseph of
Arimathea, from whom the Welsh princes claimed
descent. The oldest genealogies in Europe are, I am
told, those of the High Kings of Tara (Ireland),
which are supposed to go back to 1934 BC. I have
added a possible line from King Alfred to King Arthur
- see below.
Other sites
You
might also like to visit:-
How to find out more
If you
would like to find out more about the families
mentioned here then the best places to look are the
Dictionary of National Biography (DNB), which is
available in most public libraries in the UK, and the
Dictionary of Welsh Biography (DWB). Almost all the
families in this pedigree, down to the Hughes, are
listed in one or the other. Of the Hughes family and
later, only Nassau William Senior, John Hughes,
Thomas Hughes and Jane Elizabeth Hughes (Mrs. Nassau
Senior) have an entry in the new DNB. The other
places to look are Burke's Peerage, Burke's Landed
Gentry and Burke's Dormant and Extinct Peerages.
There are numerous sites on the Internet where people
are listed. The best is probably The Directory
of Royal Genealogical Data, which
includes various members of the Hammersley family,
amongst others listed here. The other place to try is
Google.
If you
want to find any of the places mentioned here on a
map then try this.
How to contact me
Please
E-Mail me if you have
any comments, queries or suggestions.
All the
best,
Graham
Senior-Milne 
Norham
May 2007
'Be it known, then, that
when our gentleman had nothing to do (which was almost
all the year round) he passed his time in reading books
of knight-errantry, which he did with so much application
and delight, that at last he wholly left off his country
sports and even the care of his estate.' - The Life and
Achievements of Don Quixote de La Mancha.
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