Dear List member,
I hope somebody may be able to update me as to recent research on this part
of the Brereton Family in Cheshire. The Heralds Visitations show Sir Andrew
having two illegitimate daughters - 1) Catherine, married Smith of Haugh
and 2) Katherine marrying William Bowyer, from whom I descend through the
Wedgwood family of Staffordshire.
Recent charts I have seen, via Ancestry.com and others show different
versions of this - some have Katherine marrying first Smith and then Bowyer
and very many have them both as legitimate daughters via a second, or
sometimes third marriage with Anne Done of Utkinton. I am unable to pin down
sources for this, my instinct is to, in the absence of material to the
contrary, to go on the Visitation Pedigrees.
Does anybody have any material which may shed some light on this?
Many thanks,
John Wedgwood Pound,
Worcester, England
http://www.wedgwood.org.uk
Sir Andrew Brereton (1438-1498) and the Bowyer Marriage
Moderator: MOD_nyhetsgrupper
-
Tim Powys-Lybbe
Re: Sir Andrew Brereton (1438-1498) and the Bowyer Marriage
In message of 18 Mar, "John Pound" <John@johnpound.org> wrote:
One trusts that there is more than one member! More seriously no-one is
a member, anyone can access these posts.
I quite agree with you. If the people cannot have the grace to name the
sources for their information, it is probably because they don't know
and it is justifiable to conclude is that it is dodgy material.
I have eventually found the probable visitation entry to which you are
referring, that on page 41 of the so-called 1580 Visitation of Cheshire
as published by the Harleian Society in 1882.
I do not know if you have read the preface to this volumes but for
everyone of these published Visitations it is enormously instructive to
read the prefaces. This is because the preface almost always tells you
where the information came from as very few of these 'Visitations' came
from the surviving master Visitation records.
In this case, the information did not come from the official Visitation
records held in the College of Arms. Instead it came from two copies of
the visitation, possibly both made by the same person but each with
different additions. Possibly one of the documents was a copy of the
other. The documents, nos 1424 and 1505, are part of the Harleian
collection now in the British Library. Accordingly this book suffers,
like all other transcripts, from possibility of error in the copying
from the original visitation records. Further it suffers from additions
made to the original visitation records.
The next concern is how accurate this Brereton record was in the first
place. While the Visitation was made in 1580, this record has an entry
on page 42 for Sir William Brereton of Brereton of '1596' so this must
have been added after the visitation. But from the relative
completeness of this Wm Brereton's immediate family, particularly
compared to that of his cousin Hugh Brereton further down the same page,
I would guess that it may well have been him who was the man who
attended the visitation itself. So what would he have told the herald
with any confidence of accuracy? Certainly he would have known his
parents and siblings; probably he would also have known or known of his
grandparents, but any more remote relations would have been hearsay.
On the other hand all estate owners such as this Sir Wm depended for
their title on their deed chest containing deeds and charters to do with
the property and going back for many years. These documents would have
been in latin and the average landowner would not have been very skilled
in reading that. But someone more knowledgeable than he may have made
an abstract of the title and shown how the properties had been inherited
or acquired. Sir Wm may have brought a copy of such a pedigree with him
along to the visitation meeting. So some credence can be given to the
more remote individuals in this pedigree.
Sir Andrew was the gt-gt-grandfather of Sir Wm the probable visitation
interviewee. So he probably existed. But his two reported illegitimate
daughters and their spouses, who knows!
A far better account of this Brereton family is to be found in Ormerod's
"History of Cheshire" volume III, pp. 81 to 89. This is clearly
corroborated with references to surviving documents but gives no mention
to Sir Andrew's by-blows at all. I would recommend reading it as it may
give you a few leads.
(For those who have heard me on the subject of Visitations before,
apologies for repeating myself and at such length.)
--
Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org
For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org/
Dear List member,
One trusts that there is more than one member! More seriously no-one is
a member, anyone can access these posts.
I hope somebody may be able to update me as to recent research on this part
of the Brereton Family in Cheshire. The Heralds Visitations show Sir Andrew
having two illegitimate daughters - 1) Catherine, married Smith of Haugh
and 2) Katherine marrying William Bowyer, from whom I descend through the
Wedgwood family of Staffordshire.
Recent charts I have seen, via Ancestry.com and others show different
versions of this - some have Katherine marrying first Smith and then Bowyer
and very many have them both as legitimate daughters via a second, or
sometimes third marriage with Anne Done of Utkinton. I am unable to pin down
sources for this, my instinct is to, in the absence of material to the
contrary, to go on the Visitation Pedigrees.
I quite agree with you. If the people cannot have the grace to name the
sources for their information, it is probably because they don't know
and it is justifiable to conclude is that it is dodgy material.
Does anybody have any material which may shed some light on this?
I have eventually found the probable visitation entry to which you are
referring, that on page 41 of the so-called 1580 Visitation of Cheshire
as published by the Harleian Society in 1882.
I do not know if you have read the preface to this volumes but for
everyone of these published Visitations it is enormously instructive to
read the prefaces. This is because the preface almost always tells you
where the information came from as very few of these 'Visitations' came
from the surviving master Visitation records.
In this case, the information did not come from the official Visitation
records held in the College of Arms. Instead it came from two copies of
the visitation, possibly both made by the same person but each with
different additions. Possibly one of the documents was a copy of the
other. The documents, nos 1424 and 1505, are part of the Harleian
collection now in the British Library. Accordingly this book suffers,
like all other transcripts, from possibility of error in the copying
from the original visitation records. Further it suffers from additions
made to the original visitation records.
The next concern is how accurate this Brereton record was in the first
place. While the Visitation was made in 1580, this record has an entry
on page 42 for Sir William Brereton of Brereton of '1596' so this must
have been added after the visitation. But from the relative
completeness of this Wm Brereton's immediate family, particularly
compared to that of his cousin Hugh Brereton further down the same page,
I would guess that it may well have been him who was the man who
attended the visitation itself. So what would he have told the herald
with any confidence of accuracy? Certainly he would have known his
parents and siblings; probably he would also have known or known of his
grandparents, but any more remote relations would have been hearsay.
On the other hand all estate owners such as this Sir Wm depended for
their title on their deed chest containing deeds and charters to do with
the property and going back for many years. These documents would have
been in latin and the average landowner would not have been very skilled
in reading that. But someone more knowledgeable than he may have made
an abstract of the title and shown how the properties had been inherited
or acquired. Sir Wm may have brought a copy of such a pedigree with him
along to the visitation meeting. So some credence can be given to the
more remote individuals in this pedigree.
Sir Andrew was the gt-gt-grandfather of Sir Wm the probable visitation
interviewee. So he probably existed. But his two reported illegitimate
daughters and their spouses, who knows!
A far better account of this Brereton family is to be found in Ormerod's
"History of Cheshire" volume III, pp. 81 to 89. This is clearly
corroborated with references to surviving documents but gives no mention
to Sir Andrew's by-blows at all. I would recommend reading it as it may
give you a few leads.
(For those who have heard me on the subject of Visitations before,
apologies for repeating myself and at such length.)
--
Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org
For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org/