Are there ANY descent pedigrees/genealogies of de Fresny (later French) family??

[Michael Rochester]

The de Fresny family appears to have a long lineage, but no pedigrees I can find, unless there is a variation I may have missed. Here is my descent:

Elizabeth Fiene de la Frevne 1305-
21st great-grandmother
John Talbot 1325-1405
Son of Elizabeth Fiene de la Frevne
Thomas Talbot 1349-1388
Son of John Talbot
Joan Talbot 1375-
Daughter of Thomas Talbot
Elizabeth Mallory 1400-
Daughter of Joan Talbot
Elizabeth Eure 1426-1482
Daughter of Elizabeth Mallory
Ralph Bulmer 1445-1486
Son of Elizabeth Eure
(Sir) William Bulmer 1465-1531
Son of Ralph Bulmer
(Sir) John Bulmer 1490-1537
Son of (Sir) William Bulmer
(Sir) Ralph Bulmer 1510-1558
Son of (Sir) John Bulmer
Anne Bulmer 1554-1624
Daughter of (Sir) Ralph Bulmer
Margery Welbury 1575-1606
Daughter of Anne Bulmer
Robert Eden 1590-1662
Son of Margery Welbury
John Eden 1616-1675
Son of Robert Eden
Layton (Laton) Eden Vicar of Hartburn 1645-1735
Son of John Eden
Jane Eden 1710-1798
Daughter of Layton (Laton) Eden Vicar of Hartburn
Margaret Harle 1734-1818
Daughter of Jane Eden
George Eden Meggison 1756-1815
Son of Margaret Harle
Thomas Meggison 1803-1883
Son of George Eden Meggison
Thomas Cuthbert Meggison 1847-1924
Son of Thomas Meggison
Thomas Bernard Meggison 1877-1965
Son of Thomas Cuthbert Meggison
Ernest Joseph Meggison 1914-1995
Son of Thomas Bernard Meggison
Thomas Frederick Meggison 1944-
Son of Ernest Joseph Meggison
Michael Thomas Meggison

[Mark Jennings]

On Sunday, February 14, 2021 at 5:24:40 AM UTC, kingofr...@gmail.com wrote:
> The de Fresny family appears to have a long lineage, but no pedigrees I can find, unless there is a variation I may have missed. Here is my descent:
>
> Elizabeth Fiene de la Frevne 1305-
> 21st great-grandmother
> John Talbot 1325-1405
> Son of Elizabeth Fiene de la Frevne

How can a family have a long lineage but no pedigree? Every family line descends from some remote ancestor, known or unknown, since the average human being does not spontaneously self-generate, but without a pedigree it isn't possible to say whether a particular family has a long lineage.

You first challenge here is that the name is question has so many different spellings. (NB "Fiene de la Frevne" probably isn't one of them, and I would also ditch the oft-repeated assertion that they turned into a family named French, unless you have solid contemporary evidence - this canard seems to be based on a "the name's vaguely the same" argument, perhaps courtesy of one of Burke's early flights of fantasy).

Sir John Talbot of Swannington, then said to be aged 40 and more, is named in the Inquisition Post Mortem for his first cousin, Richard de Frene (sic), taken at Hereford on 12 December 1375. His mother is stated to have been Elizabeth, one of the 3 sisters of Richard de Frene's father, also named Richard de Frene (he left a widow, Elizabeth, who had dower rights); one of the sisters - Alice - was said then to be aged 50 and more, which might assist in offering a very rough estimate for the birth-range of Elizabeth (Talbot) and Richard the elder. The inheritance involved the Herefordshire manors of Mocas and Sutton Frene. Sir John was dealing with the manor of Sutton Frene two years later (Herefordshire Feet of Fines, CP 25/1/83/48, number 2).

The reason that we have visibility of the 1375 IPM is that the de Frenes' overlord had died, and the King had wardship of the heir; normally, since these holdings were not in chief, the King had no direct interest in the passage of these manors, so their inheritance and thus the genealogy of their lords is harder to trace.

There are various earlier references to members of the family holding at Sutton and Moccas - for instance, John de Frene and his wife Sarah held Moccas in 1316 (Herefordshire Feet of Fines, CP 25/1/82/32, number 106) - but whether anything other than a tentative pedigree based on chronologies can be composed from the available primary material is doubtful.

[Mark Jennings]

The IPM for Humphrey, Earl of Hereford and Essex, taken at Hereford on 25 January 1373, states that amongst his tenants were the heirs of Richard Frene at Moccas and Sutton, and the heirs of Richard de Fraxino at Little Cowarne. This is presumably the same man, recently dead at that date, and evidently the elder of the two Richards, since the younger (according to his IPM) died 14 November 1375.

There is a further IPM (C 135/170/11) for Margaret, widow of "John de Frene or le Freen", dated August and September 1362, which states that she held "two parts" of the manor of Neen Sollars jointly with her late husband, and a messuage at Staunton on Wye, leaving a son and heir, John, "aged 22" or "23". These do not appear to be members of the immediate Moccas Frene family, so care needs to be taken when encountering someone with that name in Herefordshire - perhaps not all Frenes are sibs...

[Mark Jennings]

On Sunday, February 14, 2021 at 5:22:51 PM UTC, Mark Jennings wrote:
> On Sunday, February 14, 2021 at 12:26:47 PM UTC, Mark Jennings wrote:
> > On Sunday, February 14, 2021 at 5:24:40 AM UTC, kingofr...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > The de Fresny family appears to have a long lineage, but no pedigrees I can find, unless there is a variation I may have missed. Here is my descent:
> > >
> > > Elizabeth Fiene de la Frevne 1305-
> > > 21st great-grandmother
> > > John Talbot 1325-1405
> > > Son of Elizabeth Fiene de la Frevne
> >

> > Sir John Talbot of Swannington, then said to be aged 40 and more, is named in the Inquisition Post Mortem for his first cousin, Richard de Frene (sic), taken at Hereford on 12 December 1375. His mother is stated to have been Elizabeth, one of the 3 sisters of Richard de Frene's father, also named Richard de Frene (he left a widow, Elizabeth, who had dower rights); one of the sisters - Alice - was said then to be aged 50 and more, which might assist in offering a very rough estimate for the birth-range of Elizabeth (Talbot) and Richard the elder. The inheritance involved the Herefordshire manors of Mocas and Sutton Frene. Sir John was dealing with the manor of Sutton Frene two years later (Herefordshire Feet of Fines, CP 25/1/83/48, number 2).
> >

> > There are various earlier references to members of the family holding at Sutton and Moccas - for instance, John de Frene and his wife Sarah held Moccas in 1316 (Herefordshire Feet of Fines, CP 25/1/82/32, number 106) - but whether anything other than a tentative pedigree based on chronologies can be composed from the available primary material is doubtful.
> The IPM for Humphrey, Earl of Hereford and Essex, taken at Hereford on 25 January 1373, states that amongst his tenants were the heirs of Richard Frene at Moccas and Sutton, and the heirs of Richard de Fraxino at Little Cowarne. This is presumably the same man, recently dead at that date, and evidently the elder of the two Richards, since the younger (according to his IPM) died 14 November 1375.
>

Richard de Frene of Sutton, Herefordshire, quitclaimed [ie sold] his right in the manor of Calehill [Kent] to Sir Thomas de Brockhull in November 1348 (Calendar of Close Rolls, 6 March 1351). This may be Richard the elder, brother of Elizabeth Talbot.

A third IPM is that from 1347 relating to John de Frene, knight. He seems to have been a cadet of the Moccas and Sutton family, since he held a virgate of land at Moccas of John de Frene, lord of that manor. He died in January 1346/7 and left a son, Henry de Frene, "aged 19 and a half". The implication is that Richard de Frene the elder likely inherited Moccas and Sutton from John de Frene in about 1347-1348.

[Michael Rochester]

Thank you all for the additional information. Very much appreciated.

I have seen the name also later rendered as "later" French in some later books county histories; realizing it may be dubious leaps of faith.

[Michael Rochester]

This is why I assumed de Freyne had a long pedigree:

https://books.google.ca/books?id=CKxCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR13#v=onepage&q&f=false

[Peter Stewart]

On 15-Feb-21 10:15 AM, Michael Rochester wrote:
> This is why I assumed de Freyne had a long pedigree:
>
> https://books.google.ca/books?id=CKxCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR13#v=onepage&q&f=false
>

Whenever you come across any mention of a "3rd son of Rollo" (or a 2nd
son for that matter) you are reading fiction.

The only documented son of Rollo was William Longsword, and the only
proven agnatic line of descent is through him to subsequent dukes of
Normandy.

The ancestry of Hugh de Frene is not recorded - as noted in CP vol. 5 p.
572, "His parentage is unknown, but he was a member of the family of
that name, of Moccas, and Sutton Frene in Marden, co. Hereford."

The "long" ancestry of the French family including the lords de Freyne
of Artagh and Coolavin is also not recorded - see CP vol. 4 pp. 114-115
note (c), "This name, spelt in various ways, Frene, Freign, &c, and
latinised as de Fraxinis, belonged to an old English family, a
distinguished member of which was sum. to Pari, in 1336. Why it should
have been selected as a peerage title by a gentleman of Ireland in the
19th century, is not clear; possibly he thought that Frene was an old
form of French, in which case he was wrong; but at any rate he secured
a title with an archaic sound, which is always something."

A fictitious descent from Rollo was something more, a fake cherry on his
parvenu cake.

Peter Stewart

[Mark Jennings]

Peter has admirably severed the Frenches and disposed of a male line descent from Rollo.

There is at least one small published pedigree, but it seems unreliable (Archaeologia Cantiana XV, 1883, p 25:

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Archaeologia_Cantiana/RSVKAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22osbert+de+pluckley%22&pg=PA25&printsec=frontcover

This cites Additional MS 5534, and would make Hugh de Frene of Calehill (which we know belonged to the Sutton family) the son of one "Gerald de Fresne", son in turn of "Osbert de Pluckley" the younger, son of Osbert de Pluckley, son of John, granted Pluckley by Archbishop Lanfranc (r 1070-1089).

We can possibly but not certainly identify this Hugh with the man of that name who was given a licence to crenellate his manor at Moccas (CPR, 15 June 1293). Perhaps the pedigree contains some vestige of truth - a female line descent, perhaps - but it is difficult to accept it at face value, or to square it with other fragmentary references to the family from this earlier period.

[Mark Jennings]

Looking at the exercise of the advowson of Moccas, we find presentations made by Sir John de Frene (3 November 1306), John de Frene (18 January 1322) and Sir John de Frene (11 November 1336); this might represent the head of the family at the time, if the advowson and the manor were in the same hands, and no grants of the right of presentation had been made.

At Sutton St Nicholas, Dame Margaret de Frene presented on 11 April 1301, and Sir John de Frene on 25 August 1346.

http://www.melocki.org.uk/diocese/Institutions.html#S

Meanwhile, a charter fair and weekly market at Moccas were granted to John de Frene (Calendar of Charter Rolls, 16 August 1328). A John, son of "Henry de Freigne", is said to have held Moccas in 1316, citing the Exchequer Court Rolls of 7 Edward III [sic], but I don't have access to check this - I wonder if 'Hugh' is meant?.

[Mark Jennings]

An earlier Fine from Chris Phillips' excellent site:

30 April 1284: Miles Pichard and Alice his wife v Hugh de Fraxino [ie de Frene] - 1/3 of the manors of Moccas and Sutton, claimed by Alice as her dower from Henry (sic) late her husband. Alice and Miles quitclaimed (ie sold) this dower right back to Hugh.

http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/fines/abstracts/CP_25_1_81_19.shtml#64

The implication is that Hugh de Frene ff 1284 inherited, directly or otherwise, from a Henry de Frene, who left a widow Alice.

In 1255, a Henry de Fraxino held at Little Bromfield, Salop, and in 1284 a Hugh de Fraxino held the same of Humphrey de Bohun (Transactions, Shropshire Archaeological & Natural History Society, 2nd series, IV, Part 1, 1892 p 306). Perhaps these are the same two men as are named in the 1284 fine.