Powers of Brittany, England, Wales and Ireland
Michael o Hearn
There is little known historically about the ancestry of the Powers of England prior to the Norman Conquest in 1066. One theory is that there were descendants from the Armorican peninsula living in Britain who resettled there when the Normans took over in Brittany, this being before the conquest of England. Another theory has the family beginning with the Pohers mentioned in the Battle Abbey Rolls and who settled in Devon with Alured de Mayenne circa 1066.
Ancestral memory only exists where it is useful and relevant to society. Where the memory has been lost over time, it becomes necessary to use other means of reasoning to fill in the blank spaces, since the actual documented records no longer exist.
In the case of Powers, there is a blank space from the time of Conmore who came to Brittany in the 5th century, all the way up to the Norman Conquest. Some with an obvious ax to grind have tried to fill in the blanks with Breton and British nobility traveling back and forth across the Channel.
Ther is an axiom sometimes employed from a Medieval nominalist philosopher called Occam's Razor which basically says that when one or more explanations are possible, the simplest explanation is probably the best. Of course, this formula is itself not without its detractors.
My view of the Powers descendancy is that inhabitants from Poher (Pou Caer) in Brittany, much of who were descended in whole or in part from Britain originally, came over at or about the time of the Conquest and settled in Devonshire with Alured de Mayenne. Culturally, these were Celtic, not Germanic, and formed an alliance with William the Conqueror because of their mutual contempt for the Saxon in Great Britain. Of course the word Celtic is not descriptive of race, and was probably not used for self-description by the peoples whom the Greeks and Romans called Keltoi or Celti.
After that date, there are historical records of Drogo Poher living in Gloucestershire in 1127, and of Bartholomew le Poher, Lord of Blackborough, at the time of Henry the Second, and of his sons including Sir Roger who is given honorable mention by Giraldus Cambrensis for his role in the Norman occupation of Ireland beginning with Strongbow in 1172.
Michael O'Hearn
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M.Sjostrom
crying for some 'tos violation' does not improve genealogical bullshit to anything better.
The bullshit is not going to become solid genealogy, even if someone tries to prevent others to say what bullshit it is.