Claim Of Descent From Edward III For Thomas Lawrence

[peter...@yahoo.ca]

I've just come across a claim of descent for Thomas Lawrence, husband of Joan Antrobus, from Edward III. It is claimed that Gary Boyd Roberts. Here are links to the person who made the original claim: http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.ca/2013/08/tombstone-tuesday-cathedral-at-toledo.html and to the person who reported it: http://todmar.net/ancestry/lawrence_main.htm I know the line from Thomas Lawrence to Charlemagne has been proven by Greene, but am skeptical of this claim.

Peter D. A. Warwick

[Brad Verity]

On Tuesday, June 7, 2016 at 8:37:25 PM UTC-7, peter...@yahoo.ca wrote:
> I've just come across a claim of descent for Thomas Lawrence, husband of Joan Antrobus, from Edward III. It is claimed that Gary Boyd Roberts. Here are links to the person who made the original claim: http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.ca/2013/08/tombstone-tuesday-cathedral-at-toledo.html

The person making this claim (Heather Wilkinson Rojo) said (in August 2013) that she had Gary Boyd Roberts review her ancestry and he pointed out to her that some of her ancestors had royal ancestry: "I am also lucky enough to live near the New England Historic Genealogical Society, where Gary Boyd Roberts has checked my family tree several times and pointed out ancestors who descend from the Plantagenets and other royal and noble families. William Adams Reitwiesner's website is valuable, too."

We aren't informed which of Ms. Rojo's ancestors were pointed out to her as Plantagenet descendants by Gary Boyd Roberts, as opposed to the ones whose royal ancestry she worked out using the late William Adams Reitwiesner's site (or other sources), but the list she provides is: "The immigrant I have who descended from John of Gaunt is Thomas Lawrence (1585-1629) who married Joan Antrobus. I descend from two of their six children. He is a descendant of Mary de Ferrers described above [daughter of Joan Beaufort]. Some other ancestors with royal lineages are Reverend Peter Bulkeley (1583-1659) as well as his wife Olyff Irby (about 1547-1615), Judith Lewis (1626-1688) wife of James Gibbons, and Eleanor Slingsby (died 1647) wife of Arthur Ingraham."

I can confirm that Eleanor Slingsby (b. c.1600; bur. 25 May 1647 St Giles in the Fields, London), m. 1622, as his 1st wife, Sir Arthur Ingram of Temple Newsam (c.1596-1655), is indeed descended from Edward III thru not just Joan Beaufort but also thru Lionel Duke of Clarence. You can find Eleanor in Table IV (p. 5) of Ruvigny's 1911 Mortimer-Percy volume, as well as on pp. 120-121:
https://archive.org/stream/plantagenetrollo01ruvi#page/120/mode/2up

I can't speak to the accuracy of Plantagenet ancestry for Rev. Peter Bulkeley and his wife Olive Irby, or to Judith Lewis wife of James Gibbons.

> and to the person who reported it: http://todmar.net/ancestry/lawrence_main.htm I know the line from Thomas Lawrence to Charlemagne has been proven by Greene, but am skeptical of this claim.

You have good reason, Peter, to be skeptical of this claim of an Edward III descent for Thomas Lawrence, for it is indeed inaccurate. It originated in a 1911 pedigree by Charles Browning in his 'Americans of Royal Descent'. Browning's line can be viewed online here:
http://todmar.net/ancestry/Lawrence-to-Royalty.jpg

The first red flag of course is that Browning (accurately) has Dorothy Mauleverer married to John Kaye on 21 Jan. 1543 [The couple were married at All Saints Church, Bardsey, Yorkshire, per the entry in the surviving parish register], but then with a great-grandson William Lawrence who married Frances Beaumont 25 Nov. 1559 - just 13 years later than his supposed great-grandparents! This of course is so chronologically impossible I have to wonder whether Browning had a kind of dyslexia when it came to dates.

You can use a blogpost I made last January - 'Edward III Descents for Elizabeth (née Kaye), Viscountess Lewisham (1707-1745)' - to work out the various lines of descent from Edward III for Dorothy Mauleverer (c.1527-1591), wife of John Kaye of Woodsome Hall (c.1527-1594):
http://royaldescent.blogspot.ca/2016/01/edward-iii-descents-for-elizabeth-nee.html

Dorothy (Mauleverer) Kaye did have a younger son named Edward, but he did not marry Ann Tirwhitt as in Browning's pedigree. He was Rev. Edward Kaye (bap. 11 May 1558 All Saints Church, Almondbury, Yorkshire), rector of Staveley, Derbyshire, married by 1586, Beatrix Neville of Ragnall (bur. 13 Nov. 1623 St John the Baptist Church, Staveley), as traced by Rev. John William Clay in the Kaye of Woodsome pedigree in his 1899 first volume of 'Dugdale's Visitation of Yorkshire With Additions':
https://archive.org/stream/dugdalesvisitati01dugd#page/74/mode/2up

Hope this helps!

Cheers, ----Brad

[peter...@yahoo.ca]

Thanks for your feedback Brad. I've found keeping a calculator handy helps with genealogy. The math wasn't adding up with the claimed descent from Edward III. I got a laugh out of one royal ancestry for Thomas Lawrence going through the Lawrences. One person used a scan from a published genealogy to show that one Lawrence descended from another. Unfortunately the person never bothered to read the genealogy as it clearly said that this one Lawrence did not have children.

I do agree that John Lawrence's parents were probably William Lawrence and Katherine Beaumont/Katerine Beawmond. Greene didn't think so and had said back in 1989 that he was preparing an article on the Lawrence genealogy, but, so far as I know, he has not published this.

Peter D. A. Warwick