Alleged royal descent for Joseph Coulson (b 2 Jul 1669, Hartshorne, Derbyshire)

[David Teague]

Hello, all.

Patricia Ann Scherzinger's *COLONIAL AMERICANS OF ROYAL AND NOBLE DESCENT:
ALLEGED, PROVEN AND DISPROVEN*, in commenting upon one of my ancestors, the
Quaker Joseph Coulson of Pennsylvania, b. 2 July 1669 at Hartshorne,
Derbyshire, says: "Sufficient proof of alleged royal descent lacking."

That may well be so, but I have never seen the alleged royal descent in
question, and consequently have been completely unable to research the
alleged line.

The citation supplied by Scherzinger is *RAA *1, 82, which the bibliography
informs me is to Michel L. Call's *ROYAL ANCESTORS OF AMERICAN
COLONISTS* (presumably
the same as his 2005 work, *ROYAL ANCESTRY BIBLE*)? I have done enough
reading in the Gen-Medieval archives to be aware of the author's
reputation, so I am not expecting much from the claimed descent. However, I
would like to see the alleged line critiqued here, so if anyone has access
to the cited source and could post it in this forum, I would greatly
appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,

David Teague

[pj.evans]

I have a question - is Joseph connected to Henry Coulson or Collsen, whose daughter Rebeckah married Jonas Lykins of Berks county, Pennsylvania?

[David Teague]

I'm not sure. It wouldn't surprise me (especially if, of course, Henry
lived sometime in the 18th C.). However, since Henry -- if related at all
-- wasn't in my branch (through Joseph's son Thomas via Thomas's daughter
Sarah, the wife of Joseph Rich), I can't say.

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[pj.evans]

Good enough. Rebeckah married in 1757, so I'm estimating her birth year as 1735.

[adrianben...@gmail.com]

I have her book as well and of course having been published in 1996 I believe it is very out of date--she did a good job with many of the immigrants included but omitted others and like with your fellow, I have not been able to establish what exactly she was refuting in some cases. I recall she said my ancestor Matthew Beckwith of Conn. was lacking in proof of RD, which is correct, but, I believe she said he was descended from Ursula Scott and cited Call's book as well. I have research Beckwith a bit and cannot find in his immediate ancestry any Ursula Scott so separate from his lacking a proven RD, I don't know where Scott's ancestry would fit into Beckwith's. Of course it's all a bit irrelevant at this point, if you cannot find any recent mention in a journal or book on your ancestor's royal ancestry or lack thereof, in my humble opinion, you may want to start from scratch in trying to identify the immigrant's parents in England and then work backwards from there. You can also check the Great Migration series to see if there has been work done on that man recently, and check indices to TAG, TG, Record, GQ, etc. If you don't find anything useful, it's probably best to assume the immigrant's origins are unproven and need to be developed.

Adrian Benjamin Burke

[David Teague]

I'll check my CD-ROM copy of Hinshaw's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN QUAKER GENEALOGY to see if Henry is listed (but if he isn't, it isn't necessarily determinative. As I recall, not all of the meetings in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting are listed in Hinshaw's vol. 2; or Henry might just have attended a Quaker meeting without actually joining as an official member, which would limit, if not eliminate, the paper trail he might otherwise have left. Or, of course, Henry could have been from an entirely different, possibly non-Quaker family).

I do know that my branch of the Coulsons were associated with the West Nottingham meeting, which has been in Cecil Co., Md., ever since Mason and Dixon's survey in 1767.

> Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 12:11:28 -0800
> Subject: Re: Alleged royal descent for Joseph Coulson (b 2 Jul 1669, Hartshorne, Derbyshire)
> From: pj.eva...@usa.net
> To: gen-me...@rootsweb.com

[pj.evans]

I couldn't find him in there. My mother couldn't find him, and she had access to a printed copy. He might show up in tax records.

On Friday, February 28, 2014 2:55:33 PM UTC-8, David Teague wrote:
> I'll check my CD-ROM copy of Hinshaw's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN QUAKER GENEALOGY to see if Henry is listed (but if he isn't, it isn't necessarily determinative. As I recall, not all of the meetings in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting are listed in Hinshaw's vol. 2; or Henry might just have attended a Quaker meeting without actually joining as an official member, which would limit, if not eliminate, the paper trail he might otherwise have left. Or, of course, Henry could have been from an entirely different, possibly non-Quaker family).
>
> I do know that my branch of the Coulsons were associated with the West Nottingham meeting, which has been in Cecil Co., Md., ever since Mason and Dixon's survey in 1767.
>
> > Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 12:11:28 -0800
>

[snipped]

[sangreel]

David,

I have a copy of Michael Call's book, and sadly he lists no supporting sources. The publication date of this copy is Aug. 1989. In my copy Joseph Coulson (1663) & Margaret Evans (Pa. & Md) is listed as line 84. he includes date for some generations, births..etc., but not all.

For sources he writes:

" Research by Dr. Wendell O. Rich of Salt Lake City, Borrow pedigree from College of Arms."

It is shown as thus:

1. Joseph Coulson = Margaret Evans
2. Anne Borrow= Thomas Coulson
3. humphrey Borrow = Mary Robye
4. humphrey Borrow = Anne Borrow
5. William Borrow = 1?
6. Robert Borrow = 1? / 2 Elizabeth
7. William Borrow = Margaret
8. John Borrow = Agnes
9. William Borrow = Margaret Skeffington
10. Robert Borrow = ?
11. Robert Stokton or Burgh = Catherine Wade
12. Robert Stokton = Catherine de Havington
13. William de Stokton = ?
14. Mary Digby = John de Stokton
15. John Digby = Elizabeth Oseville
16. John Digby = Miss Wake
17. Arabella Harcourt = (md. 2)John Digby
18. William de Harcourt = Alice la Zouche
19. Arabella de Quincy = Richard de harcourt
20. Saher de Quincy = Margaret de Beaumont

I am sorry I could not have been more help,

M. Warner

[al...@mindspring.com]

Some of this appears to come from: "Lineage of the Coulsons" by Henry J. Coulson, 1901 and William Grafton Robey Jr., Robey, Roby, Robie: The Family History from Early England to America (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, Inc., 1994).

I have not seen either book. The older portion of the line was used by Browning.

Doug Smith

[David Teague]

OK.

Thanks first of all to everybody who has responded so far. It turns out
that I have seen this claim before, in the old LDS Ancestral File,
available at the time at the local Family History Center.

I checked my copies of AR7 and MC5, and the first problem I saw was that
Arabella (Orabella) Harcourt (d. 1279; number 17 in the line as posted
earlier in this thread) is named only as the wife of Sir Henry Pembrugge by
Weis, Farris, et al. No mention of a second marriage to John Digby at all.

I will check my copies of Doug Richardson's PA3 and MCA once I get home,
but I wonder whether I won't find the same as I did with AR7 and MC5.

The change of surname in number 11 (from de Stokton to Burgh, and then to
Borrow after that) looks somewhat suspicious to me as well.

So I suppose the next step is to ask whether anyone using a source more
highly regarded than Messrs. Call, Robey, and Coulson can show evidence for
the alleged Orabella Harcourt/John Digby marriage.

Thanks again.

David Teague

[David Teague]

An interesting development on the alleged marriage of Sir John Digby and
Orabella Harcourt, the widow of Sir Henry de Pembrugge: A webpage on Flickr
claims that she lies buried with Digby in a church in Tilton
Leicestershire.

See
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/sets/72157623136502214/detail/?page=62for
the photographs.

On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 3:04 PM, David Teague <davt...@gmail.com> wrote:

> OK.
>
> Thanks first of all to everybody who has responded so far. It turns out
> that I have seen this claim before, in the old LDS Ancestral File,
> available at the time at the local Family History Center.
>
> I checked my copies of AR7 and MC5, and the first problem I saw was that
> Arabella (Orabella) Harcourt (d. 1279; number 17 in the line as posted
> earlier in this thread) is named only as the wife of Sir Henry Pembrugge by
> Weis, Farris, et al. No mention of a second marriage to John Digby at all.
>
> I will check my copies of Doug Richardson's PA3 and MCA once I get home,
> but I wonder whether I won't find the same as I did with AR7 and MC5.
>
> The change of surname in number 11 (from de Stokton to Burgh, and then to
> Borrow after that) looks somewhat suspicious to me as well.
>
> So I suppose the next step is to ask whether anyone using a source more
> highly regarded than Messrs. Call, Robey, and Coulson can show evidence for
> the alleged Orabella Harcourt/John Digby marriage.
>
> Thanks again.
>
> David Teague
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 1, 2014 at 8:54 AM, <al...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>

[David Teague]

There was a problem with the link I posted last. It should be:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/sets/72157623136502214/detail/?page=62

David Teague

> Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2014 23:14:56 -0500

> Subject: Re: Alleged royal descent for Joseph Coulson (b 2 Jul 1669, Hartshorne, Derbyshire)

> From: davt...@gmail.com
> To: gen-me...@rootsweb.com

[Matt A]

One source for the wife of John Digby as Arabella de Harcourt is Lipscomb's Buckingham, volume 4:

http://books.google.com/books?id=mXkgAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false

See the pedigree on page 145-6.

For the Digby arms, he cites Nichols' Leicester, volume III, plate 67. Nichols, volume III, can be found here (part one - http://cdm15407.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15407coll6/id/6931/rec/31) (part two - http://cdm15407.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15407coll6/id/2904/rec/8) but it's not searchable and the plates aren't easily findable (and speaking of plates, I have enough on mine at the moment).

-Matt Ahlgren

[Douglas Richardson]

> 16. John Digby = Miss Wake
>
> 17. Arabella Harcourt = (md. 2)John Digby
>
> 18. William de Harcourt = Alice la Zouche
>
> 19. Arabella de Quincy = Richard de harcourt
>
> 20. Saher de Quincy = Margaret de Beaumont

The pedigree above breaks at Gen. 17 above. Orabel de Harcourt had only one marriage to Henry de Pembridge/Pembrugge (died 1279), of Gillock and Ullingswick, Herefordshire. She was living in 1275-6 and predeceased her husband. There was no marriage to John Digby. Her son and heir was Fulk de Pembridge, born c.1272, died 1296.

DR

[David Teague]

Thanks, Douglas. I had begun to suspect something of the sort.

David Teague

[karen sims]

>The pedigree above breaks at Gen. 17 above. Orabel de Harcourt had only
one marriage to Henry de Pembridge/Pembrugge (died 1279), >of Gillock and
Ullingswick, Herefordshire. She was living in 1275-6 and predeceased her
husband. There was no marriage to John Digby. >Her son and heir was Fulk
de Pembridge, born c.1272, died 1296.

If Sir John Digby died in 1269, then he would have to be Arabella
Harcourt's first husband.

The tomb certainly exists, but the Leicester book Matt noted:

>For the Digby arms, he cites Nichols' Leicester, volume III, plate 67.
Nichols, volume III, can be found here (part one -
http://cdm15407.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15407coll6/id/6931/rec/31)
(part two -
http://cdm15407.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15407coll6/id/2904/rec/8
)

which says, in the section of Tilton, that the inscriptions are hidden by
the pews. the plate is on page 470 Vol III part one

The description on page 472 of Vol IIi part one:
"under the third arch (from the West) which separates the nave from the
South aile, lies a woman in free-stone, largely proportioned, in long,
loose, and flowing robes; her hands joined upon her breast in prayer; her
left arm broken off; at her fee a lapdog.; her features quite mutilated;
Fig 7
This Mr Wyrly also thus notices: "Mausoleum quoddam dominae, cujus toga
ornatur his notis gentilitiis ut hic natavi: [on the upper garment fleurs
de lis;on the inner, Or two vars, three crosslets in chief, Gules;
Harcourt.]

Both these monuments, which are of the beginning of the fourteenth century,
are very large; and the inscriptions on their ledges are hid by pews placed
against them."

The other monument referred to, under the fourth arch:
"This monument Mr Wyrley thus notices:
"imago hominis, cum crure super crurem, hac inscriptione:
Jehan de Digby gist icy, praies pur lui,
Et hoc scuto quoque super brachium""
(not sure of my transcription here - if it doesn't amke sense see the
original on page 471

So, is there anything in the documentation of the de Pembridge family that
precludes Arabella having a first husband?

Karen

[pj.evans]

I have an early edition of Call, and it cites for this line
1) Joseph Coulson's tombstone inscription, lower burial ground, Germantown, Philadelphia, PA
2) research by Dr Wendell O Rich of Salt Lake City
3) Borrow pedigree from College of Arms

[Matthew Connolly]

On Monday, 3 March 2014 15:47:17 UTC+3, karen sims wrote:
> So, is there anything in the documentation of the de Pembridge family
> that precludes Arabella having a first husband?

It's well documented that she brought the manor of Tong, Shropshire to the Pembridge family; which would at least seem to rule out any earlier marriage producing issue.

-Matthew