That elusive connection …

Source unknown.

 

To forget one’s ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without root”

Chinese Proverb

 

Throughout all the research I’ve done into my family tree there have been many things that I’ve longed to find buried in the past. Some I’ve been lucky enough to stumble over, others have remained elusive.

 

Some of these things might surprise you because they’re not all lovely and fluffy but then neither is life, and if nothing else I’ve found that my ancestors were real people with faults and flaws, and I’m proud of every single one of them. I’m so blessed to have found such exciting and interesting people, and I love that a small part of these people lives on in me. I don’t necessarily want to emulate them but I would love to have met them.

 

I hoped for and found:

 

Scandal – Closer to home than I expected; so close, in fact, that I can’t write about it here. I will say that we’re talking 3 generations back so not directly involving anyone still living!

 

Bigamy – I found one confirmed bigamist, a great x 3 grandfather on my mother’s side, John Hawkins. There is a possible other, a great x 3 grandmother on my father’s side, but it’s unprovable. The first one I’m sure brought great shame on the family but I can’t help being ridiculously excited by it. I was lucky enough to find that a vicar had written a note in the margin of the parish register. It was next to the christening record of my great x 2 grandfather – John Hawkins’ son by his second bigamous marriage. It confirmed what I was already sure was true although it seems he went unpunished as he died in 1851, 3 years after his son’s birth. The note said: Elizabeth Warner was married on the 3rd of November 1847 in Kenilworth Church to John Hawkins who, it has since been ascertained is a married man with a wife & children living.

Parish register margin note. My image.

 

Lawbreakers – I know it’s not big and it’s not clever but it makes for interesting reading! The Smiths of Tollesbury aside I’ve found quite a few others spending time behind bars.

 

Convicts – not direct ancestors but siblings of my ancestors – one went to Australia, the other to Tasmania and I consequently have hundreds of relatives scattered all over that part of the world.

 

Foreign ancestors – I am part German (Prussian actually) but that’s a story for another day. I am also part Welsh but that doesn’t count as foreign.

 

Famous relatives – For a long time I searched in vain for a connection to Herbert Morrison, Labour politician, senior cabinet minister and grandfather of Peter Mandelson. He looks very much like my great-grandfather (also an important figure in the Labour Party) of whom he was a friend and associate. The family believed that they were cousins but I know for certain they were not. I have found a possible connection by marriage but have been unable to prove it. I am, however, related to sisters Carole Carr (actress, singer and radio presenter – a forces sweetheart in WWII) and Dorothy Carless (singer), and The Wyatts – Thomas (poet allegedly in love with Ann Boleyn), and his son Thomas (beheaded for raising a rebellion against Mary I); none of them close relatives but famous (or infamous) nonetheless.

The Carr / Carless sisters:

 

Members of the Peerage – I’m related to the current and 9th Earl Bathurst of Bathurst (he’s my 12th cousin). Their family seat is Cirencester Park which is famously the home of the oldest polo club in the UK.

 

Still proving elusive although a bit of simple maths shows that if I go back far enough they are inevitable:

 

My parents being related – so far it seems that they’re not and a connection is becoming increasingly unlikely. Their families originate from very different parts of the country and I have no surnames that appear on both sides, but I have always loved the idea of finding out they were distantly related. If that’s weird then I don’t care!

 

A Royal connection – who doesn’t want a Royal connection? Well maybe some don’t but I do! A link to the Royal family is something I’ve become increasingly desperate to find. As I’ve done more and more research I’ve discovered that some of my ancestors and their close relatives moved in some very elite circles. And of course, the further you go back in time the smaller the population and the greater the chance of a connection. A connection has proved to be frustratingly elusive but I am now a little closer than I’ve ever been before.

 

On my mother’s side, I have the aforementioned link to the Wyatt family. Thomas Wyatt (snr) married Elizabeth Brooke who was 3rd cousin to Anne Boleyn and a direct descendant of John of Gaunt, so the Royal Family already exist in my family tree albeit connected to me by marriage only.

 

My link to both the Wyatts and the Bathursts is via a marriage between the two families. An Edward Bathurst married an Elizabeth Wyatt on 1st June 1714 in the parish church of Ash in Surrey – my great x 7 grandparents. Both were the children of gentlemen, the lowest rank of English gentry. They would likely have been well-respected members of their communities and judging by their wills were comfortably off. Their connections with their better known cousins were too distant to have elevated them socially.

 

Edward was the grandson of Margaret (or Margarite) Holland who was born around 1580 in Angmering, Sussex and when I was browsing through some of the names in my lineage the other week her name jumped out of my computer screen and sent me into a frenzy.

 

My frenzy was caused by me knowing that the surname Holland appears in the Royal family tree. Yes, I have a very detailed one on my computer that I compiled myself. Obsessed? Me? Never!

 

Another Margaret Holland, Duchess of Clarence and grand-daughter of Joan of Kent, married John Beaufort and was the great-grandmother of Henry VII, making her an ancestor of the Tudors, Stewarts, Hanoverians and consequently Queen Elizabeth II. But what does this have to do with my family tree?

 

The Margaret Holland in my family was the daughter of George Holland of Angmering. I did a bit of googling for Hollands of Angmering and found a couple of old books that have been digitised and are now freely available online. The first was a book of pedigrees of families in the county of Sussex compiled in 1830 by someone called Berry. This book told me that George was the grandson of William Holland of Calais and showed a copy of the family coat of arms. It also showed me that through his mother Joan (or Mary) Bellingham he was connected to some important armorial families and could trace his lineage (and hence mine) back to the time of William the Conqueror. The second book was entitled The Lancashire Hollands and written by Bernard Holland. This book raised my excitement levels considerably because I found a whole section about the Hollands of Sussex. Sadly, these Hollands were not from Angmering so my excitement abated slightly until I read the last paragraph.

 

There was in Sussex another family of Holland living at Angmering, whose pedigree for five generations, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is given by Berry. This family had the same crest and arms as the Hollands of Conway; but Berry, in his ‘Sussex Genealogies,’ does not say that they were derived from these, or from the Hollands of Upholland. The first of them mentioned is a William Holland of Calais.”

I looked up the Hollands of Conway (anglicised spelling of Conwy), which is in Wales, in the same book. It shows a detailed pedigree going back to someone called Piers (or Peter) Holland who it says was in the service of Henry IV. The book also states that he is “believed to be fifth in descent from Alan, a brother of Robert, first Lord Holland.” The book explains this further and says that these brothers were of the Hollands of Upholland in Lancashire.

 

Robert, first Lord Holland, was the great-grandfather of Margaret Holland, Duchess of Clarence. Can you see why I might be excited?

 

My Hollands carry the same coat of arms and crest as a family that is believed to share ancestry with Hollands that are ancestors of Kings and Queens. I know it’s a very tenuous connection and one that sadly can’t be proved. I can prove my connection to the Angmering Hollands by searching through parish registers, helpfully now digitised and available online but the trail from William Holland of Calais back to the Hollands of Conway and Upholland is as cold now as it was back in 1830. All I can do is make a note in my records explaining what I know to be true and what I believe might be true, and hope that one day something remarkable comes to light.

 

So a provable Royal connection remains elusive but the Hollands of Angmering may be the closest I ever come to it. I shall never stop searching for more information on them and I’ll continue to search for other Royal connections because you just never know what might turn up.

 

 

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