(Mary Louisa Yancey 1815 - 1901 was Peggy's gg-grandmother)
| Ralph Neville who died in 1425 was the first Earl of Westmorland. He married Margaret Stafford, and John was their son. Later the same Ralph married Joan Beaufort (daughter of John of Gaunt, son of Edward III - this is where the blue blood comes from) and they had several children, including Edward Neville who died in 1476. This Edward is definitely an ancestor of Ursula Neville. I found the "Dictionary of National Biography" in the library. It has all about the more famous Nevilles. There are a lot of volumes, so it belongs in a reference library, not in the ordinary person's house. Charles R Young's book, "The Making of the Neville Family in England 1166-1400" is pretty good - I ordered it from Amazon for maybe $40 - it was published in 1996 and is probably not yet in most libraries. But Young's book ends in the 1400s, just as the story is getting interesting. [I found one error in a chart on page x of Young's book - there should be 2 generations instead of 1 between the Ralph Neville who died in 1425 and the one who died in 1484. The missing generation is John who died in 1423. The Earlship of Westmorland passed directly from the first Ralph to the second (his grandson) because John died before the father. The text is correct (p 136) but the chart omits John.] There is also a lot of British Royal History on the internet: check out http://www.britannia.com/history and go from there. Here is the list of Ursula Neville's ancestors that I have compiled, coming down from Joan Beauford, grand-daughter of Edward III: |
| Descendants of Joan Beauford 1 Joan Beauford 1379 - 1440 .. +Robert Ferrers ........ 2 Mary Ferrers 1394 - ........ 2 Elizabeth Ferrers 1394 - *2nd Husband of Joan Beauford: .. +Ralph Neville 1363 - 1425 ........ 2 Richard Neville 1400 - ........ 2 William Neville 1401 - ........ 2 George Neville 1402 - ........ 2 Robert Neville 1404 - ........ 2 Edward Neville 1406 - 1476 ............ +Elizabeth Beauchamp 1418 - 1434 ................... 3 George Neville 1433 - 1492 ....................... +Margaret Fenne 1436 - 1485 ............................. 4 Jane Neville ............................. 4 George Neville, Jr 1483 - 1536 ................................. +Mary Stafford 1478 - 1508 ........................................ 5 Ursula Neville 1505 - 1539 ............................................ +Warham St Leger 1526 - 1599 |
| This list is well documented. Ursula Neville and Warham St Leger were ancestors of the Digges and Herndon families in early Virginia. The St Leger and Digges families are also mentioned in another book that I have: "Albion's Seed", by David Hackett Fischer (1989), on pages 216-221. The Digges family was among the "First Families" of Virginia who collectively dominated the House of Burgesses until after the Revolution. The following list is fairly solid: |
| 1 Ursula Neville 1505 - 1539 +Warham St Leger 1526 - 1599 2 Anne St Leger - 1636 +Thomas Digges 1540 - 1595 3 Dudley Digges 1583 - 1639 +Mary Kempe 1583 - 1631 4 Edward Digges 1621 - 1665 +Elizabeth Page 1625 - 1691 5 Catherine Digges 1656 - 1729 +William Herndon, Jr 1649 - 1722 6 Edward Herndon 1678 - 1758 +Mary Waller 1674 - 1716 7 Ann Herndon 1706 - 1777 +James Lea 1708 - 1788 8 Isabell Lea 1728 - 1829 +John Graves 1715 - 1792 |
| At this point, there is some conflicting data. The best source I have came in an email message from Dennis Yancey on 26 Feb 1999. He referred me to http://www.calweb.com/~wally/darke/w-slade2.htm which lists two wives of John Graves. According to this record, some of the more famous Yanceys (including the children of Bartlett Yancey, Sr) are NOT descended from the "royal" Isabel Lea but from John Graves by his other wife, Zz Herndon: |
| 8 John Graves 1715 - 1792 +Zz Herndon 1707 - 1750 9 Ann Nancy Graves 1748 - 1818 +Bartlett Yancey, Sr 1736 - 1784 10 John Graves Yancey 1764 - 1818 +Elizabeth Lightfoot Moore 1764 - 1820 11 Alfred Moore Yancey 1792 - 1871 +Lucy Ann Yancey 1791 - 1869 12 Mary Louisa Yancey 1815 - 1901 +Theron Harvey Ross 1807 - 1861 |
| Furthermore, as Dennis points out in another email message (below), almost everyone in England (and therefore anyone whose ancestors came from England) before about 1800 probably has royal blood. This is because of "primogeniture":-- only the oldest son in a royal family was heir to the throne, and all other children usually ended up marrying lesser nobility or commoners. So the royal blood has spread all over the country. However, tracing a direct line is not easy. |
| Email from Dennis Yancey, 26 Feb 1999: There are often two sources of "manufacturing." Yes, at different times during this century and up until the current day it has often been popular to have lineage of royal descent. People often went to all sorts of extremes to make a connection, whether by making up dates and relationships, or just assuming as fact that which is not proven. I have seen the same thing for people getting into the DAR. But here in America, luckily because of Census Data and Court Records, etc., it is not too overwhelmingly hard to prove or disprove these claims. Once you trace your line into England and into a supposed royal line, the story becomes different. You are often relying on royal genealogies: The royalty were the ones who kept their genealogy; most common folk didn't care. And if you were royalty, you had the money and the power to make your Family Tree say whatever you wanted it to say. So - sure - many of the royal genealogies are full of possible errors. And because of records being lost it is very often very hard, if not impossible, to prove or disprove these genealogies - they are just kind of taken for granted - because they often can be neither proved nor disproved. Sure, without doubt there has got to be some erroneous information - especially to cover up all the illegitimate births. But, on the other hand, I still believe, as many researchers have come to do, that a vast majority of the population of England in the early years 1600-1800 were descendants of royalty - even if it was three or four hundred years prior, and often thru a maternal line from a son who was not the first son. So if you are descended from people living in England in the 1700's and prior, chances are you probably are descended from royalty (most of which all descend from William the Conqueror). The trick is in finding the actual connection and proving it - and most people fall short of this. Dennis J Yancey |
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| This page was last updated 19 September 2008 |