William Anne (abt. 1460 - 1508)

Born about 1460 in North Aston, Oxfordshire, England

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 1508 at about age 48 in North Aston, Oxfordshire, England

Biography

Not much is known about William. He died in 1508 and was probably born in the middle of the 15th century sometime. In an Oxfordshire pedigree, he is said to have married Anne, the daughter of Sir Humpherey Foster of Aldermaston, though this is more likely to have been Sir Humfrey Forster, of the Aldermaston family by that name. A second, apparently independent, pedigree from Northamptonshire (dated 1564) confirms some of this, though it gives Sir Humphrey as being of Harpsdon (which is more consistent with contemporary sources).^[1]

The Northamptonshire pedigree lists sons John and Richard, while the Oxfordshire pedigree lists these two and adds a son Humphrey, who died without issue.

Research Notes

This is the earliest generation of North Aston Annes that seems to be very well documented. It's clear that this William's parents were John Anne and Alice Aston, but sources start to become a little hazy in that generation, particularly secondary sources like Richardson who have revised the Oxfordshire Visitation's tree, though it is not clear upon what grounds.

William's birth year is uncertain. His father came of age in 1455 and probably married soon after. Thus William is likely to have been born in the late 1450s, perhaps as late as 1460. He was nowhere near as active as his father, though, so we have relatively fewer primary source dates to work with.

A lot of research on this family has been frustrated by the usual mess of badly sourced internet trees that seem to copy each other without bothering to verify any information, including earlier versions of the Anne profiles on Wikitree. William's father's death year is often given as 1461, making the parentage seem doubtful, but this date seems to have been pulled out of thin air. In the 1490s, a William Aune Esq., son and heir of John Aune, sued William Harecourt, esquire, and John Aune over some detained deeds in North Aston,^[2] so clearly, his father died sometime in the 1484 (his last living appearance) to 1495 frame, not 1461. A few years later (1502/3), William Anne sued Harecourt again over the same issue, though without John Anne as a codefendant.^[3] The interesting question about these suits is who the living John Anne was. It's possible it was a cousin (or nephew), but it could also have been William's son and eventual heir, John Anne.

Sources

1. ↑ William Harvey, College of Arms, The Visitations of Northamptonshire Made in 1564 and 1618-19: With Northamptonshire Pedigrees from Various Harleian Mss, Mitchell and Hughes, 1887, p. 2 Google Books
2. ↑ UK National Archives C 1/183/7 http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C7459405
3. ↑ UK National Archives C 1/256/23 http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C7463070

• A P Baggs, Christina Colvin, H M Colvin, Janet Cooper, C J Day, Nesta Selwyn and A Tomkinson. "Parishes: North Aston," in A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 11, Wootton Hundred (Northern Part), ed. Alan Crossley (London: Victoria County History, 1983), 6-21. British History Online, accessed February 6, 2018, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol11/pp6-21.
• William Harvey, The Visitations of the County of Oxford Taken in the Years 1566, 1574, and in 1634, London: Harleian Society, 1871 Google Books