Can anyone with access to the newer MCA or "Royal Ancestry" comment on ancestry of Alice (Anne) Raynsford?

Question

Hi everyone,

I was browsing WikiTree and saw that there is extended lineage shown for Alice (Anne) Raynsford, wife of William Raynsford (Rainsford-6) and mother of John Raynsford (Raynsford-20).  WikiTree shows the following ancestry for Alice:

1. Alice Anne

2. John Anne

3. Alice Aston

4. John Anne

5. Alice Giffard

10. John Gifford

11. Alice de Montfort

I'm curious about the sources used to obtain this pedigree and have not yet been able to procure either of these books from the library yet.  My question is much the same as that of Perry Streeter, published on Gen-Medieval in 2004.  Alice Giffard's mother was either Lucy de Morteyn or Alice de Montfort.  If this issue is discussed in MCA or RA, can anyone briefly outline what tipped the scales in favor of Alice de Montfort as the mother?  (Seeing Alice Anne as the daughter of John Anne Jr. and Alice Aston as opposed to John Anne Sr. and Alice Giffard makes much more sense based on chronology, but that's another thing I hope to see sourcing for.)  Thank you all very much!  (And I'm going to continue trying to persuade Interlibrary loan that they can trust me with borrowing these books).

-K.

Answer 1

I've tagged your query with 'euroaristo' so that our project members are aware of your question.  I recommend that you tag any future queries with that so that the European Aristocrats project members are made aware of your question.

Comments

Thank you!  I will do that-I'm still getting the hang of the tag system-there's so many things that are possible on this website.

Answer 2

Looking at this

http://our-royal-titled-noble-and-commoner-ancestors.com/p1787.htm#i53716

we have a source quoted, but it's the old 2005 1-volume edition of MCA, not the 2011 4-volume edition, and not RA.  A common internet trick.  If it isn't where it should be, just find it somewhere else.  Because a source is a source, and all sources are true, aren't they.

And the source is only cited for one factoid - John Anne as the son.  There's no source cited for the parents. 

From which we can deduce that this was as far as Richardson ever went, but he dropped that bit later.

In fact RA only says that Raynsford's wife Alice Anne was the daughter of John Anne esq by his wife Alice.

From this page

http://our-royal-titled-noble-and-commoner-ancestors.com/p3175.htm#i95369

you might get the impression that Richardson does at least call John Anne's wife "Alice Aston", but he doesn't make her an Aston at all, let alone a Freville/Scrope descendant.

(Which of course gets us nowhere with the parents of Alice Giffard, if that's what we want to know)

Comments

If anybody's interested, I worked out John Anne Esq.'s parents. His brother William Anne, gentleman of North Aston, died in 1451, leaving a will that names his brother John as a legatee and principal executor. William, very fortunately, had inscribed on his tombstone that he was the son of Alexander Anne, Recorder of London (also 3 time MP for Middlesex, former escheator of Middlesex, JP Middlesex and Yorkshire, etc. etc.). Alexander's wife was named Alice, so it's probable that John's daughter, Alice Raynsford was named after her.

See https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Anne-235

It appears that this Alexander Anne (d. 1439) is a younger brother of Ralph Anne of Frickley, both sons of Alexander (Sr.) and Agnes Anne of Frickley (fl. 1379), since he and Ralph were in 1428 separate tenants of parts of a property in Yorkshire formerly held by Robert Haringell, who was Alexander Sr.'s father in law, so that's how the North Aston Annes connect to the Frickley Annes.

I just went and made my own subtree since one of the profile managers is being obstreperous and I don't really care to go through the whole Wiktree profile manager/project manager circus.

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For future reference, the 1451 will also mentions two married sisters of William and John Anne, Katerina ??tyne and H??? B?sser (still working out the names), and at the end it seems to mention one Alice Aston (John's future wife), though this part of the text is really difficult and I haven't fully transcribed it yet. It may be just as a witness. No, it's an item. It looks like "Itm' lego Alicie Aston v iiij s" - I guess you would leave your brother's fiancee 9 shillings?

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Thanks for all the work you've put into this-this family is one of the most confusing I've ever come across.  Your solution re: Alice (Anne) Raynsford's father seems to make more sense than the others I've come across: she was often shown as the daughter of John Anne, son of Sir William Anne and Alice Haryngell.  However, that runs into a snag in light of the "The Visitation of Yorkshire," which indicates that Sir William Anne's son John died childless.  Placing Alice as the great-granddaughter of Sir William Anne instead of his granddaughter would help with the chronology problems-a generation was obviously missing somewhere in the conventional recording of this family.

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Everything in the Oxfordshire visitation has checked out in surprising detail. I think the Yorks. pedigree is good back to this first guy, Sir William Anne, the Constable. The primary sources show that the Haringell marriage is a real thing, that Alexander Anne of Frickley was a real guy (fl. through 1370s), that Ralph Anne of Frickley was a real guy (fl. 1410, d 1454). Sir William was a real guy as well, but he was probably well dead by the time Alexander Anne was born, so I think we have a classic case of skipped generation. Sir William is probably the father of whoever Alice Haringell married. Who that was, I don't know. There are definitely a few Annes running around in the mid 1300s though, so there are some candidates out there. You know, maybe this elder son John of William's who is supposed to have died young actually belongs in the main line. It seems kind of odd to me that the pedigree preserves this account of him when it obviously ignores many subsequent generations of younger sons. I believe I saw some mention of a John de Aune in the mid 14th C in the patent rolls.

The one I'm really confused about is this alleged Sir John Anne of Frickley who supposedly died in 1441 and populates all these internet genealogies. I can't find a trace of anyone even vaguely resembling this guy, and if he really was a knight, that shouldn't happen. Yeah, if he was a guy who drove a dung cart for a living, he could easily have slipped past the notice of history, but knights get recorded. Maybe not in great detail, but there should be something.

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I think the 1441 date is sourced to Rasmussen's 1985 article, part of which is excerpted here:
 

http://geocitiessites.com/heartland/Bluffs/2806/aqwn190.htm

This site shows John Anne, son of William Anne and Alice Harringwell, as the father of William Anne and Alice (Anne) Raynsford: http://multiwords.de/genealogy/anne1.htm, as does Stirnet.  Their mother is listed as Alice Gifford. (This contradicts the Visitation of Yorkshire, which indicated this John died childless). 

Interestingly enough, Miscellanea Genealogica Et Heraldica, Vol. II, Ed. by Joseph Jackson Howard, LL.D., F.S.A. indicates that William Anne was her father.

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William Wing's "Annals of North Aston, in the County of Oxford" indicates that John Anne (will made in 1553) named his cousin Sir Wyllyam Raynsford, Knight, as one of his will's two overseers.  Sir William, per Barbara Cox's (assumed to be transcriber), was the son of John Raynsford and the grandson of Alice Anne.  He was also the older brother of Edward Raynsford's ancestor, George.

 (http://wills.oxfordshirefhs.org.uk/az/wtext/raynsford_002.html)

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AFAIK, the Frickley Annes are in three visitations, the 1530 Tonge visitation, the 1563/4 Flower visitation, and the 1666 Dugdale visitation. The 1563 and 1666 versions are much more detailed, going back to Sir William Anne. It checks out up to him, but obviously he has a chronological problem. The 1530 visitation only goes back to Thomas Anne (d. 1468, son of Ralph). Tonge is likely to be very reliable since it was taken in living memory of everyone it lists, and it can be backed up by primary sources. None of these three list the 1441 death date for any John Anne, so the origin of it is kind of a mystery.

Neither is it in the Oxfordshire pedigree (Har. MS 1412) or Harvey's 1564 Northamptonshire visitation.

I'm starting to think it's a mistake in the NEHG article. It states that it's from "the pedigrees" but I'm looking at the 5 earliest pedigrees, and none of them mention it. Actually, it is in the Victoria history for North Aston, so maybe that's where it comes from. Both the VH and the NEHG article were written in the 1980s.

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The one from Miscellanea Genealogica Et Heraldica is after the error had been introduced substituting William Anne for John Anne. Earlier versions of the pedigree have it is John. At some point, someone changed her name too.

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Robert Haringel married Margaret St. George around 1314 (C143/102/23). Haringel was still alive in 1331 when he allowed some monks to dig marl on his property. That makes it at least plausible that his young daughter married an old Sir William Anne, but it's pretty hard to reconcile that with their being parents of an Alexander Anne who doesn't appear in any records until 1372.

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OK, a 1406 dated legal source flat out says "Alexander son of William de Aune knight", so regardless of how weird the chronology looks, it must be true. It would seem that a very, very young daughter of Robert Hanyngell did indeed marry a crusty old knight who cavorted and cahooted with all manner of robbers and outlaws. Haringell's estate was partitioned 3 ways in 25 Edw III (1351) among Isabell (Woodhall) Barley, Alexander de Aune, and Joan Haringell. So we know that Sir William was definitely dead by 1351 (no surprise) and Alexander was clearly alive by then. The question is whether he was of age in 1351. It seems likely to me that he was, which would put his birthdate around 1330. If that's the case, the Aleaxnder Anne who died in 1439 is unquestionably in the next generation.

Great Britain. Public Record Office. Calendar of the Close Rolls... [of] Henry IV. London: HMSO, 19271938, p. 249.

https://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.30000115586319?urlappend=%3Bseq=261

BTW, I also found direct statements that John Anne Esq. was the son of the second Alexander Anne, so we can put this whole "Sir John Anne" nonsense to rest.