Did Sir Francis Bryan really exist and how can we prove it?

Question

Sir Francis Bryan b. in Ireland, married and had son William Smith Bryan, 'Prince of Ireland', did he exist? Some claim that he was the son of Sir Francis Bryan aka Vicar of Hell, but other than a brief mention of a son, there is no evidence that this son inherited property in Ireland. Why is there no record of him, his wife, his family, his land, his death, his children? Is it possible for a Knight to live from 1549 to 1640 to hold land in County Clare, and be completely off the record? Or is it more likely that he is a mythical bridge from the old world to the new? Can we find any proof that this man lived? Should we declare him a mythical figure?

Comments

If Sir Francis Bryan did exist what sources should I look at to find evidence of his life?

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See Douglas Richardson's "Magna Carta Ancestry"; there's an entry for Margaret Bourchier who married Sir Thomas Bryan and was mother of Sir Francis Bryan (the one who definitely existed); if he had known descendants they should also be listed (the page I can view in Google Books cuts off before any possible continuation of the line).

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Marlyn Lewis citing Richardson has both Sir Francis' wives and no children, but does not say he has none.

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Asking in the soc.genealogy.medieval newsgroup on Google Groups may result in an answer.

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DNA matches with cousins who also share my Bryan line show that my cousin who is a descendant of Morgan Strode Bryan is related to, and shares the exact same DNA matches by surname and end location number as the Bryan's descending from Sir Francis Bryan. 

All Bryan's descending from Sir Francis Bryan married to Joan Fitzgerald match on chromosome 2 at the location shown in this image.  The matching end location number must be found on FTDNA first, by surname and pedigree, then both or more matches can be found on Genesis. DNA segments that are too small to be found on FTDNA, can be found on Genesis when you do not have a common ancestor more recent than 5 generations or share at least 7 cM or greater, even when coming from the same line. You do have to have matches on FTDNA from the line you are looking for ,as these end location numbers can also be attributed to other surnames and Haplogroups, as is normal. To date, 7 DNA/Surname/Exact end location number matches to surname Bryan coming from the same Bryan family have been found on FTDNA and with the match above on Genesis with another Bryan benchmark on Genesis with another Bryan descendant the total comes to 9 DNA matches. In addition to Bryan, Brinker (aka Brinckerhoff) but NOT Brunger matches have been found along with Smyth as in Ann Bryan Smythe to help verify the authenticity of the Bryan line. Source: Database, chromosomemappingofancientbloodlines.com 

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There is no evidence that Sir Francis Bryan had descendants; none of the works on the peerage of Ireland, the History of Parliament, etc etc, record him as having any children. The fact that you have DNA matches with these people indicates that you have a common ancestor, but not that it is Sir Francis Bryan, who as far as I am aware is not known to have descendants. (and who in any case died in 1550; autosomal DNA is useless for verifying a relationship that far back. The most distant common ancestors I share with known DNA matches are people who were born in the late 17th century. Because of the way recombination works, and the fact that some percentage of ancestral DNA is lost to recombination in every generation, around 10-12 generations is the practical limit of autosomal matching.

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DNA is not lost to recombination if you have long lines of male or female ancestors. It can be passed down IBD for many many generations. The other factor of preservation is when you have the same ancestral line more than once or both of your parents share a common ancestor. DNA gets crowded out by other DNA and does get lost if you do not have more than one line related by that surname and it goes too far back. My most recent Bryan is Hannah McDaniel Bryan. She is my 4th GGM. My Genesis match is a direct descendant of Morgan Strode Bryan. Our common ancestor is Sir Francis Bryan. Of my other DNA matches with other people besides my cousin who descends from Morgan Strode Bryan, I have as common ancestors: Sir Francis Bryan III, b. 1630, married to Sarah Brinker. NOT BRUNGER. Sir Thomas Bryan II, K.T., b. 1464, Sir Francis Bryan, Vicar of Hell b. 1490, and William Smith Bryan b. 1599. The amount of DNA shared is dependent on the common ancestor. These common ancestors were all born over 300 yrs. ago, so the DNA segment is going to be consistent with that time range. End location numbers are relevant to both surname and Haplogroup. Haplogroups don't disappear,  What happens is that markers associated with haplogroups mutate over long periods of time. By the same token, your AT DNA will only disappear if you don't marry back into the same line at some point or your ancestors get crowded out when other descendant's who have long lines or multiple lines of an ancestor to take up real estate on your chromosomes. Your 23 chromosomes can only hold so much information and every end location number you share with another person represents an ancestor in common. The current thought is that DNA is divided in half each generation back getting smaller and smaller and they tell you that after so many generations you won't be able to find it and it becomes noise. I oppose that analogy because it is ridiculous. If you could bring back an historical person born in 1500 today, you cannot say that they are nothing but noise and do not exist any more than you can say that you are noise and do not exist to your 10th GGS. Everything leaves a print.

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Everyone has long lines of male and female ancestors; that's kind of how that works. And yes, DNA is in fact lost to recombination; the only part that isn't is Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA. You may have a DNA match with someone, but if you have multiple ancestors in common, it could be from any of them, or it could be from ancestry neither of you has traced and don't know about. And once again, Sir Francis Bryan who married Joan Fitzgerald has no known descendants.

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There are no known descendants of Sir Francis Bryan and his wife, who probably despised him, Joan Fitzgerald. In any case there is no paper trail to this couple. There is no way than anyone can claim descent from them. There is no Sir Francis Bryan who married Sarah Brinker/Bruger and there was no William Smith Bryan. These people are all myths. If you cannot even prove they existed, how can you prove you are related to them through DNA? 

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I have fixed quite a few of 'confirmed with DNA' profiles who are not confirmed with Y-DNA or mtDNA. I have also encountered these various haplogroup arguments which I find confusing because they are only based on hearsay not science. In any case, if you look at "Prince" Bryan he only has one DNA connection currently so it is hard to draw any conclusions.

I noticed on one of the pages there's a question about 'why Denmark?' A reason why would be serving in one of the regiments of mercenaries composed of Scots (both Gaelic or English speakers) or Irish who fought for either Denmark-Norway or Sweden in the wars of 1625-29, 1643-45 & 1658-60. This article has a good summary & this database has names from the muster roles, but only one Bryan who doesn't seem to match. As you can see, it was common to settle in Scandinavia after the war was over rather than return to the British Isles so this story probably has a grain of truth.

'Bryan' is not a common Anglicization of O Briain so some other language influence does make sense to me. Or if they were English colonists, the surname spelling and Cromwell's more gentle treatment of this family would make sense. 

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Just on what Douglas Richardson says about Francis Bryan son of Thomas Bryan and Margaret Bourchier, who was Marshal and Chef Justice of Ireland, on p.287 of Magna Carta Ancestry vol. 1, he lists no children of Francis B. That is consistent with what others have said in this thread - that there is no record of descendants.

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How AT DNA matching works is that you will not get matches with someone unless you  have common ancestors and you will only get matches with someone if you share a common ancestor by surname. Out of all your matches, some will not inherit the DNA segment in common, some tree's will be wrong (not as common), and some matches will be invisible, depending on whether that ancestor is through your Mother's line or your Father's line and or if that ancestral line is carried by both your Mother's and your Father's line. The rule is that the Surname = the End Location number and every single number must match by every single digit and you must share an ancestral line by surname to be valid. I have Bryan on both sides of my family. I understand there is a lot of dispute about the existence of Bryan's children so I sought to find DNA proof where paperwork is missing. Not only did I find that my Bryan matches, matched precisely by the same exact end location number and surname and that the common ancestors were from the same line but I found that Morgan Strode Bryan had been cut off from the tree when his DNA matches all the other Bryan's from Sir Francis Bryan' line! In addition to this, I found that Sarah Bryan Baldwin was a DNA match as well (my cousin's ancestor is Sarah Bryan Baldwin) and matches by surname and end location number and she comes from the same line that descends from Sir Francis Bryan's ancestors. The story about the Bryan's being in Denmark must have some truth to it or Morgan Strode Bryan's descendant would not match the rest of the Bryan matches. That haplogroup by the way is 

R-BY32723 (Y-DNA). 

The method used for AT, surname matching by end location number is something anyone can do if you have a kit from FTDNA. Step by step instructions are posted here. https://www.chromosomemappingofancientbloodlines.com/chromosomemappinginstructions   Pick a surname you are working on in your tree and follow the instructions. I think you will be surprised. Thanks for considering the information I am sharing with you. I hope it helps.

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You clearly have a very limited understanding of how autosomal DNA matching works. A match with someone else, depending on the segment size, may be what's called "identical by state" rather than "identical by descent" (it's been estimated that as many as 50% of 7cM segments are IBS rather than IBD). Due to recombination, the practical limit of autosomal matching for proving relationships is around 10-12 generations (as I said before); ISOGG (the International Society of Genetic Genealogists) has a page up on cousin matching statistics, and the projected odds of having a match with a tenth cousin are 0.002%: https://isogg.org/wiki/Cousin_statistics

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Y-DNA, passed down from father to son, does not recombine, it only mutates slowly over time, which is why it is reliable when matching to surnames.  The Bryan yDNA study at ftdna.com shows that several descendants of Morgan Bryan are in the Dalcassian (ancient Gaelic) haplogroup R-DC191 unrelated to other Bryans in the study:

https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Bryan?iframe=yresults

I'm not an expert, but R-DC191 appears to be most closely associated with the surname McNamara or MacNamara, an Irish clan that was closely associated with the O'Brien dynasty.  

https://www.ytree.net/DisplayTree.php?blockID=1583

The name Fitzgerald may also be associated with this haplogroup, but the true ancient origins of Fitzgerald would be Norman not Dalcassian.

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Dear Handy,

I must disagree with your statement as you have no idea what I understand or do not understand. Clearly you are making an assumption.  A father who has son's for hundreds of generations is referenced to as YDNA and is called IBD. "Identical by state or identity by state (IBS) is a term used in genetics to describe two identical alleles or two identical segments or sequences of DNA. ... In genetic genealogy the term IBS is generally used to describe segments which are not identical by descent and therefore do not share a recent common ancestor. (https://isogg.org/wiki/Identical_by_state)

Chromosome mapping by end location number is something you probably do not know how to do, probably have never heard of and do not understand how it works. That's okay. Lot's of people have not. I am trying to share with you that AT DNA segments related to YDNA, MTDNA and Haplogroups (sometimes) can be mapped out as the end location numbers will match to a surname. The cornerstone of science says that new data that can be reproduced can be seen as a reliable new method. This method has been used and reproduced over 5000 times and not just by myself but others so the results are not biased. We are very excited with the results and find that surnames can indeed be mapped to specific end location numbers and as small as 1cM and 300 SPNs in size. 

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Keith, thank you for sharing. Separating Bryan from O Brien is a good idea. When I was mapping out surname Bryan from O Brien I did find they were different. Bryan is more recent than O Brien and was easier to find consistent data. O Brien is much farther back in time and and has married into many lines. To be able to find O Brien, I mapped out surrname  O Brien and came up with a few different possibilities with Turlough as the common ancestor. I found those matches to be inconclusive because other ancestors or a cluster of matches showed up. To separate O Brien from the the cluster I researched surname Tome or Toome which is Brian Boru's brother. I did get matches for the same end location number for O Brien as Tome/Toomey but it also matched surname Boone/Bohun, Lambert, Dodd/Doddson, and O' Connor and was a bit of a surprise meaning they may share the same haplogroup, it is an invisible match or an NPE has occurred. However even though the end location number matched all these surnames, only Boone/Bohun and Tome/Toomey had common ancestors making them the more solid possibilities. They also both have R-M269 haplogroup matches in their YDNA groups so they may simply belong to the same haplogroup.  Boone/Bohun is more likely due to be a closer ancestor but still, inconclusive without others matches and collaboration.

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Y-DNA is not related to autosomal DNA; it doesn't recombine. Neither is mitochondrial DNA; it's part of the mitochondrion of the cell, and not part of recombining DNA. Neither Y-DNA nor mitochondrial DNA are useable for autosomal triangulation.

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Wanda, I wonder about the overlap with Boone and Bryan since the family of Squire Boone (Daniel Boone's father) was very close to the family of Morgan Bryan, and in several cases inter-married.  As for the de Brienne paternal ancestry of Sir Francis Bryan and the O'Brien dynasty of Ireland, the only thing they may have in common is name similarity.  I believe I had read that at one point a similar coat of arms was adopted by an O'Brien, but this was only in an effort to demonstrate fealty to the ruling class of England and continue a line that was otherwise thought to have gone extinct.

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"Bryan is more recent than O Brien and was easier to find consistent data. "

I just want to point out if we're looking at "Bryan" vs. "O'Brien/O'Brian" the surnames have different origins but sound the same in English. Bryan was originally an Anglo-Norman name, where as O Briain is an ancient Irish name so they would have different origins. Also, names do not get you very far in this time period. No one cared much about spelling so a clerk could just pick the spelling they liked w/o other evidence, that could be the 'more recent' portion of the name switch. 

More importantly, C Handy keeps attempting to point out the actual science for DNA genealogy and Wanda's main theory being used to prove a relationship is faulty. I have appreciated the lengthy discussion on DNA but at this point we really need a leader to moderate and guide this discussion. It is very difficult to change people's minds about their family legends and we try to do it with kindness and facts but ultimately it is a disappointment.

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Two more points: the Public Records Office in Dublin was destroyed in 1922 during the Irish Civil War, which is one reason finding proof of people who lived in Ireland in the 15th and 16th century is difficult. 

His purported father's one illegitimate son that seems to be confused with this profile was serving in the Navy in 1548 - "His son, who is mentioned as carrying a despatch to London in 1548 from the French admiral, was illegitimate." History of Parliament

The citation doesn't specify the exact volume and says page 466, but I found a line on page 446 of Correspondance politique de Odet de Selve '...que l'amiral lui a envoyée par le fils de sir Francis Bryan, ...' Alas, no name but obv. a different person. 

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All of the yDNA evidence I have seen seems to suggest that the partrilineal ancestry of Morgan Bryan is Gaelic, however, there is a historical precedent for Cambro-Norman Bryans settling in Kilkenny, Ireland as the information on this website supports.  (Unfortunately the webpage format needs to be updated):

http://knightsdebryan.freeservers.com/kilkenny/kilkenny.htm

...The records that have come to light only refer to the line of primogeniture in matters of land transference. We must presume that all other Cambro-Norman Bryans in Kilkenny and subsequently in Wexford are derivative of this parent stock. Caution is urged in researching this Bryan line, for a common Anglicization of both O’Brien and O’Byrne has periennially been "Bryan/t." It cannot therefore be taken for granted that a North American Byan found not to descend from William Smith Bryan will be a descendant of the Kilkenny Bryans.

Chev. Charles Bryant-Abraham, Ph.D.
The Knight de Bryan
Secretary General of the Imperial House of Sellassie

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Keith,

Thank you for sharing that information. I was not aware of the Kilkenny Bryan's/Bryant's and am going to look into that more. From the DNA research I have done thus far, Bryan's did match some Bryant's and that makes sense as both surname versions were used. However O Brien did not match either and that also makes sense as the O Brien line is different. Now here comes the tricky part. Amy O' Brien is Joan Fitzgerald's mother. At one time her pedigree was intact then it disappeared, but Joan Fitzgerald who married Sir Francis Bryan would give descendants both Bryan and O Brien to sort out and sort it out I did. My cousin inherited the O Brien DNA segment in matches and I inherited both. (Random DNA recombination at work again).  The Bryan/Bryant matches were spot on. I have no doubt that the DNA segment on chromosome 2 is the Bryan/Bryant line. O Brien, looking fairly solid would be more reassuring if other's could also map their O Brien' as there as several matches on different chromosomes for the older O Brien line and it appears there is a cluster of ancestors associated with that line. I am going to research surname Byrne and see if I find any matches that also match Bryan/Bryant. Thanks again for sharing.

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Y haplogroups can't tell you anything on the relevant timescale.

Supposedly we have documentary evidence that Morgan Bryan's unnamed father was a Dane, born and raised in Denmark.

http://revwarapps.org/w9366.pdf

If genuine, this rests on family tradition, but an early tradition.

Before that, there's nothing that wasn't demonstrably invented in the 20th century, with never a shred of evidence.

It's a total mystery why people keep hunting for evidence to prove made-up stuff, because made-up stuff never turns out to be true.

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From what I have been reading, the Norman Bryans and Fitzgeralds that settled in Ireland had adapted so well to Irish customs that many were considered "more Irish than the Irish themselves," so its not surprising that the landed gentry and nobility intermarried with O'Briens.   I would disagree with the statement "Y haplogroups can't tell you anything on the relevant timescale."  As I pointed out previously, surname descendants of Morgan Bryan share a haplogroup with a clan that is closely associated with the O'Brien dynasty concentrated in County Clare.  This would indicate that Morgan Bryan's paternal ancestors possibly did indeed migrate from that part of Ireland.  The names of those ancestors could very well be made-up stuff, though.

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Here is some history of Morgan Bryan's (possible) genetic, patrilineal ancestors up to the point of the Williamite War and their loss of land:

http://www.araltas.com/features/mcnamara/

The Mac Namaras attained early fame as warriors (they are described by an early historian as "princely chiefs of well-fought battles"), and castle-builders. They held some 56 castles in Clare, many in ruins today (e.g. Cratloe), but at least two restored to their early glory and much visited by tourists (Bunratty and Knoppogue). As warriors, Mac Namaras engaged in continual internecine warfare with rival Dalcassions, driving the O'Gradys and O'Kennedys among others out of Clare, allying themselves with the O'Brien dynasty and as hereditary Marshalls of Thomond, defending the legitimate inheritors of the thrones of Thomond and Munster over pretenders (losing in these encounters hundreds of chieftains and their sons), and finally, in the 1640's joining in the battles against Cromwell's armies and in the hapless campaign against William of Orange waged by James II.

As a consequence of these 17th century adventures, the Mac Namaras lost virtually all of their lands, which under the Acts of Settlement were then distributed among followers of Cromwell and William, apostate members of the O'Brien and other Dalcassion clans (among them a few Mac Namaras), and to 'innocent Papists'....

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You can't assume that Morgan Bryan's haplogroup only existed in one place in his day.  You'd have to go a long way back to a time when it only existed in one place.  Plenty of time for a stray R-DC191 to have reached Denmark or anywhere else.

Nor can you assume that the haplogroup only belonged to one surname.  When ordinary people adopted clan surnames, they chose who they wanted to be descended from.

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I'm not making any assumptions, that's why I used the word 'possible'.  The ancestors could have used any of a number of surnames, but the association between the MacNamara clan and the O'Brien dynasty goes back 10 centuries and could provide a possible explanation for why some Morgan Bryan biographers have dwelled on the O'Brien legacy.   Also, the historical context of what happened to both the MacNamara and O'Brien land rights after the Cromwellian invasion could provide a possible basis for the stories about ancestors being expelled from Ireland and returning to County Clare to attempt to reclaim their land.

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I also want to correct the statement by RJ Horace that would lead one to believe that there is no evidence of any relatively recent ties to Ireland, other than what was made up stuff in the 20th century.  In fact the pension application he cited includes this statement by Luke Bryan:  

"[Luke Bryan submitted the following with his mother’s application for a pension, and he deposed that it was written by his father, Samuel Bryan.] My great grandfather Bryan was a Dane born in Denmark & rais’d in that Kingdom where he married a wife & lived untill he had a sone born whome he called Morgan after which he remov’d to Ireland where he lived untill said Morgan came to manhood who left his father in Ireland & came to Pensylvania in Amerricia where he Married a woman by the name of Martha Strode the daughter of a man by the name of Strode a Hollander..."

This evidence that Morgan's father may have removed to Ireland from Denmark, together with the evidence of a yDNA Dalcassian haplogroup, could lead to a probability that Morgan did have recent ancestors who had lived in Ireland.

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Thank you Keith.

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DNA experts need to confirm this, down the female line to a living relative via an uncontaminated specimen from Francis Bryan and you.  If not, then nothing is conclusive.

Answer 1

Knights of England has Dudley 1645, Francis 1618, Henry 1509, 1513, Thomas 1537, Thomas 1549. https//archive.org/details/knightsofengland02/page250. No idea yet who Dudley and Henry were.

Answer 2

I am currently working on the line from Mary Bourchier to Magna Carta sureties, but have not got this far back yet. When I do, I may have more to add.

Answer 3

This might be disproved by the yDNA studies for Bryan descendants of  Morgan Bryan: https://www.familytreedna.com/public/Bryan?iframe=yresults

Notice starting at line 186 that several descendants claiming Morgan Bryan as an ancestor belong to haplogroup R-DC191 a "Dalcassian" haplogroup more strongly associated with Gaelic natives of Ireland.  Sir Francis Bryan I did not have this ancestry, although he was married to Lady Joan, Countess of Ormond who did.  However, y chromosones do not usually get passed down from females.

...AND I just noticed that DC191 may be associated with the surname Fitzgerald:  https://www.ytree.net/DisplayTree.php?blockID=1583  My understanding is that Lady Joan Fitzgerald had always wanted to marry her cousin Gerald Fitzgerald, who she did ultimately marry after her first husband was poisoned and her second husband, Sir Francis Bryan I, had mysteriously died.  Hmmm.....

Answer 4

I think the basic question is who was this person really. I think there's no doubt that "he" existed, it's just where he came from that's contested.

The history of Parliament website does say about Sir Francis Bryan also known as vicar of hell, that he had at least one illegitimate son.

Comments

And that's all it says. But, if this man inherited land in Ireland and was knighted by the King of England, there would be a record of him somewhere. 

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I went ahead and made indicated changes.

Should any proof ever emerge, it's an easy fix.

Answer 5

With regard to William Smith Bryan...if he too did not exist - who is buried in his grave on Bryan's Island, Gloucester Va?  Is that bogus?

Comments

How do you know he is buried there? Because someone created a memorial to him on Find a Grave? Where is the evidence to support that that he was buried on that island? 

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Good point. Would U.S and International Marriages of 1560 - 1900 be a reliable source?  In there is a record of a William Smith Bryan and a Catherine Morgan...and don't beat me up...lol, just asking.

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U.S. and International Marriages of 1560-1900 is a database of made up of a variety of sources, including undocumented ancestry trees. It is not a reliable source. 

If you are interested, here is some of my research on William Smith Bryan and his supposed ancestors. https://www.jeaniesgenealogy.com/2019/02/william-smith-bryan-lesson-in-17th.html

https://www.jeaniesgenealogy.com/2016/09/the-evolution-of-william-smith-bryan.html

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Very interesting.  Thank you for that link.  I know you state that you began this site in order to share your family history with children and relatives.  What is the Bryan connection?  I have been told (by the Boone Society) that my 6th great- grandmother Mary Catherine (Bryan) Bush [married Phillip Bush] is the daughter of William Bryan (not the debated William Smith Bryan) of what is now Salem, Virginia.  I live in Roanoke, 3 miles from his grave.

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Hi Rick it's a long story, and I won't bore you with the details, but I personally have no relationship with the Bryan Family.

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There is a Headstone naming 3 or 4 generations located there.  One might assume they are indeed buried at that location.  Now, whether it is the exact spot, maybe not but buried there I do believe so.

Answer 6

If we can set aside the relationship to the Vicar of Hell for a moment, I don't know if the following (vanity?) pedigree has been vetted:

Whitfield, Theodore Marshall, editor. Whitfield, Bryan, Smith, and related families. Compiled by Emma Morehead Whitfield, assisted by many members of these families. Appendix. Vol 2. 1948-50, p. 407-8. Westminster, MD.

See especially footnote 23 regarding the: ''Pedigree of Edward Bryan'' which starts with Sir Francis Bryan, Knight Banneret, Chevallier, Baronet and Lord of Tor Bryan (1490-1550). It cites another source as providing further ancestry than the line that begins with Sir Francis Bryan: MacKenzie, Colonial Families of The United States, etc. II, p. 150+. (A source with which I am unfamiliar, and cannot look up right now.)

I happened across this because I was working this line that directly affects my ancestors.

Hopefully, this hasn't already been debunked. If so, my apologies. At any rate, the Charles Shepard Byran-prepared pedigree makes for an interesting read: his Sir Francis Bryan was quite accomplished, so something is amiss, somewhere. . . maybe the Colonial Families citation has sources or a name change or something that can explain this obvious hole in history.
 

Comments

The Colonial Families offers an unsourced pedigree. It is not a good source.

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Good to know. Saved me from hunting that one down.

1. Thus, the pedigree that is cited among ancestors is brought into question, because the person who matches at the top that is presented is none other than the Vicar of Hell.

That relationship, however, is not completely ruled out, as the History of Parliament page does say for the documented Sir Francis Bryan that he had at least 1 illegitimate son. So that notion means that we cannot reject claims to paternity unless that paternity can be ruled out, right?

2. Is this reference, then, of any value, or do we hold that determination aside? Whitfield, Theodore Marshall, editor. Whitfield, Bryan, Smith, and related families. Compiled by Emma Morehead Whitfield, assisted by many members of these families. Appendix. Vol 2. 1948-50, p. 407-8. Westminster, MD.

Answer 7

I think this is probably an invented line somewhere back in the day (the bane of so many Americans-I won't even start on the Thomas Minor line, etc. in my family).  As many have pointed out below, scholarly sources don't list any children for Sir Francis.  He had many stepchildren, being married twice.  The WT profile for his first wife, Philippa Spice, provides a lot of good information.  Bryan's second wife, Lady Joan FitzGerald, was likewise a famous woman with many children by her first husband.  Here is Bryan's profile on "Genealogics," by Leo van de Pas and Ian Fettes: (I like to check this site whenever first encountering someone to research).  I'm trying to see if there's a will for Lady Joan FitzGerald, which should provide a conclusive answer.  The only sources that mention a William Smith Bryan/Francis Bryan connection are secondary sources without primary back-up, so I'd say the possibility of his being Sir Francis Bryan's son are extremely remote.

Answer 8

If I could ask for anything in family history research it would be for those in the U.S. to stop assuming that a Knighthood is hereditary  or is in some way an automatic endowment.  It is not the same as a masculine salutation any more than "Lady" is.  It is not the same thing as a military title.  It is an individual honour never extending beyond the lifetime of the recipient and whenever Sir Francis Bryan is mentioned the Knight Bannerette title is for him and him alone and not his progeny.  We have Sir Francis Bryan and all below him are just plain Bryans.  The same is true for William Smythe etc.

Answer 9

First, we only know that Sir Francis Bryan had at least one son: vis "Poore Boy" Bryan.  (Or "Courier" Bryan).  He was not a knight and there is no record of that.  We know that Sir F.B. was "given" lands in Offaly and Laois (King's and Queen's counties) confiscated from the O'Moores and O' Connors but no record of any inheritance by "Poore Boy". There is certainly no record of any lands held by Sir F.B. other than through his wife Joan Fitz Gerald.  Such lands would have been entailed to Joan's children by her first husband.  This is an important point because if F.B.III went back to Ireland to reclaim property who held it in the meantime?  It is my thought that any lands held over must have been in Offaly and or Laois and confiscated on the death of Sir F.B. and reallocated to Elizabeth's supporters - hence it would have been a forlorn hope to recover the property after some 110 years.  The only hope we have is through the Kilkenny Bryans - otherwise the whole recovery of property idea falls flat. It is even worse when it is suggested that W.S.B. was known as "Prince of Ireland" because any such claim will have travelled the same path as property from Joan Fitzgerald and such a title applied to W.S.B. must have been mocking him.