Ancestry of Christopher Isherwood

[wjhonson]

https://sites.google.com/site/ceciltree/ancestry-of-christopher-isherwood

http://www.countyhistorian.com/cecilweb/index.php/Artists_descended_from_royalty#Authors

[wjhonson]

Post by wjhonson
https://sites.google.com/site/ceciltree/ancestry-of-christopher-isherwood
http://www.countyhistorian.com/cecilweb/index.php/Artists_descended_from_royalty#Authors

I've now added to Christopher ascent, his royal link to
William /Harris/ of Shenfield, co Essex 1614; Knt
and his wife Frances /Astley/

Both of these have a royal ascent, but William Harris is 9 steps down from Edward III. His wife Frances ascends to Edward I

[h***@yahoo.com]

See RD900 pages 547-9 (along with a substantial list of sources) for descents from Edward I to Isherwood and his third cousin (Henry) Graham Greene.

[wjhonson]

Post by h***@yahoo.com
See RD900 pages 547-9 (along with a substantial list of sources) for descents from Edward I to Isherwood and his third cousin (Henry) Graham Greene.

I do have an additional descent listed, which RD900 does not have

[John Higgins]

Post by wjhonson

Post by h***@yahoo.com
See RD900 pages 547-9 (along with a substantial list of sources) for descents from Edward I to Isherwood and his third cousin (Henry) Graham Greene.

I do have an additional descent listed, which RD900 does not have

Your website alludes (cryptically) to an Edward III descent for Sir William Harris of Shenfield, but doesn't provide any details of the descent. Can you post those details?

RD900 p. 548-9, in its discussion of the Edward I descent of Christopher Isherwood, notes that an Edward III descent for Sir William Harris (originally published in Ruvigny's Mortimer-Percy volume in 1911) was disproved by the late David Harris as "chronologically impossible". GBR included the Edward III line in RD500 in 1993 but discarded it in RD600 in 2004, replacing it with the "lesser" Edward I line for Christopher Isherwood. FWIW an Edward III descent for Sir William Harris does NOT appear in the Genealogics database.

Perhaps the discarded line is the one that's in your database - ?? I'm guessing that it's not, but whatever line you do have would be worth scrutinizing. After all, just a day or two ago, you posted an Edward III descent for the 1st Earl Bathurst, and the error in the line was quickly discovered, helping you to correct your database.

[wjhonson]

William /Harris/ of Shenfield, co Essex 1614; Knt
Christopher /Harris/ of Shenfield, co Essex
William /Harris/ of Southminster, co Essex -1556; esq , Sheriff of Essex 1556
Joan /Percy/
Henry Algernon Percy , 5th Earl of /Northumberland/ by Catherine /Spencer/

[John Higgins]

Post by wjhonson
William /Harris/ of Shenfield, co Essex 1614; Knt
Christopher /Harris/ of Shenfield, co Essex
William /Harris/ of Southminster, co Essex -1556; esq , Sheriff of Essex 1556
Joan /Percy/
Henry Algernon Percy , 5th Earl of /Northumberland/ by Catherine /Spencer/

This is a variant of the discarded line for Sir William Harris, which appeared in RD500 in 1993 but was omitted in RD600 in 2004. Your variation is to make Joan, the wife of Arthur Harris of Prittlewell, the daughter rather than the granddaughter of the 5th Earl of Northumberland.

Actually I see also that you've discussed this issue twice before in this group, first on 3/28/2008 (which proposed a different version of your current one) and on 3/29/2013 (in regard to Graham Greene, and proposing essentially the same connection you now describe). Do you have any evidence to support this positioning of Joan - or, for that matter, that Joan was a Percy at all? Or is this just a conjecture? How do you indicate conjectures on the websites that you've published, like this one (referenced in your post of 3/29/2013)? :-)
https://sites.google.com/site/nobleascent/graham-greene

FWIW Genealogics presently says that Joan's surname is unknown - and thus it gives her no parents or any royal descent. You may want to make a change to your data...and whatever you've published on the web.

BTW I was slightly in error when I said the discarded descent was "originally" published in Ruvigny's Mortimer-Percy volume in 1911. It was also published earlier, in 1878, in the Harleian Society's edition of the visitations of Essex (vol. 13, pp. 59-60).

[wjhonson]

I cite the Vis Essex, and *fix* their descent by moving her up one generation, so she is not the daughter of, but the sister of. Seems a more likely mistake than that her grandchildren didn't know who their grandmother was.

[John Higgins]

Post by wjhonson
I cite the Vis Essex, and *fix* their descent by moving her up one generation, so she is not the daughter of, but the sister of. Seems a more likely mistake than that her grandchildren didn't know who their grandmother was.

So...you've made a guess, in order to "fix" the Visitation of Essex. Aside from the visitation pedigree, do you have any evidence that Joan is even a Percy? I'm not aware of ANY Percy pedigree that shows a Joan that could be this person.

Two comments from Brad Verity in the discussion of March 2013 that you initiated in this matter (in relation to the royal descent of Graham Greene) seem appropriate to bear repeating:

"If the only evidence that Arthur Harris's wife Joan was even a Percy
in the first place, is the Harris pedigree from the Visitation of
Essex, I wouldn't put too much weight on it. That particular Harleian
Society volume is full of errors within the pedigrees, which are
hodgepodged together by the editor and not necessarily the official
versions from the College of Arms."

and:
"So the parentage of Joan, wife of Arthur Harris, remains uncertain.
If she was a Percy, it's not clear where she fits into the family,
though, due to chronology and other evidence, she could not have been
the daughter of the 5th Earl of Northumberland & Katherine Spencer,
nor of their son Sir Thomas Percy & Eleanor Harbottle."

I think you should give up on this particular Edward III descent.

[wjhonson]

I've now found evidence that William Harris of Prittlewell was *already* an adult by 1518, which pushes his information back to the point that he could not be a son of Arthur at all

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C7470299

https://books.google.com/books?id=u_eIrJpc_T0C&pg=PA305
born by 1502

[John Higgins]

Post by wjhonson
I've now found evidence that William Harris of Prittlewell was *already* an adult by 1518, which pushes his information back to the point that he could not be a son of Arthur at all
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C7470299
https://books.google.com/books?id=u_eIrJpc_T0C&pg=PA305
born by 1502

Actually, your second reference above (the HOP bio for William Harris) thoroughly destroys the supposed royal descent for him, since it says that he was probably the eldest son of John [not Arthur] Harris of Prittlewell by his wife Joan - with no indication that she was a Percy.

Also note footnote 2 in the HOP article, which says that the Harris pedigree in the Harleian Society edition of the visitations of Essex "appears to be a fabricated pedigree".

At this point, are you still defending the supposed royal descent for Sir William Harris who married Frances Astley?

[wjhonson]

Post by John Higgins

Post by wjhonson
I've now found evidence that William Harris of Prittlewell was *already* an adult by 1518, which pushes his information back to the point that he could not be a son of Arthur at all
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C7470299
https://books.google.com/books?id=u_eIrJpc_T0C&pg=PA305
born by 1502

Actually, your second reference above (the HOP bio for William Harris) thoroughly destroys the supposed royal descent for him, since it says that he was probably the eldest son of John [not Arthur] Harris of Prittlewell by his wife Joan - with no indication that she was a Percy.
Also note footnote 2 in the HOP article, which says that the Harris pedigree in the Harleian Society edition of the visitations of Essex "appears to be a fabricated pedigree".
At this point, are you still defending the supposed royal descent for Sir William Harris who married Frances Astley?

What I think, is that there is a Percy ancestry here, just confused.

What I don't think, is that when the herald came around, a grandchild decided to invent a connection to one of the most well-known families in the country out of thin air.

So I think there was a connection of some kind.

[h***@yahoo.com]

See RD900 pages 547-9 (along with a substantial list of sources) for descents from Edward I to Isherwood and his third cousin (Henry) Graham Greene.

[wjhonson]

Post by h***@yahoo.com
See RD900 pages 547-9 (along with a substantial list of sources) for descents from Edward I to Isherwood and his third cousin (Henry) Graham Greene.

RD900 however doesnt have all the descents to Isherwood

[r***@yahoo.com]

Post by wjhonson

Post by h***@yahoo.com
See RD900 pages 547-9 (along with a substantial list of sources) for descents from Edward I to Isherwood and his third cousin (Henry) Graham Greene.

RD900 however doesnt have all the descents to Isherwood

He may have a double (? or quadruple) line from the parents of the RD immigrant to Massachusetts, Judith (Knapp) Hubbard, pending verification:

John Knapp = Martha Bloss

John Knapp = Elizabeth Howard

Margaret Knapp (b. 1608) = James Palmer of Witnesham [the son of her aunt Martha Knapp]

Hepzibah Palmer (1635-1719) = William Smythies (1635-1715)

William Smythies (1663-1719) = Thamar Furley (1665-1734)

Rev. Palmer Smythies (1691-1776) = Susanna Puplet (d. 1731)

Ann Smythies (b. 1724) = Rev. Brook Nathaniel Bridges of Orlingbury, Northants.

Margaretta Bridges = Rev. Samuel Raymond

Isabella Raymond = Henry Yeats Smythies, also a descendant of Rev. Palmer Smythies

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89062912845;view=1up;seq=169

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101076468741;view=1up;seq=209

This line might be preferable, as the Raymonds don't seem to be very well recorded.

[John Higgins]

Post by wjhonson

Post by h***@yahoo.com
See RD900 pages 547-9 (along with a substantial list of sources) for descents from Edward I to Isherwood and his third cousin (Henry) Graham Greene.

RD900 however doesnt have all the descents to Isherwood

Of course RD900 desn't "have all the descents to Isherwood" - that's not the purpose of the work, as you should know. In all of the RDnnn books, GBR has intended to provide only the "best" royal descent for an individual - i.e., from the most recent monarch. You should certainly know this from the many discussions of GBFR's works in this group over many years.

It doesn't matter how many royal descents you have for Isherwood. Do you have a "better" one than the Edward I descent in RD900?

[wjhonson]

Post by John Higgins

Post by wjhonson

Post by h***@yahoo.com
See RD900 pages 547-9 (along with a substantial list of sources) for descents from Edward I to Isherwood and his third cousin (Henry) Graham Greene.

RD900 however doesnt have all the descents to Isherwood

Of course RD900 desn't "have all the descents to Isherwood" - that's not the purpose of the work, as you should know. In all of the RDnnn books, GBR has intended to provide only the "best" royal descent for an individual - i.e., from the most recent monarch. You should certainly know this from the many discussions of GBFR's works in this group over many years.
It doesn't matter how many royal descents you have for Isherwood. Do you have a "better" one than the Edward I descent in RD900?

Define better.
It descends from E1 as well, through a different path.
Should I publish it here so that RD1100 can steal my work without credit ?

[h***@yahoo.com]

Based on the fact that GBR refers to royal descent lines as "better," "improved," "down-graded," etc., and he's the author of the work being discussed, it seems fairly safe (though not fool-proof) to assume that John's reference to a "better" descent is likely to mean the same thing that it means when GBR (the author) uses the term.

It would be worthwhile to read the cxcii (192) pages of material that appears in RD900 before the actual RDs get underway on page 1, particularly for those unfamiliar with GBR's methodology. (Some of it can be skimmed through quickly).

It makes a great deal of sense (to me) that concern over the potential theft of "intellectual property" posted in this news group might serve as a very strong argument against posting anything here in the future (or in the past).