Of my 9th G. Grandmother, Elizabeth Alsop, and 'Gateway Ancestors'

The Magna Carta

The Magna Carta was a charter issued in England in the year 1215 AD. It was signed by the dread King John of England, and group of rebellious barons, who pretty much forced him into signing it in order to keep the peace. It was the first time, from what I understand, that a king had been forced by his subjects to sign a document that effectively protected his subjects' rights, limiting the king's own powers.

It didn't work out perfectly in the end. The King didn't always honor the entire thing; some of it was repealed or ignored. But it was an important step in the history of Democracy as a Thing, which, at the time, it clearly wasn't...

My 24th Great-Grandfather, King John of England

This Great Charter can be read about elsewhere, as it is historically important and there was even a Doctor Who made about it, in which the Master (the Anthony Ainley one, not the Melissa Gomez one or the Roger Delgado one), tried to disrupt or steal the Magna Carta in order to erase democracy from western civilization. This is the guy who usually planned alien invasions and inverted time-space wedgies, so for the Master to do such a small crime really spoke to his over-use at this period in Doctor Who history.

Here's a picture of the Doctor Who robot, Kamelion, shortly after impersonating King John

The Doctor Who episode was called "The King's Demons".

But enough about Doctor Who!

SO.

Douglas Richardson wrote a book, which was published in 2011. It was entitled Magna Carta Ancestry and it detailed exactly how certain colonial immigrants and settlers were descended from the Magna Carta surety barons. The series of books, published in volumes, is highly regarded and is considered very well researched, and so it is being used as a source of information for this blog as I find reference to it, as well as the people who put together the Magna Carta Project here:

Magna Carta Project

Gateway Ancestors

A 'gateway ancestor' is a term used by Richardson to describe a known, verifiable colonial-era descendant of one of the 25 Magna Carta surety barons. It is used in a more general sense to refer to an early American colonist with well-researched ties to royalty.

Elizabeth Alsop fits both of these definitions. According to Richardson's book, she was a descendant of surety barons Hugh le Bigod (1185 - 1225) and Robert de Vere (about 1164 - 1221). According to another source, "The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants" by Gary Boyd Roberts, Elizabeth's mother Temperance Gilbert is descended from the royal houses of England. More specifically, King Edward I, or Edward Longshanks. Elizabeth's father was named John Alsop and he also was born in England. He may also have ties to royalty on his line. I have not done research on this yet.

The royal side of Elizabeth's lineage from King Edward I, as I have followed it based on historical research and the Magna Carta book, is as follows. The names in bold indicate the line of descent:

King Edward I (1239 - 1307) - Eleanor of Castile (1241 - 1290)

Elizabeth Plantagenet* (1282 - 1316) - Humphrey de Bohun (1276 - 1322)

Eleanor de Bohun (1304 - 1363) - James Butler (1305 - 1338)**

James Butler (1331 - 1382)*** - Elizabeth Darcy (1332 - 1390)

James Butler (c.1359 - 1405)`- Anne Welles (1360 - 1397)

James Butler (1393 - 1452)`` - Joan Beauchamp (1396 - 1430)

Sir Thomas Butler (1426 - 1515)``` - Anne Hankeford (c.1431 - 1485)

Margaret Butler (c.1454 - 1539) - Sir William Boleyn (1451 - 1505)^

Alice Boleyn (died 1538) - Sir Robert Clere (c.1453 - 1529)

Sir John Clere (c.1511 - 1557) - Anne Tyrell (c.1512 - 1576)

Sir Edward Clere (1536 - 1606 - Frances Fulmerston (1540 - 1579)

Anne Clere (1558 - 1616) - William Gilbert (died 1607)

Temperance Gilbert (c.1595 - 1648) - John Alsop (died 1631)

Elizabeth Alsop (1625 - 1683) - Richard Baldwin (1622 - 1665)

Notes!

*Elizabeth Plantagenet AKA Elizabeth of Rhuddlan. Sister of King Edward II.
  There are several "Elizabeth Plantagenents" so they can be confused if not careful.
** 1st Earl of Ormond
*** 2nd Earl of Ormond
` 3rd Earl of Ormond
`` 4th Earl of Ormond (see the theme?)
``` 7th Earl of Ormond (his older brothers were 5th and 6th)
^ This is where Anne Boleyn comes from, eventually. Alice Clere was her aunt.
   William's father was Geoffrey Boleyn, Lord Mayor of London.

Elizabeth Alsop Baldwin's lineage to Hugh le Bigod (starting with his father Roger) is established and written out in Magna Carta Ancestry pages 6-9, and these pages are available for viewing on Google Books. This mostly overlaps with the above, once you hit James Butler and Eleanor de Bohun. Only earlier generations are different. I will put a link below to this lineage for those interested:

Hugh le Bigod to Elizabeth Alsop

Richard Baldwin married Elizabeth Alsop on February 5, 1642, and the couple had children together. The Baldwin family continued through them into many different lines. This logically makes any of the Baldwin family descended through the lines of Richard and Elizabeth a descendant of many kings and queens, going as far back as Cerdic of Wessex (if he did exist), Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror, Rollo of Normandy, and Charlemagne. If you enjoy history, knowing that your family was a part of it can make it more interesting. Just don't be a jerk about it; you aren't better than someone else because Æthelred the Unready was your xth great gran'daddy. In fact it has been estimated that most of the population of England and about 1/3 of the total population of the United States of America can trace their ancestry back through King John.

But it's still fun!

Another point of interest: once you tap into the royal lineages, as the Baldwins can, and the research turns into more of historical things, it becomes very reliable and easy to retrieve (as long as the historians have uncovered it, and agree, I suppose). Because of this, many famous celebrities and politicians have had their genealogies sorted out and charted, making them easy to tie to royalty as well. Logically, these people would all be our distant cousins, then, and using 'cousin calculators' online one can easily tell exactly how one might be related to any of these people. So I call these people my "famous cousins" and plan to post about them in occasional posts entitled... "Famous Cousins". Pretty clever. Vincent Price, all of the Presidents, Alec Baldwin, Uma Thurman, and Thomas Edison all fit into this category. There are many.

Distant relatives. Christopher Lee and Vincent Price

They say if you go back far enough you are related to everybody! This is one aspect of 'pedigree collapse'. So while you should not be picking up dates at your family reunion, ultimately, should you choose to marry, a cousin is unavoidable!

But ignorance is bliss.

Elizabeth Alsop

So that's how Elizabeth Alsop and any Baldwins past Richard and Elizabeth tie into royalty. But what about the early life of Elizabeth herself? We can find that her parents were married in Mickleover, Derbyshire, on May 1 of 1617. Elizabeth was born about 8 years later in 1625. She had four brothers and three sisters, although only two of her brothers, Timothy and John, are listed in the Ancestry. It's possible that her five other siblings all died very young. I can find no further record of them.

Elizabeth Alsop's Memorial Bridge stone

Elizabeth's father John died in 1631, still living in England, when Elizabeth was only about 6 years old. Her mother Temperance remarried, to a man named William Hopkins, at Alvaston, Derbyshire England in 1633 and she died overseas about 1648. At this time Elizabeth Baldwin would have been about 23 years old, married to Richard about 6 years.

Unfortunately at this time I have not found Elizabeth's journey over from England specifically. Which ship she was on, when exactly she left. These details are hazy. Elizabeth must have come over some time between 1633 and 1642, and likely traveled with her mother Temperance and stepfather William; from what I can find they were all living here about the same time period. Her brother Timothy emigrated in 1644, some years later, and may have returned to England. Her other surviving brother, George, actually left his wife and children behind in England, settled in Milford also in 1644, and stayed there until his death in 1679. The reason for this is unknown!

For Elizabeth's life during her marriage to Richard, and children, please see previous post "Of ... Richard Baldwin (1622 - 1665)". After Richard's death in 1665, Elizabeth remarried to a man named William Fowler in November of 1670, at Milford CT. She was about 40 years old at this time, and stayed married to him I suppose until his death in 1683. Elizabeth, twice widowed, died about age 63 in 1688.

This William Fowler was also noted as "one of the seven pillars of the church", as John Astwood had been before him. A cursory search for the meaning behind this term yielded this historical reference as a result and I shall link to it here:

About the Puritan Church 1638

And that's the story of Elizabeth Alsop and how her ancestry links back to the houses of England.

A brief explanation of the Milford Memorial Bridge: It was set up in Milford Connecticut for the 250th Anniversary of Milford itself, and it is basically a regular, drive-able road-bridge that has stones lining it on either side. There are a few other monuments and plaques, and various names can be read on the stones and on the plaques. A more detailed explanation is located here:

Milford Memorial Bridge

The people whose names are inscribed on the stones are said to have been buried in nearby Milford Cemetery, but the exact locations have been lost to time. To honor these early settlers, memorial stones were placed on the bridge. I visited this place with my father, aunt and uncle, and in the future I might make a post about it. This is where the pictures of stones have come from, which I will use in this blog.