My passport came in today, two weeks after I renewed it. It really is astounding how fast instant gratification travels these days. I plan to visit England next year to research family history for a book I want to write. I also want to visit Liverpool and experience everything I can about the Beatles.
For several years I have had strong feelings that George Harrison is my spirit guide.
It could have easily been Tom Baker but he’s still alive.
Richard Burton could also fit the bill, except I have too much PTSD to be around anyone that screamy.
It’s ideas like these that make me really excited for my presumed future state of dementia.
I will bravely face it as a devout anglophile.. perhaps with a tiara and a tiny plastic scepter.
I 💙 History: Especially the Middle Ages!
I am a lover of all things history and keep the genealogical records for my branch of the Welch family (originally le Waleys/le Waleis in the early records, then le Walssh/le Walsh/Walsh).
I have long been the black sheep of my family, as I simply don’t see the world the same as the rest of them. But I know I am right. 😊 As it turns out, I am carrying on a rich tradition in my family of resistance. Many of my grandfathers were in hiding, imprisoned, and/or banished for their beliefs and big mouths, from the Middle Ages to the American Civil War.
Sometimes, the pay-off from rebellion was great, and members of my family conquered entire nations.
(flex warning) I am a direct descendant of Charlemagne (40th Great Grandfather), William the Conqueror (29th Great Grandfather), and Robert the Bruys (24th Great Grandfather).
More recently, during the American Civil War, the insurrection of Timothy Lawrence Welch (2nd Great Grandfather) against the Confederacy, left the next generation, John Ira Welch, II (1st Great Grandfather), as Louisiana sharecroppers. But Lawrence was right. 😊
130+ years before the American Civil War though, Thomas Richard Welch (9th Great Grandfather), migrated to Charleston, South Carolina, from Scotland and England (before 1729). By the 1750’s, the Welches had settled into Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, then moved back to South Carolina by the 1760’s, after a disease took out a great portion of the family in 1754.
Richard James Welch (5th Great Grandfather), fought as a private in the American Revolutionary War under General Frances Marion. Then by 1802, the Welches made their way into Bryan County, Georgia, then moved in 1815, to Wayne County, Mississippi, and later again into Covington (Jones) County, Mississippi, where a great portion of my family remains to this day.
Free State of Jones County, Mississippi
I’ve already briefly mentioned my great, great grandfather, Timothy Lawrence Welch. In 1862, he deserted the Confederate army’s Company F, and joined with Newton Knight and 11 other family members of the 54 men listed in the Knight Company Roster sent to congress, declaring the Free State of Jones, and secession from the Confederacy. He rebelled against the Confederacy, fought for the Union, and was subsequently captured during Lowry’s Brigade, on April 25, 1864. Lawrence later moved his family to West Carroll, Louisiana, which is the state where most of my closest Welches live: in Calcasieu, East/West Carroll, Franklin, Grant, Madison, Ouachita, and Richland Parishes.
The Welches are cousins to Newt Knight and family surnames making up Knight Company are:
Blackledge, Bynum, Holifield, Knight, Matthews, Vallentine, and Welch.
The fate of my 13 family members (listed alphabetically) of the original 54 are as follows:
- Bynum, Tapley: Killed April 25, 1864, by Lowry’s Brigade
- Bynum, P.M.: Cut off April 25, 1864, by Lowry’s Brigade
- Knight, Newton: Evaded Capture April 25, 1864, by Lowry’s Brigade
- Matthews, Lazrous: Captured April 25, 1864, by Lowry’s Brigade
- Vallentine, J.M.: Wounded April 25, 1864, by Lowry’s Brigade
- Vallentine, John I.: Captured April 25, 1864, by Lowry’s Brigade
- Vallentine, M.B.: Captured April 25, 1864, by Lowry’s Brigade
- Vallentine, Patrick: Captured April 25, 1864, by Lowry’s Brigade
- Vallentine, R.H.: Captured April 25, 1864, by Lowry’s Brigade
- Welch, H.B.: Captured April 25, 1864, by Lowry’s Brigade
- Welch, R.J.: Cut off April 25, 1864, by Lowry’s Brigade
- Welch, T.L. (Timothy Lawrence): Captured April 25, 1864, by Lowry’s Brigade
- Welch, W.M.: Captured April 25, 1864, by Lowry’s Brigade
Earls of Wanlip (1078-1501): Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England
In the 14th century, Sir Thomas Walsh (22nd Great Grandfather) was the Earl of Wanlip in Leicestershire, England. He and Lady Katherine Walsh (22nd Great Grandmother) built the Church of Our Lady and St. Nicholas with windows and doorways designed by the mason of John of Gaunt’s Kenilworth Castle and secured parishioners’ right of interment in the churchyard. All this was celebrated in 1393 with a brass at the nave of the church of my grandparents, which also happens to be notable as the earliest extant example of an English inscription on a high status tomb monument.
Intersection Where Welch/Welsh Becomes Royal (1570)
My 11th great grandfather, Reverend Josias Welch of Templepatrick, was the son of Reverend John Walter Welsh Of Ayr VI and Elizabeth Knox, and grandson of John Knox the Reformer (founder of the Church of Scotland, father of Presbyterianism) and his second wife, Margaret Stewart Knox. Margaret was the daughter of Andrew Stewart, 2nd Laird Stewart of Ochiltree and another Stewart: Margaret Stewart, Mistress of Ochiltree (daughter of Henry Stewart, 1st Lord Methven, who was Master of the Scottish Artillery and last husband of Margaret Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York), and a cousin of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots.
This is the intersection where I am a direct descendant of John Knox the Reformer (13th Great Grandfather) and the House of Stuart/Stewart. This intersection with the House of Stuart/Stewart tied in with the House of Tudor and Plantagenet, which ended up with rival cadet branches and the Wars of the Roses between the House of York and the House of Lancaster. Then both houses were somewhat brought back together with the House of Tudor reign after the Battle of Bosworth Field, and subsequent marriage between Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, which produced Henry VIII; who breaks away from the Catholic church and creates the Church of England (Episcopal); so he can marry Anne Boleyn, revving up the Reformation; but the throne of England ends up in the House of Stuart/Stewart, when the Virgin Queen Elizabeth I, produced no heirs and ended up with James I of England succeeding to her throne, long after she had his mother, Mary Stuart Queen of Scots, beheaded for treason.
Before all that, starting from the 2nd century, with Kvenland king grandfathers, I am a direct descendant of William the Conqueror (29th Great Grandfather), Charlemagne (40th Great Grandfather) and my favorite grandparents: King Henry II “Curtmantle” Plantagenet of England (26th Great Grandfather), and Eleanor of Aquitaine (26th Great Grandmother); and Henry II’s parents, Geoffroy V Plantagenet Count of Anjou, Maine and Mortain (27th Great Grandfather), and Geoffroy’s wife, Empress Matilda (27th Great Grandmother); Empress Matilda’s father was Henry I of England (28th Great Grandfather), and her mother was Matilda of Scotland (28th Great Grandmother), who not only was the Holy Roman Empress, but also an actual saint; and a generation preceding her is exactly where my family becomes the cast of Shakespeare’s Macbeth:
DUNCAN, King of Scotland is played by Duncan I of Scotland
Matilda’s, grandfather and my 30th Great Grandfather
MALCOLM, elder son of Duncan is played by Malcolm III of Scotland
Matilda’s father and my 29th Great Grandfather
DONALBAIN, son of Duncan is played by Donald III of Scotland
Matilda’s uncle and my 29th Great Uncle
I guess they threw sainthood around like confetti in Scotland, because Saint Margaret of Scotland is Matilda’s mother and my 29th Great Grandmother. I’m looking around at my family today and no one’s gonna be going up for saint any time soon.
It seems to have all started going straight to hell with King John of England (25th Great Grandfather); who everyone hated so much (after taxing everything in the world he could think of, losing Normandy and most of his possessions in France, during his war with Philip II of France, which lead to him finally being forced to sign the Magna Carta), that he was developed as villain, Sheriff of Nottingham, in the Tales of Robin Hood. (But his brother Richard the Lionheart was my 25th great uncle.. so that’s really cool!)
King John’s son, Richard Plantagenet, 1st Earl of Cornwall (24th Great Grandfather), didn’t become king, and he produced Richard de Cornwall of Thunnock (23rd Great Grandfather) with his mistress (oy!), Mistress Jeanne Valletort (23rd Great Grandmother).. so just that fast, the throne was yanked out from under me! :womp-womp: However, Richard de Cornwall produced no legitimate children, so I guess it’s good to be a bastard!
The real take-away from all of this is that my family is responsible for the The Dark Ages and couldn’t get enough incest! :beam:
Things start to look up again, because five generations after King John, Robert the Bruys (24th Great Grandfather) stomps the hell out of Edward II of England (22nd Great Uncle) at the Battle of Bannockburn, thus becoming King of Scotland. His daughter, Marjorie Bruce (23rd Great Grandmother) marries Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland (23rd Great Grandfather) and they give birth to Robert II of Scotland (22nd Great Grandfather) and with him begins the long, sordid, Stewart Dynasty of Scotland and England.
Obviously, I fell far and away from anything less than a usurper, because by the time the House of Stewart marries into my Welches, Margaret is a mere Lady of Ochiltree.
We can’t have anything nice.
The common practice of royal marriage was to join other royals for the sake of treaties, which puts them all in there and allows me to throw a stick and hit a statue of one of my grandparents in Europe. And here I am in Mississippi, far from any cool, royal parties, partly due to the Reformation.. and as a History buff, I lurve the Reformation! But I wouldn’t mind a castle. 🏰 ❤️
Our family still has plenty of drama, some of it mildly cut-throat, but thankfully the corpse count has decreased. Speaking of corpses, I can’t wait to learn the fortune of my family during the black plague.
In addition to the Norman, French, English & Scottish royal blood running through my veins (omgLOL), I have Scandinavian grandfathers, (who knows about grandmothers because they weren’t even given names, other than mother or wife of some grandfather.. which makes the Feminist in me die a little..) who are founders of Denmark, Sea Kings, then ascend into the downright (upright?) mythical around the 2nd century as giants, and the wind, kings of Kvenland, in my Nordic ancestry.
