Today was another great day of new discoveries as Terry and I travelled East to the town of Hunmanby to visit an 900 year old Parish Church, and then we headed South to the town of Beverley to visit the Minster there.
When the day began, the reason to visit All Saints Church in Hunmanby was to see where Everard de Ros and his wife Rohese Trussebut, my 23rd Great Grandparents, were buried. Yesterday when we were at Kirkham Abbey and Helmsley Castle, the de Ros family was all over the place, so a small side trip to see Everard and Rohese's final resting place seemed reasonable.
The question I have been asking myself all day was, why would they be buried away from the rest of the de Ros family, in a small parish church, without any connections to this place. We arrived right at noon, and two volunteers were at the church opening it up for us. They must have received my email from last night asking if the church would be open, because the website said it would be only if they had a volunteer. Well, the word got out, and there they were.
They didn't have any church guidebooks for sale, but they did have a church only copy that I scanned some of the pages with my phone. I explained to them my connection with the church, and noticed several coats of arms of people who were buried there, so I snapped a few pictures of the crests on the walls, and started exploring.
When I go somewhere, and see names all over the place in a church, I can always get the information from the church, bring that back to the room with me, and before I blog, I can search my database to see if I get any hits on the names I discovered there. I did this today, and BINGO, I got some additional matches.
Here is the paragraph that I scanned, and the info it contains:
I had a Gilbert de Gand in my database, whose father was a Gant, and whose son was a de Gaunt. This almost sounded too real to be true. As I started digging deeper, all three were de Gants, and all three are direct ancestors of mine. Furthermore, Gilbert de Gant's Grandson, Gilbert, was married to a Rohese Clare, born in Tonbridge, Kent, England. Tonbridge Castle was the original seat of power for the De Clare family when they came to England supporting William I. My daughter Alex and I stayed in Tonbridge three years ago researching the family name, and Rohese Clare was really Rohese de Clare, daughter of Richard Fitzgilbert de Clare, another one of my Great Grandfathers.
Not only did I solve the riddle of the Gand, Gant, Gaunt family, but I was able to clean up some names that had been posted in error, and extend the family tree even more. Now I can concentrate on answering the first question I had regarding Everard and Rohese. And I didn't even mention the family tree I found on the wall inside the church"
The next stop was Beverley Minster. I had quite a few ancestors associated with this beautiful gothic House of the Lord, particularly the Percy Family, but discovered some amazing stone carvings of several of my ancestors inside and outside of the Minster, too. Three of them are below:
Siward Digri, Earl of Northumberland Walter L'Espec 1068-1153 Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland Siward was my 25th Great Grandfather, and father of Waltheof. Walter L'Espec founded Kirkham Priory and Rievaulx Abbey, and was my 26th Great Grandfather. Henry Percy was the father of Henry Hotspur Percy of Alnwick Castle, and my 19th Great Grandfather.
Many of the 20 or so ancestors I have in my database that are associated with Beverley Minster could not be found here today, but a couple of Percy's were found, although piecing them into my family tree is a little difficult right now, and I will need additional research to see if I can find the link to them. For example:
There is a Percy Tomb, and it is said to house the remains of Lady Eleanor Percy, who died in 1328. I have a Lady Eleanor Neville Percy in my family tree, but she died in 1472, so it can't be the same person. There is also a tomb of Henry Percy, 5th Earl of Northumberland and his wife, Lady Catherine Spencer. Henry died in 1527, but I can only go back as far as the 3rd Earl Of Northumberland as a direct descendent, so they ,ay not apply either.
Tomb of Henry Percy, 5th Earl of Northumberland and his wife, Catherine Spencer
Sometimes you get easy discoveries when doing what I have been doing, and sometimes they raise more questions, but either way, it's a puzzle that I feel needs to be resolved, and as aggressive as my schedule has been, I just can't do it while over here. This will need to be looked at when I get home, and digest all of this information, so that it makes more sense to me in the future.
One side of the Percy Chapel housing the remains of Lady Eleanor Percy
The other side of the Percy Chapel.
