Christopher Ashton, Esq., of Fyfield - Sorting this line

Diana Collins - continuing here from https://www.geni.com/discussions/186267?msg=1528186

Where you referenced http://www.covalt.org/genealogy/Roger%20Dudley's%20father%20proven%20to%20be%20Captain%20Henry%20Dudley.pdf

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Noted genealogist Allen Curtis believes he has proven the case for Thomas Dudley as a grandson of Capt. Henry Dudley. See The Mystery of Thomas Dudley's Paternal Ancestors By H. Allen Curtis and Roger Dudley’s Father Proved to be Captain Henry Dudley by H. Allen Curtis for a good overview of the currently accepted ancestry of Governor Thomas Dudley,

What we need is Richardson’s argument against Thomas Dudley as son of Henry Dudley.

Family of Christopher Ashton, Esq., of Fyfield his dates are very amibiguous.

1st wife of Christopher Ashton mother of Christopher Ashton, Il (was he the conspirator, or his father?) & NN Dudley who married the conspirator Capt Sir Henry Dudley

Christopher Ashton married third to Katherine Temple who was 1st married to Thomas Warneford of Sevenhampton with son John Warneford of Sevenhampton and I believe descent to New Zealand.

Have a Virginia immigrant actually here

Dorothy Ford

Another Virginia immigrant Farrar Hinton

And Gerrard Ford appears to be a false connection to Oliver Warneford & Elizabeth Warneford Their son Peter Warneford was a Benedictine priest.

Descent from Martha Hinton looks OK.

Should search soc.Gen.medieval google group, unless Leo has the ref on Genealogics?

Wikitree doesn’t have curators. They have some wonderful members & leaders however. I try to keep Geni in sync with their well done work.

This line is only since 1993.

• 11. Capt. Henry Dudley (second son, requiring crescent on arms) b. ca, 1517, d. between 1568 and 1570, m. 1545-1550 Miss Ashton.
  • 12. Capt. Roger Dudley, b. ca. 1550, d. in battle bef. Oct. 1588, m. 8 June 1575 Susanna Thorne, baptized 5 Mar. 1559/60, d. aft. 29 Oct. 1588.
    • 13. Governor Thomas Dudley

This line is considered probable because of much circumstantial (but not direct) evidence that Henry Dudley (though not previously known to have issue) was Roger Dudley's father. Marshall K. Kirk credited the unpublished notes (1968) of Prof. David H. Kelley first observing the foresaid evidence.

Oh, they don’t even like Roger as son of Henry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Dudley

It is believed that Roger married, on 8 June 1575, at Lidlington, Bedfordshire, Susannah (née Thorne), herself recorded as having been born on 5 March 1559/60 in Northamptonshire, and baptised at Yardley Hastings, the daughter of Thomas Thorne and Mary Purefoy, (the Purefoys being of noble descent).[1]

He was thought to have died at the Battle of Ivry, France in 1590[citation needed]. However, the Reverend Cotton Mather of Boston wrote: "Thomas Dudley's father was Captain Roger Dudley, -- slain in the wars, when -- his son, and one only daughter were very young". The will of Thomas Dorne (Thorne) of Yardley Hastings, Gent., dated 29 Oct 1588, bequeathed "to the children of Susan Dudley, my Daughter, widow, £10 to be equally divided". (S1, S11). Therefore, Roger was dead at the time of the will of his father-in-law, which, written in 1588, eliminates the Battle of Ivry as a possible date for his death. It is most probable that he died at the Siege of Zutphen in 1586, having followed his kinsman, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, who was a principal figure in that battle, which also claimed the life of Leicester's nephew Sir Philip Sidney.

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(This explains the Anne Bradstreet reference)

Wow, 5 or was it 2 children. :)

Susannah died in childbirth … no wait, she didn’t!

They don’t know crap about these people.

Going back to http://www.familypage.org/mystdud.pdf

A Case Study of Possible Dudleys of Generations 8 through 11

To be consistent with Governor Dudley’s coat of arms, the men of generations 8, 9, 10, and 11 must be comprised of either three first sons and one second son with Roger Dudley being the first son of generation 11 or else four first sons with Roger Dudley being the second son of generation 11. There are exactly five such cases: …

Case E34:
8. Edmund Dudley (first son)
9. Edward Dudley (first son)
10. John Dudley (first son)
11. Henry Dudley (second son)

Of the five cases A through E, one and only one can consist of the ancestors of Roger Dudley. Since the first four cases have been eliminated, it follows that case E must be the one which consists of Roger Dudley’s ancestors.

Case E was proven to contain Roger Dudley’s immediate paternal ancestors by an indirect method. In mathematics, where rigor is essential, indirect proofs are often preferred. In genealogy, when possible, direct proofs are preferred, but when needed, indirect proofs are perfectly valid.

Case E includes the generations of the preferred Sutton-Dudley line. Thus, Henry Dudley of case E must necessarily have been Roger Dudley’s father. Therefore, the mystery of Governor Thomas Dudley’s paternal ancestry has been solved.

One question I have already is the Christopher Ashton circle I was just studying had vastly different attitudes and lives than the great grandson (?) Thomas Dudley.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Dudley

Dudley was a devout Puritan who was opposed to religious views not conforming with his. In this he was more rigid than other early Massachusetts leaders like John Winthrop, but less confrontational than John Endecott.

The son of a military man who died when he was young, Dudley saw military service himself during the French Wars of Religion, and then acquired some legal training before entering the service of his likely kinsman the Earl of Lincoln. …

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I mean, this man was the ultimate Puritan; Ashton & his son in law Henry Dudley were agitators, conspirators, anti authorians, and recusants.

I can see it, I suppose, if the mothers were well connected Puritans and with a military / discipline orientation. But it’s not what I expected as background of Cotton Mather’s best buddy.

Leo starts the line at capt Roger

https://www.genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00297337&tree=LEO

[S00622] Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists who came to America bef. 1700, Baltimore, 1995, Weis, Frederick Lewis; Sheppard, Walter. 53

[S02408] His Lineage to King Henry II of England, 2 September 2007 , Richardson, Douglas. generation 16

Remember, there’s a royal descent through https://www.genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00297338&tree=LEO so no one will lose much.

There’s a brother to Gov Dudley identified in 2020.

https://groups.google.com/g/soc.genealogy.medieval/c/NSgz0-u6tOY/m/...

In the Fall 2020 issue of the NEHGR is discussed the baptism of a probable brother of Gov. Thomas Dudley, the 2nd Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. As such, I’ve not been investigating these possible connections for very long.

https://media.americanancestors.org/uploadedfiles/media/the_registe...

I have always been uncomfortable with the argument behind Thomas Dudley, Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony's ancestry. In particular, it hinges on the parents of his father, Capt. Roger Dudley

H. Allen Curtis' argument is, in my view, enormously flawed. A brief outline is that Thomas Dudley used a coat of arms associated with the  Sutton-Dudley family, with a small crescent on it, which symbolizes a second son. For a little background, in heraldry, there is a system called [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadency Cadency] which uses small symbols on coats of arms to differentiate secondary branches of the family.

Anyway, Curtis' argument hinges firstly upon the assumption that Thomas Dudley was entitled to use that coat of arms, for which there is no real evidence beyond an argument that "no high-minded person like Governor Dudley would assume the arms of another family, and no dishonest man would dare to do it.” page 2

Secondly, and this forms the core of Curtis' argument. Dudley's use of the crescent, a mark in cadency which designates a second son, means that he must be a descendent of John de Sutton, VI, 1st Baron Dudley

Curtis writes: "To be consistent with Governor Dudley’s coat of arms, the men of generations 8, 9, 10, and 11 must be comprised of either three first sons and one-second son with Roger Dudley being the first son of generation 11 or else four first sons with Roger Dudley being the second son of generation 11. There are exactly five such cases."

In essence, Roger Dudley must be part of a lineage consisting of exactly three first sons and one second son. This is because the coat of arms Thomas Dudley used has one crescent on it, therefore one second son in his lineage. There are obviously only a few options that fit this criteria, and Curtis goes through the five options until he eliminates four of them, and therefore through his logic, the fifth option must be the valid one: Capt Sir Henry Dudley Since we have no proof that Henry Dudley did not have children, which means we don't have proof that he was not the father of Roger Dudley, obviously Roger Dudley must be his son.

This is a ridiculous argument. The absence of proof is not proof. He tries to make the argument that this is an indirect proof. by eliminating all other possibilities, we can conclude that this one must be the one true parentage. The obvious issue is that Curtis makes a lot of sketchy assumptions. The first is that Governor Dudley was actually entitled to use this coat of arms, for which we don't have evidence. Secondly, the use of the rules of Cadency. Yes, heraldry did have rules, but just because the rules existed does not mean that they were followed. The Wikipedia article (I know I know, don't use Wikipedia 😒) on Cadency states that it was used only rarely in England and not entirely consistently. The presence of the crescent on Dudley's coat of arms cannot be evidence for such a precise (3 first sons and 1 first son) lineage. I would argue that the most we can conclude from this is that Governor Dudley claimed to be the descendent of a junior branch of the Sutton Dudley family.

Curtis' lineage is full of logical fallacies and is not a real proof of anything. He tries to gloss over this as much as he can in his articles, but at the end of the day there is no getting over the fact that he has no real documentary evidence for this lineage at all.

Wow, I should write faster and shorter messages, lol. Every time I post, I scroll up to see a bunch of new posts.

Also, if there was another son of Capt Roger, doesn’t that make the cadency thing moot?

Take a look at the Catherine Gordon article, I found it kind of exciting; Christopher Ashton was a piece of work. And the biographer makes “no mention” that he had grandchildren. I think if she knew of any, she would have included it.

https://media.americanancestors.org/uploadedfiles/media/the_registe...

A child, Francis Dudley, was baptized in Northamptonshire in 1583, but no parents were named in the baptismal record. In Francis Dudley, an Unknown Brother of Gov. Thomas Dudley, author Barry E. Hinman dis- cusses the identification of this child as a younger brother of Thomas Dud- ley, later governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony. The godparents of Francis were named in the baptismal record; they were members of a family who helped Thomas Dudley as a young adult.

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It’s only a two page article with 9 footnotes, nothing about Roger’s father. But this little family seems mother’s side oriented, which of course makes sense as a young widow. But - wouldn’t Thomas have used Dudley connections for his legal training and career start?

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Even though no parents are given, Francis Dudley (gen., short for generosus, i.e., well-born) appears to be a son of Captain Roger Dudley and his wife Susanna Dorne alias Thorne. The chronology and geography fit well with their other two children, and the sponsors had later known associations and connections by marriage with Thomas Dudley. Thomas Dudley was “trained up in some Latin school” by the care of Mrs. Puefroy [sic, Purefoy], and he “was taken by Judge Nichols to be his clerk, who being his kinsman also, by the mother’s side, took more special notice of him.”[4] ….

This clinches it for me:

http://www.jeaniesgenealogy.com/search?q=Dudley+

what does RCA say?

If you read my blog you know that Robert Charles Anderson is my genealogy hero. He writes in his 2012 Winthrop Fleet, "many attempts have been made to place Roger Dudley, father of the immigrant, into the large and prominent Dudley family of Northern England, but without success. [5]
Boy, if RCA says there's no proof, i'm going to have a hard time trusting other researchers who say they know otherwise.

[5] Robert Charles Anderson, The Winthrop Fleet, (Sabine, Michigan : McNaughton and Gunn, 2012) 285.

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We absolutely follow Anderson for the Great Puritan Migration. There is no better “authority” except for a TAG article more recently published.

Any arguments?

Good thread! It’s nice to see the rigor of the medievalists from soc.Gen.medieval.

Do take a look at http://www.thericardian.online/downloads/Ricardian/12-158/03.pdf

She covers all sorts of details on the life of Henry Dudley the conspirator. And not one mention of even possible children for him. She’s also discussing Lady Katherine Gordon from a domestic point of view. She could have died before Christopher Ashton’s children were grown, but if she knew what became of them - especially a descent to Thomas Dudley - it would have been mentioned.

The Dudleys were a big family, Roger’s origins will turn up somewhere.

Updated family group.

[[Capt. Roger Dudley Capt. Roger Dudley] Capt Roger Dudley]

• born between 1535-1550 in Lidlington, Bedfordshire, England or in London
• died by Oct 1588 when his wife's father wrote his will.
• parentage unproven. Argued to be the son of [[Capt Sir Henry Dudley Capt Sir Henry Dudley] Henry Sutton Dudley] (1517-1570) and [[Susanna Dudley Susanna Dudley] Elizabeth (?) Ashton]. “ Sir Henry died between 1568 and 1570, but no will is known to exist.”
• married to [[Susanna Dudley Susanna Dudley] Susannah (Susan) Thorne], daughter of [[Thomas Thorne, of Durham Thomas Thorne, of Durham] Thomas Thorne, Gent.] and [[Mary Thorne Mary Thorne] Mary Purefoy], on 8 June 1575 at Lidlington, Bedfordshire, England

Children

• [[Thomas Dudley, Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony Thomas Dudley, Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony] Thomas Dudley] baptized October 16, 1576 in Yardly Hastings, Northamptonshire.
• [[Mary Dudley Mary Dudley] Mary Dudley] baptized October 16, 1580 in London St. Dunstan. (?)
• [[Francis Dudley Francis Dudley] Francis Dudley] baptized 1583 in Northamptonshire