Burrington Blog: My 12th Great Grandfather and Mary Boleyn

My 12^th Great Grandfather

So I’ve been really really invested in Ancestry.com, to find ancestors I never knew I had. We all have a ridiculous number of great great grandparents, all of whom lead to our birth. Think about it:

Sixty Four Great Great Great Great Grandparents

Thirty Two Great Great Great Grandparents

Sixteen Great Great Grandparents

Eight Great Grandparents

Four Grandparents

Two Parents

It’s just simple mathematics, and yet, it’s mindblowing. (And doesn’t that simple equation above look like a tree? I KNOW.)

When you’re exploring the family tree, you begin to see more than just names and numbers. You see when the young wife died, giving birth to their child. You see the children who died at birth, or in early childhood, or when two people die on the same day and you guess it was poor medical care or the flu or a car accident, all depending on the dates.

This weekend, I discovered that my 12^th great grandfather, William Stafford, was married to another woman before he married my 12^th great grandmother, Dorothy. He married – in secret – to a young widow with children. They couldn’t tell her family because they would disapprove. It was only when she “fell pregnant” that they could no longer keep everything secret. ¹

To put things in perspective, “Staff,” as he was called by Henry VIII, was a soldier, who accompanied the King, along with 199 other close friends to France to try to secure an annulment so Henry would marry Anne. That’s when Staff first met Mary. William’s first wife was Mary Boleyn (1499-1543). YES, THAT BOLEYN. That would make Anne Boleyn my 12^th Great-step Aunt. Anne (who was now married to Henry VIII in 1534) was so angry that Mary had married in secret – and beneath her station – to a mere soldier - Mary was disowned and the couple was exiled from court. In all likelihood, they fled to safety back to Chebsey, in Staffordshire and later, Mary’s family’s estate, Rochford Hall in Essex. ² In a letter to Thomas Cromwell, Mary admitted her deep and passionate love for William.

After Mary’s death in 1543, William served as a soldier in Scotland, was knighted and married my 12^th great grandmother Dorothy in 1545. The rest is history. Fortunately, my history.

Sir William Stafford (1500-1556)⁴

If I ever get to see Eddie Redmayne, we’ll have something in common. After all, he did play my 12^th great grandfather in the movie, The Other Boleyn Girl.³ Pretty impressive.

Eddie Redmayne as my 12th great grandfather 5