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

Me

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

¹ http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/85374047/family?cfpid=48579084866, accessed 14 MAR, 2016

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Boleyn, accessed 14 MAR, 2016

³ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467200, accessed 14 MAR, 2016

⁴ http://haydenbarbiero.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-other-boleyn-girl-william-stafford.html, accessed 14 MAR, 2016

5 http://addictedtoeddie.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-other-boleyn-girl-filmography.html

 © 2016 Becky Burrington

Archeology 2600 BC. So, nothing has changed.

I was perusing the news on Yahoo today and found a most interesting archaeological dig in a tomb found in Abusir, southwest of Cairo. Khentkaus III was a queen in the era of the Old Kingdom (2649-2150 BC). Her husband, Pharaoh Neferefre (sometimes called Reneferef), ruled some 4,500 years ago. Carbon dating can predict her age and they can determine if she suffered from physical ailments, how she died, how many children she had.

Archeologists did find fragments of pottery, woodwork, copper and animal bones. It’s amazing how much they can determine by looking at a tomb and its contents.

The painstaking reconstruction of each item will show how she lived during that time period with one exception. They cannot reconstruct her face. Unfortunately, her skull was smashed, most probably by tomb raiders.

The writer of the article, Thomas Page for CNN, writes:

"(It was) a crucial period when the Old Kingdom started to face major critical factors: The rise of democracy, the horrific impact of nepotism and the role played by interest groups," he says, adding that climate change also played a role in bringing an end to not only the Old Kingdom empire, but those in the Middle East and Western Europe at that time.

Within 200 years of the Queen Mother's death, the Nile no longer flooded and drought consumed the kingdom.

So that is clearly climate change for ancient Egyptians. The article went on to say the drought brought about poor harvests and ultimately, financial ruin. No taxes, no more pyramids, no more building an empire on the backs of the commoners.

And I thought to myself, wow, nothing has changed in 4500 years: “a rise of democracy, horrific impact of nepotism and the role played by interest groups” and climate change. That frightens me. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

I can only hope that the world has the capacity for change in the next few centuries: where we can eliminate greed, crime, war, poverty, hunger and disease. A world where people are truly equal and truly free.  Can we work towards bettering ourselves and humanity? If it sounds like Jean Luc Picard’s vision of the 24^th century, that’s what I’m going for. Can I get an “Alleluia?” More importantly, can I get a replicator?

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/01/africa/egypt-queen-discovery-khentkaus/index.html

Accessed 1 FEB 2016