> "Cornish", as the maiden name of Catherine Hollingsworth, has been discredited. For more on my April 21st posting, see the attachment below. Jeff Palmer - jap@highstream.net -----Attachment----- From http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~jayken/hollingsworth/hr/83190219.htm: The Myth of Catherine Cornish Hollingsworth Register has spent nearly twenty years debunking many falsehoods in print and trying to publish the corrections. For instance, "Descendants of Valentine Hollingsworth, Sr." (1925) by Joseph Adger Stewart, is known for its errors. However, Stewart corrected errors put forth in print by William Baker Hollingsworth in his "Hollingsworth Memoranda" in 1884. Stewart's errors were honest. His were omissions or the placing of certain lineages in the wrong column, so to speak. That could have been, and probably was, a result of his accepting material from donors on face value. (The D.A.R., at its outset in the 1890s, accepted many members as "real daughters" of Revolutionary soldiers, on their say-so with almost no documentation. What a dreadful mistake this proved to be later, when the lineages were proved false when a later descendant wished to join!) WBH put in print one of the worst falsehoods in the whole Hollingsworth story, and this is, in a way, why we write this disclaimer now. The myth of "Catherine Cornish"! Lord help us. Back with us again. We thought it was truth, not fiction, which, when crushed to earth rises again! But here is Myth - Untruth herself - rising up again to scare and to daunt us like a gruesome, lurid phoenix from its putrid ashes! Wm. B. Hollingsworth seems to have relied foolishly upon a letter written in 1824 from one Henry Hollingsworth to another. In this, the writer says their name (Henry) came from Henry Cornish, High Sheriff of London, who was the father of a Catherine Cornish who was the first wife of Valentine Hollingsworth, Sr., and, consequently, their ancestor, through Valentine's son Henry2 Hollingsworth. He left the Friends to become more prominent and in favor with men... aside from the fact that he had been condemned and disowned by the Quakers for allegedly fathering a bastard child (HR Sep 1973,p. 75). In other issues of this journal we have shown that there were Cornish families who were Friends in Pennsylvania and involved with Henry2 Hollingsworth, but no relationship has been found. (See: Henry Cornish - Political Martyr, in HR Sept 1970, pp. 83-86; A Cornish Connection? in June, 1973 p. 59, Sept 1969, p. 99, and other references too numerous to mention.) We have received two letters in 1983 to the effect that your editor told somebody in writing that "Katherine Cornish" wife of Henry Hollingsworth ... father of Valentine1 Hollingsworth, Sr., ... died 1675, was the "Daughter of Edward IV. of York." Well, that is worth a big, healthy belly laugh, folks. If Hollingsworth Register were in the business of making up falsehoods in genealogy and history, do you think that we would have Katherine Cornish dying in 1675, and be the daughter of King Edward the Fourth who died in 1483 over two centuries before? As Roy Orbison would say "Mercy!" Yes, Good King Edward has been dead half a millenium - 500 years. April 9th marked the day. We can trace a probable origin of this almost inconceivable error to our magazine in this way: In HR June, 1974, at page 60 we published the happy story of the marriage of Jacqueline Hollingsworth, of our Wexford family, to Admiral William Right Hollingsworth of the Valentine Hollingsworth family. Your editor stylishly, (in the grip of some euphoric passion) likened the wedding to the marriage of King Henry VII (Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond - who became king only because Sir William Stanley treacherously changed sides at Bosworth and murdered King Richard in 1485) to "the daughter of Edward IV. of York." Those are my own words in HR. I was referring to Shakespeare's play "Richard III". in the conclusion of which Henry Tudor, speaking a mighty eloquent speech over the corpse of Richard, talks about uniting the "red rose with the white". He was referring to his own marriage which united the houses of York and Lancaster, bringing an end to the Wars of the Roses. (Read Richard the Third, by Paul Murray Kendall (1955-56) and you may change your feelings about King Richard, Henry VII., and especially about William Shakespeare, a good playwright, but a lousy, sycophantic biased-towards-the-Tudor Monarchs historian! The book seems to show that Richard was a devout, Christian man, whom the people loved, especially the inhabitants of the City of York, and that Henry may have had the young heirs to the throne smothered, a horrible murder long attributed to Richard by his orders. The day after Bosworth, York went into mourning and proclaimed the foul murder of their king.) In our article, I was thinking about the tie, at long last, between the Valentine Hollingsworth family and the Wexford Hollingsworth-now- Hollingsworth family. (I had not yet read the Kendall book!) "Edward IV. of York" was my phrase, and probably never used elsewhere, since it would be confusing terms. It appears that the Cornish myth was somehow tragically connected to this phrase. But not so, readers. Although I cannot say that HenryA Hollinworth of Ballyvickcrannell, father of Valentine1 Holling(s)worth the Quaker, was not married to a Katheran Cornish, I can indeed say that Valentine never was! In our informant's letter is also a new twist, that HenryA was identical with the Henrie Hollingworth baptised 24 August 1589 at Everton, Nottinghamshire, son of William Hollingworth, a find I made a few years ago. This statement is no wise proved. Also, they have him dying on 27 Oct l675! That is the date of 3 leases or agreements between the Blackers and Valentine Holling(s)worth before he left Ireland, for details of which see HR June 1971 P. 45. In them, Henry was deceased at the time they were signed. He did not die on that day. Ridiculous! He may have died in the 1641 rebellion. He certainly did not remain at Ballyvickcrannell at that terrible time, when The O'Neill and his rabble were murdering, burning, raping and drowning every Englishman and woman they could lay their fiendish hands upon. But I am of the opinion that Henry survived into the early 1670s and is the man who signed the marriage as I wrote in HR 6:127-131, on 8 Oct 1671, as Hen: Holinworth. His grandson of the same name then being only 13, and being better educated, always signed as Henry Hollingsworth. Be assured that we are investigating the Everton registers, and other registers where Henrys were baptised. Suppose, now, that we locate a burial for this Henry baptised in Everton Church in 1589? Buried as a child. As Karl Malden would ask: Then what will you do? What W I L L you do? Please ... no more myths. Let Catherine Cornish sleep, and rest, if, indeed, she ever lived at all outside of the imagination. -----Original Message----- From: Jeff Palmer [mailto:jap@highstream.net] Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2005 1:40 PM To: 'DENEWCAS-L@rootsweb.com' Subject: RE: [NewCastle] Hollingsworth "Cornish", as the maiden name of Catherine Hollingsworth, has been discredited. Jeff Palmer - jap@highstream.net * * * Quote of the Week: “Washington is a city of southern efficiency and northern charm.” -- John F. Kennedy -- No virus found in this outgoing message. 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