Dear WRG: At 05:20 PM 4/9/01 -0400, MerryJWhit@aol.com wrote: >Carolyn Whitney Branagan wrote: > >"This is a question for Robert Ward and Allan Green. I will be anxious >to see what they have to say on this topic, but I was not aware >there was a royal connection through Mary Bray. And it doesn't seem >to be all that clear to me that Thomas was the father of John. >Robert and Allan, do we have enough evidence to make that claim?" This is the first I have heard of an alleged royal ancestry through Mary BRAY. Do you have details and sources for this? For a discussion of the evidence, see the following web pages: <http://www.whitneygen.org/families/johnw/ancestry.html> <http://www.whitneygen.org/families/johnw/doubts.html> The case is not as strong as one would like, but it seems quite likely that John WHITNEY of Isleworth, co. Middlesex, and St. Mary Aldermary, London, was the same as John-1 WHITNEY of Watertown. >Is there not some way, though, to confirm or refute whether this Thomas, if >we do know he was the father of John-1, was also the grandson of the Sir >Robert Whitney (died England Aug. 5, 1567) who married Sybil Baskerville, and >great-grandson of the Robert Whitney (died May or June, 1541) who married >Margaret Wye? The refutation comes from the chronology. See these two articles: <http://www.whitneygen.org/archives/extracts/jacobus.html> <http://www.whitneygen.org/archives/extracts/reed.html> Reed says, "It is argued that, though Sir James Whitney died on 31 May 1587, aged forty-two, his younger brother, Robert (supposed father of Thomas Whitney of Westminster), could have been born about 1548-9 (given ten- to fifteen-month birth intervals). His alleged son, Thomas Whitney of Westminster, married Mary Bray on 12 May 1583. Assuming that both Robert and Thomas were about seventeen when they married, the connection still seemed chronologically possible, even if unlikely." Then he shows that Thomas must have been *at least* 21 at marriage, not 17, forcing his alleged father to have been *at most* 13 at marriage. This is impossible. Actually, the chronology is even worse than this, since it assumes that Thomas was the first son of Robert, born very soon after marriage, even though the existing pedigrees list him as the *third* son, and not necessarily the third child! It also assumes that the three eldest sons of Sir Robert were consecutive children, with no daughters coming between them, for which there is no evidence. Intervening daughters would stretch the chronology even more! The conclusion is that Thomas, 3rd son of Robert, 3rd son of Sir Robert, could not be the Thomas WHITNEY of Westminster who m. Mary BRAY, because he was too young. Unfortunately we do not know what happened to that Thomas, because we have not examined the right records, if they still exist. We do not even know where his father Robert lived. Additionally, we do not know the parentage of Thomas WHITNEY of Westminster, for the same reason, despite a fair (but not exhaustive) effort searching for it. Much information about various WHITNEY individuals in England has been gathered, but much of it pertains to people not definitely connected to either of the two main WHITNEY gentle families, one of Herefordshire, one of Cheshire. See, for instance, <http://www.whitneygen.org/archives/extracts/memoranda.html>, <http://www.whitneygen.org/archives/vitals/england/index.html>. None of it identifies any relatives of Thomas WHITNEY of Westminster. Clearly, the WHITNEY family was distributed over a large portion of England by the time of Thomas WHITNEY's birth. I'm sorry if this isn't very satisfying. Regards, Robert Robert L. Ward WHITNEY Research Group <http://www.whitneygen.org/home2.html>