Ada de Warenne, Countess of Huntingdon - A note from Craig Thornber

Did you post this info to the correct profile?

There are a lot of unmerged duplicates and separate discussions on the same topic.

I am getting confused. Can some merging be done "to" the Master profiles that already exist?

Can we keep to the one discussion? It is "very" hard to constantly scan for new threads ...

All help is muchly appreciated.

The Discussion is here

http://www.geni.com/discussions/136733

And congratulations on establishing a good relationship with Mr. Thornber! I think you already know I'm a fan of his work. He presents clearly, cleanly, accurately and with style.

Sounds like a great plan, Pam! ;-) Good show, Cuz!

@ Ada de Warenne,Countess of Huntingdon is my 25th grt grandmother http://www.geni.com/path/Judy-Rice+is+related+to+Ada-de-Warenne?fro... this is my lineage Judy Rice

Thanks, Craig and I are having a very interesting email conversation. I want most to remain objective, as I don't "need" Ada in my family. But it's something interesting I just ran across, and it will be a great learning experience going through the process. I'm going to try to summarize the contents, post it, then move forward with more research questions which I will post. This is a great mystery, involving politics, land, lots of history, archeology, genealogy; the whole ball of wax. Stay tuned!

Erica,
1. The timeline seems fine so far. On the alternate profile I have posted documents. I'm using it as a template to work on from original sources.

I don't want it tangled up with whatever is attached to your MP. I'm doing this as my research grows and develops, but it's all in one place except for one pedigree. I'm isinglass the Legh family pedigree to show the relationship between the the Venables family and the Breretons. According to this pedigree, the Breretons are descendants of the Venables.
So back to Ada. A short version of a paper I'm going to write on this:

The Windsor MSS of 1588 pretty well identifies who and what are in the tombs called Ada de Huntingdon and Ralph de Brereton. Even the Rector of the church has sworn to it as well as local gentry.

Next item, why were they buried at St. Mary's Astbury? Because Ada's son Gilbert/Gilles Brereton was the Rector of this church at the time of the tomb was built and again in 1337 as per the document I uploaded. He was also rector of St. Oswalds 1297 so there's another record for his approximate life span fitting with someone born post 1250. The Venables family were his patrons. So that refutes all arguments " what were they doing there". My gut feeling is that is his tomb next to them, as per archaeological data, carved at a later date. The inscription done also at a later date may have been an attempt to identify them at the time of the manuscript. Why?
This is a few decades after the Dissolution of the religious houses in England. Many old abbeys and churches were burned to the ground for the lead on the roofs, the stone hauled off, windows sold, contents hauled off, records and books destroyed, tombs defaced, destroyed, and the land taken by the crown or sold to the highest bidder. Later, after Henry VIII died, and Elizabeth I was on the throne, families whose parishes these buildings were originally in were allowed to buy back the buildings as parish churches.

The shield above the inscription matches both Venables and Brereton. They were originally identical, Venables being blue with 2 bars and Brereton being Silver with 2 bars.

I have higher resolution photos of the tombs now from Craig. But the translation on the tomb is accurate, it's been translated many times; The English Heritage Trust did a restoration of the tomb and it's records agree with Thornber.

That should say " I'm using the Legh Pedigree"; darn Ipad!

To clarify my comment about the Windsor MSS, it's that I'm referring to here as being a few decades after the Dissolution.

One other note, the Legh pedigree ties the de Corona family and the Baggiley family into this group, so merges will eventually be needed. I have a lot of material on some of them to go through, but want to finish this.

Some other comments: one writer says he doesn't think the tomb would have fit in the 13 th century church. Another says it would have. Regardless, it very well could have been a chantry chapel, very popular at the time, strictly for masses to be sung for Gilbert and Ada.

Meant Ralph and Ada.