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Ancestry Daily News
9/19/2002 - Archive
No Arnold Royal Line
Editor's Note: The 10 September Ancestry Daily News,
contained an article by Karen Frisch regarding a castle in Wales. In it, she
referenced a previously published connection between an ancestor of hers and
the historical residents of Abergavenny Castle. (www.ancestry.com/library/view/news/articles/6314.asp
).
As Kory explains below, that connection turned out to be inaccurate and his
message serves as a reminder to us all of the need to be wary when using compiled
lineages. Thanks much to Kory for sharing this!
For most genealogists, the possibility of royal or noble ancestry is attractive.
After all, if our interest is to trace a family as far back as possible, royal
ancestry allows us to do that better and easier than most of our lines. Besides,
it helps give us a solid connection to history. Hence, I can understand and
share the interests of Karen Frisch in learning "about ancestors so ancient
they exist more in the realm of imagination-before photographs or even surnames"
(Ancestry Daily News, 10 September 2002).
Unfortunately, in her comments about our mutual ancestor, William Arnold of
Rhode Island, and his descent from a Twelfth Century Welsh princess, she has
fallen into a trap common to many American genealogists. That trap is ready
acceptance of a long-disproved connection to royalty.
A royal line was apparently first suggested for William Arnold by Horatio G.
Somerby in 1870. It was published in the October 1879 issue of the New England
Historical and Genealogical Register. Unfortunately, Somerby was a very accommodating
genealogist who was remarkable for providing his patrons what they wanted, even
if documents had to be re-written or falsely cited to provide the links to royal
lines. His work is routinely shunned by experienced genealogists today.
Without passing judgment on the earlier generations of this ancestry, the alleged
lineage eventually descends to a Thomas Arnold, second son of Richard Arnold.
Thomas is named as the father of William, who is what we often call the "gateway"
ancestor, the immigrant who left Great Britain and settled in the colonies.
Here, with the gateway ancestor, is where the lineage breaks down, as is the
case with a large number of so-called royal lines.
The Rhode Island Arnold family kept a remarkable family record (begun by the
immigrant William), which documents William (born 1587), his siblings, and his
mother. It does not document his father. That record identified a younger half-brother
of William as Thomas Arnold (born 1599) whom many early researchers wrongly
believed to be the New England immigrant of that name who settled first at Watertown,
Massachusetts, and 20 years later moved to Rhode Island.
A 1796 obituary of a descendant of this Thomas Arnold identified the immigrant
Thomas as the son of a "Thomas Arnold, a native of England." Hence
the faulty connection was made (and published as early as 1819) that William
was the son of a Thomas. Armed with this information, Somerby found an early
Arnold pedigree, adjusted generations 13 through 16 to fit in Thomas and his
alleged father Richard. He then plugged in the immigrant "brothers"
Thomas and William as sons of this Thomas Sr. and presto, a royal lineage was
pasted onto another worthy American family's lineage.
The problem is, it just was not so! The January 1915 issue of the "New
England Historical and Genealogical Register" has an article by Edson S.
Jones, which explains this all quite clearly. It also shows that the immigrant
Arnolds (Thomas and William) were not brothers, and that neither of them is
connected to the royal line published earlier. It further reports accurate research
in English parish registers regarding the parentage of William Arnold. In 1902, the author, Jones, had visited Northover
parish in Somerset where he found two church register entries, which matched
William Arnold's family record exactly. In a neighboring parish he found additional
records, which matched information about the Rhode Island immigrant.
In 1921, Fred A. Arnold elaborated in-depth on these and other findings about
the Arnold origins in the Rhode Island Historical Society Collections. His 24-page
article explains exactly and clearly that William was the son of Nicholas Arnold,
born about 1550 and who was buried 26 January 1622/23. His half-brother Thomas
married and remained in England, as did all of his siblings. William is not
related to the immigrant Thomas Arnold, and the ancestry of his father, Nicholas
Arnold is unknown. His mother's parents are known, but no further. There is
no known (or even suggested) royal ancestry for this Arnold family.
This same article was transcribed and included in the 1921 Arnold Memorial by
Elisha S. Arnold and the original 1921 article was reprinted in 1983 in a collection
by Genealogical Publishing Company, Genealogies of Rhode Island Families from
Rhode Island Periodicals.
The true ancestry of William Arnold has been known now for a hundred years.
It has been in print for 87 years, in at least four different publications.
It is time to leave mythical royal ancestries behind us, not only for the Arnolds,
but for the hundreds of other gateway ancestors who have been plugged into faulty,
sometimes fraudulent, lineages.
For more information about myths to which many family historians fall prey,
see Kory Meyerink's article on "Genealogical Myths" in the forthcoming
issue of Ancestry Magazine. You can contact Kory through his company's
website at: www.progenealogists.com/
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