Chat
|
Daily Search
|
My GenForum
|
Community Standards
|
Terms of Service
|
|
|
I have pertinent info on this subject. Y'all may find this as fascinating as I do :)) This is a family legend, passed down from my great-grandfather (Geoffrey Patrick Bewley) to my grandmother (Irene Bewley Johnson) to my mother (Carol Johnson Nelson).
The Bewley family in Cumberland, GB, is descended from a man who was knighted on the battlefield at the Battle of Hastings in the year 1066 by William the Conqueror himself. I am a direct descendant of that man. He was a Norman, just a farmer. Apparently he did something sufficiently heroic to get himself knighted (probably something extremely dangerous and foolhardy. Who knows).
At some point in Irish history, an offshoot of the Bewleys moved to Ireland and it was there, sometime during the Penal Times, that my great great great great great grandfather was disinheirited by his younger brother because he became Catholic to marry an Irish-Catholic widow named Anna Mariah Kelley. Here's where the family legend gets muddled, but sometime in the 1850's some of their sons? grandsons? ended up in the US in Ohio (by way of Pennsyvania), and one of those sons? grandsons? is my great great grandfather. One of his brothers died in (this is what my mom tells me) the Collinwood fire.
Sometime in the 20's or so, the Bewley family in Dublin, Ireland, sent a solicitor down to Cleveland, OH, USA, to ask my great-grandfather, Geoffrey Patrick Bewley, if he wanted to convert from Catholisism to the Church of England and inherit everything. He turned the guy down flat.
In the early 1900's, a man by the name of Sir Edmund Thomas Bewley wrote a book called "The Bewleys of Cumberland and their Irish Descendants." It was published in Dublin, Ireland.
Now, here's something unlrelated but odd: Lord Montague Bewley was convicted of child molestation sometime back in the 1950's in Great Britain. Lost the title that the family had had since 1066. Lovely huh?
Some of this story may be inaccurate, but it is a story passed down thru 3 or 4 generations, so who knows? I do know the book exists, I have seen it listed in geneaology books, I know Sir Edmund Thomas Bewley exists, he's listed in Burke's.
Enjoy, and please write me back if you know anything more that happens to verify this story, which my mom told me when I was a child like a fairy tale. Thanks.
Aislinn09@aol.com
Followups:
|
| http://genforum.genealogy.com/bewley/messages/109.html | ||
 |
Agreement of Use Link to GenForum Add Forum |
|