Re: Robert Royce of Connecticut
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In reply to:
Re: Robert Royce of Connecticut
Michael Dobson 3/03/06
Greetings Mike,
Glad to hear the info is of help – the line can probably be traced back much further now.
Additional Miscellania:
A) New notes to go with the last post
While Robert Royce b. 1605 Rutland is almost certainly Robert of Stamford (in part also because his birthdate corresponds to the one given for Robert of CT), I'm less certain now as to whether the William Royce of Berkshire and the William Royce of Rutland are necessarily the same person. The dates for their children fit well, but Berkshire is removed enough from Rutland that the back-and-forth sequence of christenings about 1607 seems odd without an explanation. Suspicions are also raised in part by the Richard Royce of Stamford who has his children christened at Saint Michael prior to Robert and Mary. Richard Royce, son of the William Royce of Berkshire, was born 1612 and is too young to have been this individual. However the Richard at Stamford might equally be an uncle of Robert or some other relation – or even a Royce of no close relation since Stamford is a sizeable town in Lincolnshire and the county has many a Royce. If documentation can be found in Stamford / Rutland / Berkshire for any of these individuals then that's the best way to determine who's who.
B) Notes on Other English Lines and English Royces in General
The Allen Royce (chr. 1691) line, which was detailed earlier in the Frederick Henry Royce post (# 890) and which also includes philosopher Josiah Royce in a branch that went to America, appears to date back further to the marriage of a William Royce and Isabel Allen (makes sense) early in the 1600s – however I haven't been able to verify this or to make a direct connection. Allen Royce chr. 1691 was probably the son of Allen Royce and Mary Sharpe (m. 07 JUL 1679 Wing, Rutland), but the 12-year gap between their marriage and his birth is reasonable cause for question and he might equally be a grandson or great-grandson of William and Isabel through some other route. The Allen Royce line is possibly related to the Royce lines of Oakham and Empingham but these lines themselves are difficult to sort out.
Online records from Rutland and Lincolnshire and surroundings are fragmentary enough that they make difficult the putting back together of all these lines, which are probably related at a Norman French level. When it comes to what is available, knowledge of geography is important in dealing with the area because people go in one county and out the other very easily. On paper this looks like a big deal but in practice it might mean you went 2 km down the road. The largest concentration of Royces in England corresponds to the region called the East Midlands
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Midlandshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Midlands
From a historical vantagepoint, Rutland has a ton of Royces relative to its area (i.e. smallest county in England). Northamptonshire, where Frederick Henry Royce was born, has far less. Leicestershire has a few, mostly on the Rutland border, Lincolnshire mostly in the south, some in Nottinghamshire. Derbyshire has (or had) dozens of Royce families located around the Castleton area. Counties located just outside this region like Yorkshire tend to have a few as well.
In the south of England County Kent has both a pre-Huguenot Royce population and a Huguenot Royce population, with the Huguenot population centered mainly around Canterbury. London has that same pre- and post-Huguenot combination, the former probably drawn from the Midlands, and also includes immigrants from Ireland and Continental Europe.
Sources for the surname Royce/Royse/Roice/Royes/Roys:
1) English Roy's, "Son of Roy"
2) Norman French Fitzroy, "Son of (the) King"
3) French Le Roy, De Roy, "(of the) King"
4) Reuss (pron. Royce), a German surname.
5) [ possibly ] Irish Ròis, genitive of Ròs "(of the) Rose"
6) Variant of Rice ( Form of the Welsh patronym Rhys as anglicized c. 1300-1600 )