Family line Sir Hand de Benenden

[Jabberwockie]

Howdy from across the pond!

I'm a proud Texan that has become an avid anglophile after more than a year's genealogy research of my surname and family's history.

I have traced my family line directly to Sir Hand de Benenden, Kent 1420, through his son; Sir Henry Hand de Benenden, Kent 1440, to his son; Lord Sir Thomas Hand de Benenden 1462, husband of Lady Agnes Juliet Kent Hand.

I have reached a dead-end with Sir Hand 1420. I have some reason to suspect he is, in-fact Sir Henry Stafford. Many genealogy sites claim Sir Henry Hand (1440) was married to Countess Lady Margaret Beaufort (some don't).

Any help from my Brit cousins would be greatly appreciated!

Once this covid mess subsides, my wife and I are considering a pilgrimage to Kent, Staffordshire, and possibly other areas.

Daniel S. Hand (1946 - )


God save the Queen!

[Pam Downes]

Hello Daniel,

Welcome to British-Genealogy.

I think I can safely say that none of the Sir Henry de Hands have any connection to Margaret Beaufort.

The sad truth is that once you get back to even the 1600s records can be very sketchy, and going further back they get even sketchier and quite unreliable. Members of the royal family are about the only people who have a reiable family tree.

The nobility did have something called 'The visitations of the Heralds' to help with their pedigrees. Though it would seem that even these could be fabricated on occasions.
https://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/guide/vis.shtml

I've just checked one entry on the web after searching for 'Sir Henry Hand de Benenden' and it says Sir Thomas Hand. born 1462 was the father of Thomasine and Johannis, who were born 1493 and 1500 respectively. Considering that on the same page Sir Thomas was said to have died in 1493 I find it slightly difficult to believe that he was the father of
Johannis.

The brutal truth is that a lot of the family trees on the internet are as reliable as a chocolate teapot. (Even ones relating to the 1800s are unreliable.)
Most Brits count themselves lucky to get back to 1700 with proven ancestry. I've managed that with one of my lines, and if someone else's work checks out, with two.

Pam

[Jabberwockie]

Thanks for the reply Pam.

A little disconcerted, but not discouraged.I see what you mean by confusing and inconsistent Brit genealogy records. The fact that online sources have Sir Thomas Hand's death date as 1493, 1520 and 1559 is an example.

I'm surprised by your statement about the difficulty of tracing one's ancestors accurately in Merry Old. I can very easily trace my direct line to the very first Hand to immigrate to America in the early 1600's. He was a member of the Quaker sect run out of England by Archbishop Loud.

Our records seem intact for the most part despite your boys burning most of our courthouses in 1812.

I suspect you are correct about Sir Hand c.1440 not having married Lady Margaret.
This is just part of the mystery I am researching.

Just a couple of possibilties that I consider are 1. Lady Margaret was determined to have a Tudor king and packed Thomas off to visit country relatives.
2. Thomas was a bastard child of Sir Hand's and unknown.

Have a nice day!

[Lesley Robertson]

Pam is perfectly correct when she talks about the difficulty of documenting family lines in the 17th century and beyond. Most of the population was illiterate and relied on church records rather than keeping their own. There are a lot of reasons why papers have not survived: damp, acid ink (which produces a lace-like effect with holes where the paper was), fire, civil wars, two World Wars, need I go on?

Those who have ancestors who lived in well-built stone houses with a proper room to store documents (and a clerk to care for them)obviously have an advantage.

If you have a complete line back to the 1600s, you are very fortunate!

Margaret Beaufort's 4 husband are very well documented, I'm afraid. A Papal dispensation was necessary for the Beaufort/Stafford marriage as they were related.

[Jabberwockie]

Pam is perfectly correct when she talks about the difficulty of documenting family lines in the 17th century and beyond. Most of the population was illiterate and relied on church records rather than keeping their own. There are a lot of reasons why papers have not survived: damp, acid ink (which produces a lace-like effect with holes where the paper was), fire, civil wars, two World Wars, need I go on?

Those who have ancestors who lived in well-built stone houses with a proper room to store documents (and a clerk to care for them)obviously have an advantage.

People often blame the internet for bad data, but the problem started long before the web. For example, the following describes a genuine book for sale in a catalogue about 20 years ago (apologies to former members of the late soc.genealogy.britain who may have seen it before):

"KNOWLES, GEORGE PARKER. A GENEALOGICAL AND HERALDIC ACCOUNT OF THE COULTHARTS OF COULTHART AND COLLYN. TO WHICH ARE ADDED THE PEDIGREE OF SEVEN OTHER CONSIDERABLE FAMILIES ETC. WITH A GENEALOGICAL ACCOUNT OF THE ROSSES OF DALTON IN THE COUNTY OF DUMFRIES. Printed for private circulation, London 1855. frontis coat of arms, plus other arms in text, large folding pedigree, the whole work printed on vellum, one of 75 copies printed. (An elaborate and expensive hoax: The seven other considerable families never existed. The man who had it published was of uncertain origin. The man who is believed to have been his grandfather was a half-witted small farmer known locally in Kells as 'Laird Cowtart'. The place and castle of Coulthart never existed and the arms were borrowed from the Essex family of Colt and others [See The Ancestor vol iv pps 61-80, Jan 1903])."
Imagine the excitement of someone called Coultart who found the book, but not the evaluation!

If you have a complete line back to the 1600s, you are very fortunate!

Hopefully, since my ancestors appear to be of high nobility, directly related to the Dyves through Sir Thomas Hand c.1510, the Royal Aldeberges through Lady Agnes Kent Hand, etc., I would guess their homes were of stone, relatively dry and substantial.

If English history is so hopelessly inaccurate, muddled and confusing, I wonder at the purpose of a Brit genealogy forum. :\

[Pam Downes]

Thanks for the reply Pam.

A little disconcerted, but not discouraged.I see what you mean by confusing and inconsistent Brit genealogy records. The fact that online sources have Sir Thomas Hand's death date as 1493, 1520 and 1559 is an example.

I'm surprised by your statement about the difficulty of tracing one's ancestors accurately in Merry Old. I can very easily trace my direct line to the very first Hand to immigrate to America in the early 1600's. He was a member of the Quaker sect run out of England by Archbishop Loud.

Our records seem intact for the most part despite your boys burning most of our courthouses in 1812.

I suspect you are correct about Sir Hand c.1440 not having married Lady Margaret.
This is just part of the mystery I am researching.

Just a couple of possibilties that I consider are 1. Lady Margaret was determined to have a Tudor king and packed Thomas off to visit country relatives.
2. Thomas was a bastard child of Sir Hand's and unknown.

Have a nice day!

It's well documented that Margaret Beaufort had only one child - Henry Tudor, a.k.a. Henry the Seventh.

If you're talking about Quaker ancestry, I think it's the Quakers who are known for keeping records, so you are very lucky. However, I would suspect that there are a lot of early American records which have been lost over the years. You don't know that they're missing because you've never needed to access them.
Also remember that our records begin a lot earlier than yours.

Hopefully, since my ancestors appear to be of high nobility, directly related to the Dyves through Sir Thomas Hand c.1510, the Royal Aldeberges through Lady Agnes Kent Hand, etc., I would guess their homes were of stone, relatively dry and substantial.

If English history is so hopelessly inaccurate, muddled and confusing, I wonder at the purpose of a Brit genealogy forum. :\

English history is not responsible for the people (presumably his descendants) who post three different death dates for the same person online, thereby making 'history' inaccurate, muddled and confusing.

And I never used those three adjectives to describe the early records.

The sad truth is that once you get back to even the 1600s records can be very sketchy, and going further back they get even sketchier and quite unreliable. Members of the royal family are about the only people who have a reliable family tree.

What I meant (but expressed quite badly) was that not all the records exist, and of those that exist some of the details are minimalist. e.g. the vicar might record that on 1 January 1593 he baptised the son of John Smith - no name for the child, no name of the child's mother. So is the father the John Smith who married two years earlier, or the one who married ten years earlier? Hence the 'unreliable', because you have no way of knowing, and it's that lack of precise details which can make genealogy further back than the 1700s difficult.

Pam

[christanel]

It isn't that English history is hopelessly inaccurate, muddled and confusing it is that some over enthusiastic researchers can make it seem so by accepting information found online without any evidence to connect it to them other than the same name.
A paper trail is the only way to move back from oneself through the generations and for the majority of us that is only possible up to a certain point as explained by Pam and Lesley.
British-Genealogy and genealogy forums in many countries, including the USA are online to help people research their ancestral lines accurately but as witnessed by many public trees just on ancestry.com alone accuracy, supported by sources, is not considered essential.
Our members love helping others with their research and are happy to spend hours of their time, free, to do it but to be sure they are following the correct families they need to know what information you already have and where you found it, back through each generation.

I hope you and your wife's pilgrimage to Kent becomes a reality in the not too distant future.
Christina

[davehand]

I find it ironic that Mr. Hand from Houston's lineage can so easily be dismissed because "records before the 1600's are sketchy" by the British Genealogy group who must pride themselves in their knowledge of history and genealogy to assist people in their lineage research. I agree records can be inaccurate, that information recorded can include misspelled names and incorrect dates but a $1B genealogy industry has spawned to provide facts as loose as they may be and assistance to millions who want to know about their own personal history. Just as we cannot prove anything absolutely from the 1400's, we also cannot completely deny a connection when we have multiple sources of information. Before the common use of given names and surnames many people were referred to as John of Gaunt, Henry the Elder or Hand de Benenden so with sketchy records how do we know people like Henry Stafford didn't drop previous handles to become Henry Stafford? IN many families with multiple Henry's and Thomas's and Edwards it is easy to see the how records can become confused. In my case, Sir Thomas Hand in 1462 definitely uses a traditional name and his father Sir Henry Hand of Kent(1440) did indeed marry a Margaret and before that we have Henry Hand de Benenden. Britain should be proud of their records and with churches and gravestones still standing, the chance of piecing together a story in Britain is a lot better then Bulgaria or countries that have not existed consistently since 1066. In short, I don't think we can claim 100% that anything is absolute from these times but we cannot dismiss absolutely either. Dave Hand of Toronto from Dallas, Texas

[Pam Downes]

I find it ironic that Mr. Hand from Houston's lineage can so easily be dismissed because "records before the 1600's are sketchy"

I think if you re-read the posts made in this thread you will find no dismissal of Mr Hand's lineage, just a statement of facts. e.g.

I have reached a dead-end with Sir Hand 1420. I have some reason to suspect he is, in-fact Sir Henry Stafford. Many genealogy sites claim Sir Henry Hand (1440) was married to Countess Lady Margaret Beaufort (some don't).

Yes, Margaret Beaufort did marry Sir Henry Stafford, but his lineage is proven, and he was never Sir Henry Hand.

by the British Genealogy group who must pride themselves in their knowledge of history and genealogy to assist people in their lineage research.

Although we are almost entirely amateurs (a few members over the years have also been professional genealogists) I know that that Admin and the Moderators have huge respect for our members and their ability to find even the most obscure fact/website.

I agree records can be inaccurate, that information recorded can include misspelled names and incorrect dates but a $1B genealogy industry has spawned to provide facts as loose as they may be and assistance to millions who want to know about their own personal history. Just as we cannot prove anything absolutely from the 1400's, we also cannot completely deny a connection when we have multiple sources of information. Before the common use of given names and surnames many people were referred to as John of Gaunt, Henry the Elder or Hand de Benenden so with sketchy records how do we know people like Henry Stafford didn't drop previous handles to become Henry Stafford?

We don't know if 'a' Henry Stafford may have been known by a previous name, but we do know that he's not the Henry Stafford who married Margaret Beaufort.

IN many families with multiple Henry's and Thomas's and Edwards it is easy to see the how records can become confused.

Been there, done it, and got the T-shirt, even in the 1800s.

In my case, Sir Thomas Hand in 1462 definitely uses a traditional name and his father Sir Henry Hand of Kent(1440) did indeed marry a Margaret and before that we have Henry Hand de Benenden. Britain should be proud of their records and with churches and gravestones still standing, the chance of piecing together a story in Britain is a lot better then Bulgaria or countries that have not existed consistently since 1066.

Yes, we are very lucky that so many of our records have survived, but we are also entitled to have a rant when the one parish register we really need got lost when the church burnt down!

In short, I don't think we can claim 100% that anything is absolute from these times but we cannot dismiss absolutely either. Dave Hand of Toronto from Dallas, Texas

That also applies in more recent times.
One Thomas baptised in 1800, with another Thomas baptised in the same village in 1801. Which is the one who stayed in the village and became my 3x great-grandfather and which is the one who moved to Cambridge?

Pam

[Lesley Robertson]

I think it’s a matter of realism not pride. As you say, we aim to help, and we therefore have to make members aware of the limitations of the records when they are collecting their evidence. My post 5 in this thread lists many of the reasons why. It’s true that the richer people with bigger houses stood a better chance of their records surviving, but it’s still a lucky chance. Many of those big houses were targets in the Civil Wars, for example.
Confusion can arise because every brother in a family was under pressure to call his eldest son after their father, because priests frequently didn’t name women, or only gave their forenames, or because records did not survive. Also, tenants often called their children after their landlords.
The people of the Royal court lived their lives in the public eye and it would have been noted (with glee) if the man who was the very proud head of a powerful family suddenly changed his name - not just in the genealogical records but also in the histories or the gossip in the letters home from assorted Ambassadors.

BTW One of my 18th century grandmothers was a Margaret Hand. She was not related in any way related to any form of nobility.