Can anyone help me find records of these people from the 16th century? William, Mary, Margaret St Loe?

Question

I'm looking to trace my family history and I've been told that we are descended from Sir William St Loe, who was one of the husbands of Bess of Hardwick. However, I know that he had no children with Bess and although I know he had at least two children with a previous wife (if not more than one wife), the most I can find are the names of two daughters: Mary and Margaret, and that Mary was a maid of honour for Elizabeth I.

Can anyone help me trace these people, and find records of them somewhere, with perhaps some more information about them? All I can find regarding William St Loe is details of his career, ie as Captain of the Guard, with no information regarding his previous life before Bess apart from what I've mentioned.

Also, I have found one mention of a Margaret St Loe as an ancestor of the Royal Family, but having been told that there were possibly two different lines of St Loes at the time, I can't be sure she is the one I'm looking for.

Answer 1

Hmmm, Have you actually traced your family history yourself ? or are you just going on what someone else has told you ?

The former takes years of research, backed up with BMD certificates, census and Parish Records and not even then can one be sure they are on the right track !

The latter - has the person who told you about your St Loe family have anything to back up their research ?

You could contact Rob Salzman

http://www.e-familytree.net/F10/F10554.h...

Answer 2

How much of your family have you traced?

You can't think you are a descendant of someone and trace forward.

You have to start with yourself and go back.

Maybe you will hook up with them, maybe not.

Good luck, happy searching.

I keep hoping for a link with Geoffrey Chaucer.

No luck so far.

Answer 3

Records from this period rarely survive.  The absolute earliest any parish registers begin is in 1538, but very few church records begin this early.  Most registers from this period are also usually written mostly in Latin and can be largely indecipherable to the average layman, and believe me, I've tried - not only that, but many pages have faded with the ravages of time and many entries are just unreadable.  Any kind of official legal records from this period are often in Latin as well - those that are written in 16thC English are usually just as impossible to decipher unless you have a degree in paeleography.  I've got a will from 1723 I am struggling to translate let alone the one I have from 1582.  Other documents are no easier.  I really wouldn't recommend starting in the past and working forward.  As others have already said, the system doesn't work like that.  Always be suspicious of any family stories and legends like this, and always work backwards into the past, not forwards.  If the evidence is there, you'll find it, but not everything survives.  You have to bear in mind though that no historian yet has found the actual record of William Shakespeare's marriage to Ann Hathaway for example, only the intended marriage licence for the event, so the exact day is not known.  Many other records from this period for lesser mortals, without the benefit of hundreds of historians and scholars to scour thousands of documents in Latin and Olde English are simply lost to the mists of time.  Many things can only be guessed at.  There will always be question marks in records from this period in history.  As long as your research doesn't disprove your cousins work then you should at least be able to work on the "balance of probability" because proper verification is unlikely to exist.

The place to start is to see if this Sir William guy left a will.  The PCC (Church Court of Canterbury) wills (usually for the wealthy) are online at the National Archives "Documents Online" section.  Try searching there and see if such a document exists.  If it does, it will be £3.50 for a copy, but as I said above, don't expect to be able to read it quite so easily, especially if you've never looked at 17th and 16thC secretary handwriting before.  If you're lucky it might give the name of any wife, children and grandchildren etc who might have inherited and give the location of any family home or lands that might point you in the right direction to search for a baptism or marriage in a local church.  Other than that, there might be something like "The Visitations of xxxxx" (county) when heralds travelled to many parts of the country in the 1500s and 1600s to compile details of those landowners and the gentry entitled to bear arms and family crests and compile the family lineages of the most wealthy sections of society.  For example, the "Visitations of Cornwall" have been published on CD for the three years 1539, 1573 and 1620.  There's always a possibilty he could appear in those records.  Even so, working forwards is not that wise.  I wouldn't recommend it.