THE
MONTICELLO
ASSOCIATION

THE MEDIEVAL ANCESTRY OF THOMAS JEFFERSON

by Robert T. Coolidge

Although the Historian's official task is to maintain records of Jefferson's descendants, it seems appropriate for his activities to include an interest in his ancestry , especially in these Bicentennial years when we are all examining our heritage.

This article is partly based on the author's researches in medieval history , in the course of which he discovered that some of the personalities he was studying were his (and Jefferson's) ancestors. This discovery, and the author's election as Historian of the Association, furnish the motivating occasions for the article. It is a summary account of researches into this subject which were not intended to be exhaustive, since the author claims no expertise in genealogy .It emphasizes certain features which may be of interest to members of the Association, and omits or skips over much that is of less interest. The author is especially grateful to Mr. Gary Boyd Roberts of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, who led him to, or supplied him with, much of the information he has used.

The ancestors encountered during the author's own medieval researches were a line of Counts of Vermandois who were descendants of Charlemagne in a direct male line. They were never considered as candidates for succession to any of the kingdoms which had been part of Charlemagne's empire, even after all other male lines from Charlemagne had died out. The reason for this has never been discovered, but perhaps it was because their ancestor, Charlemagne's grandson Bernard, had committed treason against his uncle, Emperor Louis the Pious. The first of these counts was Bernard's grandson, Herbert, who died about 900, killed by a vassal of Count Baldwin of Flanders after having himself killed Baldwin's brother Raoul, who became the hero of a chanson de geste, "Raoul de Cambrai. " Herbert was succeeded by Herbert 11, Albert I, Herbert 111, Odo, and Herbert IV, all of whom played important roles in the politics of the French kingdom during the tenth and eleventh centuries. Albert married the half-sister of the French king Lothaire, who was also the granddaughter of King Henry I of Germany and niece of Emperor Otto I. The daughter of Herbert IV, Adelaide, married Hugh, son of King Henry I of France and brother of Philip I, who inherited the county. Their daughter Isabel married Robert de Beaumont, who became the first Earl of Leicester, thereby linking the Carolingian and French segment of this line of ancestry to the English segment, which will later be traced in the ascending rather than descending direction.

The Jefferson line of T. .J.'s ancestors has been traced back to the thirteenth century , but not with certainty, in the Collected Papers, ch. 3. There are however at least five lines which can be traced with far more certainty from two of their wives, Jane Randolph (T .J. 's mother) and Mary Brinch (his great-grandmother ).

The Branch line itself goes back seven generations to John Braunche (f1. 1437-1488); that is ten generations from T.J. (Hereafter, generations from T .J .will be indicated by numbers in parentheses.) From this line another one goes back six generations, from Katherine (or Barbara) Jennings (7) to Sir Adam Bostock (13) and his father-in-law, Hugh, Baron Kinderton (14). These lines are composed of knights and gentry with no famous people and little likelihood of royal connections, although it is worth bearing in mind that at this degree of removal the number of ancestors in each generation must be counted in four or five figures.

The Randolph side is more promising in terms of medieval lines of ancestry. The Randolphs themselves have been traced to only the sixteenth century , so far as the author is aware. There are two lines, however, from Mary Isham (3) wife of William Randolph of Turkey Island, and one from Dorothy Lane (5) wife of William Randolph I. The Ishams themselves can be traced to the thirteenth century , to Henry de Isham ( 17), with more certainty than the Jeffersons, and appear to be of the same class origin as the Branches. Two of their wives, Anne Borlase (6) and Elena Vere (9) represent two different lines which meet in a common ancestor but are of unequal length, so that their common ancestor, and his ancestors, have two generational numbers, the higher one counting by the Borlase line, the lower one by the Vere line. The common ancestor is Eudo la louche ( 18-15), son of Alan la louche (19-16) Baron louche of Ash by de la louche, Constable of the Tower of London in the 13th century .The Borlase line is almost all female, so that the names change frequently, and the husbands and fathers-in-law are almost all knights, with a few lords at (15) and above. The Vere line is also knightly, containing three Greenes (two Sir Henry's and Sir Thomas) between Vere and la louche. From this point ( 19-16) on, the line we shall be following (one of a number of possible lines going back to Charlemagne (35-32) and beyond) is composed entirely of earls, counts, princes, and kings (and their daughters in some instances) except for Alan la louche's mother-in-law, Helen (20-17) daughter of Alan, Lord of Galloway (21-18) who signed the Magna Caita. The line follows the one in Burke's Presidential Families, Appendix C-3, which is the "Vere" line mentioned above, up to this point. Burke's however, mistakenly continues Helen's ancestry to King David I of Scotland through her mother, who was actually not Margaret but Alan's first wife, whose name is not known. Our line continues through Helen's husband, Roger de Quincy, Earl of Winchester and companio'1 of King Richard on the Third Crusade. Roger's mother was the daughter of Robert de Beaumont (22-19), Earl of Leicester (d. 1190), whose grandfather Robert, the first Earl of Leicester (24-21), married Isabel, granddaughter of King Henry I of France (26-23) and of Herbert IV, count of Vermandois (26-23), who was descended from Charlemagne (35-32) and King Henry I of Germany (31-28) as was pointed out earlier in this article.

In the other Randolph line, from Dorothy Lane (5), the first notable ancestor is Catherine de Neville (10) who married the grandson of Edward Brook, Lord Cobham (12) and was hereself the great-great-granddaughter of King Edward III (14) through Ralph de Neville (12), Earl of Westmoreland. She was also the great-granddaughter of Thomas de Mowbray (13) Duke of Norfolk (1366-1399) who was himself a great-great-grandson of King Edward I (17) and a descendant of William de Mowbray (19), who signed the Magna Carta along with Alan of Galloway (21-18) and served with Roger de Quincy (20-17) on the Third Crusade.