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I figure I'd post this here, because we all love an ancestry mystery, and because I've found nothing so far. (My ancestor was not a nobleman, but worked for one.)
My 3rd Great Grandfather, James Stewart, was born in Glasgow, Scotland about 1832. Somehow he ended up in Ireland and married by 3rd great grandmother Ann Barrett of Roscommon Ireland. They had 4 sons, then James died very young, in Galway, Ireland (not sure if that's the county or the city) in 1861 or 1862. Ann promised James on his deathbed that she would get their 4 boys to America, and she later succeeded in doing that. They were all raised in southern NJ and had pretty good lives, and Ann died in Burlington NJ at age 91 (still lived alone but had gone totally blind)
Anyway, I've found cousins online and we all got different bits of family lore about Ann and James. Several of us heard that James was a Scottish Presbyterian and Ann an Irish Catholic, and they were disowned by one or both of their families when they married. One line heard that James and Ann had to relocate to England because they had to get away from both families, but we find no evidence of them going to England. Two of the cousins heard from older relatives that James had been a secretary to a nobleman, and that's what he had been doing in Ireland. One cousin has an old family tree written by a long deceased grandmother that says this nobleman was a "Lord Bancroft."
However, I can find no reference to a "Lord Bancroft" in Ireland or in the UK. So it's possible it might have a been a lesser noble--maybe a "Sir Bancroft," or some name similar to "Bancroft." Or, Bancroft or something similar to it could have been the name of the estate and not the family (people often got that wrong).
I started with this list of names and searched around to no avail:
All we know for sure if that Ann and James lived somewhere between Galway and Roscommon counties between 1850-1860, and that James was a Scot who was working for some prominent wealthy man with a name or estate called Bancroft of something similar. There were some baronets named Burke in Galway, but that's not likely to get corrupted to "Bancroft."
Since James was a Scot and a Protestant, I wonder if this nobleman he worked for was not Irish aristocracy, but one of the Anglo-Irish. I still find no Bancrofts, but I did not dig too deeply into the Anglo-Irish aristocrats yet.
The Irish records on Ancestry (at least in my searches) are not helpful at all. I can find Ann's birth, but none of her sons', nor can I find her marriage to James or James' death. We know his approximate date of death from handed-down family trees on multiple lines in the family, and we know James died in Galway because it was in Ann's obituary, which her sons contributed to. We're all just very intrigued by this info that James was a secretary or steward for "Lord Bancroft" and how at the time, this was a frowned-upon marriage, probably to both sides, but he was still employed by this prominent person.
James was not wealthy, but they were also not starving like many in Ireland at the time. Ann evidently had enough money to get herself and the boys to the US at the end of the Civil War.
I wonder if any of you Irish history buffs might have any idea who this prominent man might have been. thanks!
I found references to a small dwelling or tower known as Bancroft castle in Tallaght. This was long before the 1860s, but might help to piece things together.
These 2 books reference it and are in Google books. A History of the County Dublin and The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland
Hmm, thanks. I just poked around a bit and found that most of this Bancroft family were in Cheshire England. One Bancroft woman moved to Ireland in the 20th century.
Your Lord Bancroft may have been a courtesy title. He may be descended from this one:
Quote:
It is told that the first Protestant Archbishop of Ireland - Lord Bancroft - took the stones from this Church and had them carried some distance down the road to build a castle for himself. The ruins of this castle are still to be seen at the right hand side of the road, at the entrance to the village from the City end and the farm on which they stand is still called "Bancroft".
However, I can find no reference to a "Lord Bancroft" in Ireland or in the UK. So it's possible it might have a been a lesser noble--maybe a "Sir Bancroft," or some name similar to "Bancroft." Or, Bancroft or something similar to it could have been the name of the estate and not the family (people often got that wrong).
I started with this list of names and searched around to no avail:
All we know for sure if that Ann and James lived somewhere between Galway and Roscommon counties between 1850-1860, and that James was a Scot who was working for some prominent wealthy man with a name or estate called Bancroft of something similar. There were some baronets named Burke in Galway, but that's not likely to get corrupted to "Bancroft."
Since James was a Scot and a Protestant, I wonder if this nobleman he worked for was not Irish aristocracy, but one of the Anglo-Irish. I still find no Bancrofts, but I did not dig too deeply into the Anglo-Irish aristocrats yet.
Honestly my gut reactions to everything you said are two fold:
1) Approach the story of serving a nobleman with extreme skepticism. This sounds like a variety of stories that are often proven wrong, or at least the kernel of truth was drastically different. Family trees and stories are not legitimate evidence of anything, though they are leads.
2) If there is some truth to it maybe the name was wrong, though if so I'd suggest he probably wasn't a noble man then, both things might have been added or exaggerated over time. Maybe he served a wealth land owner, or some sort of business man, etc.
I don't mean any offense by this, but I've found the majority of stories in both my own genealogy and other genealogy to be mostly wrong, often with some kernel of truth but when backed by facts it's hard to determine that truth without the facts.
Many genealogies (again my own and others I've followed) refer to made up noble names, people, etc that upon research don't exist.
Of course it may be true, but I'd be very skeptical.
My own granny from Northern Ireland worked in a very big house in Fermanah, she herself was poor but it was still good to know where she worked in sevice when she was a young girl..so it is important to try and find this name Bancroft.. Ill keep looking...Ive even found the house my granda lived in and worked as a land servant.. while his mother or grandmother, was the housekeeper in a large house in Ballagh Clogher...it belonged to an important man in that area called Trimble...he wasnt married but the same age as this woman I think could have been my great grandmother.. and wonder if she was his partner.. Ive looked up about him I cant find details of this lady who had the same surname and she was 59 when he was 19 so not sure if gran or mother..Its not to find out if we came from some great Royal person.. ..I wsh you luck with your search .. its so interesting to find the past..
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