I suggest you read the material below first, then visit the sites listed below.

The Genealogies compared

The AAP Version of the Four Presidents's lineages, with one asserted lineage of Lady Di / Winston Churchill's bunch springing from that genealogy.
 

What is the Relationship of Churchill /Princess Diana, Spencer Presidents, Spencer Immigrants?
The Spencer presidents - overview
The Spencer Immigrants - overview
Princess Di / Churchill - overview
What do these genealogies have in common?
How do these genealogies conflict?
Miscellaneous Notes
Links
 

The Spencer Sibling Immigrants and Princess Diana and Winston Churchill?
The Spencer Sibling Immigrants and the Spencer Presidents?
The Spencer Sibling Immigrants of Mass and the Virginia Spencers?

The answers seem obscure... different sources sometimes show conflicting, or at least confusing, data.

This web page is an exploration of three different assertions of Spencer medieval genealogy. Can they co-exist? Are they genealogies of different, never intertwining connections? We may not know the answers to the above questions before we're done, but possibly a set of questions for "where do we go from here?"

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Gary Boyd Roberts is a genealogist who has specialized in running down the various works of other genealogists, comparing them, and placing the results of their works in different forums, to wit: Ancestors of American Presidents, Notable Kin, and the RD500 (Royal Descents of 500 immigrants to the American Colonies). In the publication entitled Ancestors of American Presidents, 1995, (AAP) he presents a table of how four presidents are descended from a common ancestral couple: Henry and Isabella (Lincoln) Spencer, showing that Henry Spencer died in 1477/78 in Badby, Northants.

Jack Taif and Edith Woolley Spencer have been specializing in Spencer genealogy for over 40 years. They have recently completed "The Spencers of the Great Migration", (SOTGM), 1977. In that book, they show one chart summarizing nine different theories of Spencer descent to the Spencer immigrant siblings of Massachusetts and Connecticut and show, in 70 pages of discussion, their theory on their recommended line of descent.

Their focus was entirely on the Spencer immigrants and no mention of made of the "bigger picture" embracing the four presidents, Princess Di, and Winston Churchill. However, their chart tops out with... Henry and Isobel (Lincoln) Spencer of Bagby, Northants. The suggestion that this Henry and Isobel is the same Henry and Isabella shown at the "top" of the AAP chart seems appropriate. They suggest the children of Henry and Isobel were born beginning about 1376, meaning, age 18 at first birth, that Henry and Isobel were born no later than 1358, 120 years before 1478, the indicated date of death of Henry Spencer from AAP.

However, nowhere in their final chart do they make reference to any wife of an ancestor of the Spencer brothers having the surname Empson, thus making it somewhat difficult to develop a correlation with other charts, as they have Robert, John, and William in virtually every generation.

Much attention has been focused in recent years on the Althorp Spencers, the line from which Princess Diana is descended. I have looked at several on the web and for purposes of this comparison have settled on a lineage I have listed on the related lineage page.

It shows, at the top, William Spencer, who married Elizabeth Empson, sister of Sir Richard Empson, who was executed in 1510. It appears this is same William Spencer that is included by Roberts in the Ancestors of American Presidents as a son of Henry and Isabella (Lincoln) Spencer and ancestor of Franklin Delano Roosevelt through immigrant John Nelson of Massachusetts (1654-1734) and the other three presidents.

The AAP and SOTGM have Henry and Isabella (Lincoln) Spencer at the top.

The AAP genealogy shows the FDR, aslo indicated ancestor of Diana, as a son of Henry Spencer, but I have not seen a Diana genealogy yet that makes that claim. (ie the ones I've seen all seem to stop short of Henry).

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There don't seem to be too many marriages or people to challenge for comparison between the AAP and SOTGM genealogies. Henry and Isabella at the top. Both show sons John, William and Thomas. But SOTGM doesn't indicate if William and John are the William and John who married the Empson sisters.

This is important, because we know the date of death of their brother, Sir Richard Empson, who was executed in 1510. Judging that he could have been no younger than 40, nor older than 70 when he died, he should have been born 1440-1470. If his sisters, and their husbands, were his contemporaries, that places the SOTGM chart 60-90 years earlier than the AAP chart. The SOTGM chart has these boys born starting in 1376.

There is also one difference in placement of couples. AAP has a couple: Sir John Spencer and Isabel Graunt as Henry > William > John / Isabel Graunt. SOTGM has this couple as Henry > Thomas > Robert > Robert >

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Miscellaneous Notes

It would appear that the immediate ancestors of the Spencer immigrants were of the "working class". The Spencer ancestors of Princess Diana and Winston Churchill were of the gentry class. This situation, even from folks from the same ancestor, can be attributed to the focus among the gentry to award the oldest son with the land and titles. An apparent exception of some kind is seen to exist with the brothers who are the progenitors of the four presidents and Princess Diana, as all the brothers seem to have had some influence. But, it seems fairly clear that Diana and Winston come from a string of the oldest son of the oldest son of the oldest son. Whereas the Spencer brothers most likely came from a string of the youngest son of the youngest son. There were exceptions to these rules occasionally, but by and large that was the way of life.

Related Links:

The Ancestors of Harold Wheeler Bradley page, as well as Daniel's Ancestral Lineage Page show a Spencer between Henry and Isabella and the AAP ancestor brothers of the four presidents. This couple is John and _____ (Warsted) Spencer. Then, the dates of the Spencer progenitors of the four presidents and Princess Diana about match AAP's timeframe. Interestingly, Daniel's Ancestral Lineage has Sir Richard Empson with a daughter, Ann Empson, AND a sister, Ann Empson, who BOTH married John Spencers....?? Unfortunately, both of these presenations are tfel types and don't show the downstream connections very well.

The Althorp Page has a very detailed history of the Althorp Spencers.

This "Cousins" page has a John and ____ (Warsted) Spencer as father of William, the Spencer who married Elizabeth Empson, in a chart to Princess Diana, but on a connecting page (See link at bottom of this Spencer chart), showing the ancestry of the Spencer siblings, says the father of the William Spencer who married Elizabeth Empson was Henry Spencer.... Seems like this page is contradicting itself.

For information about going back even further, beyond Henry Spencer to the DeSpencers, see this article about the fraudulent link of Spencer to DeSpencer, causing the Spencers to be allowed a coat of arms fraudulently.

The Sam Casey Page has a register report that, at first blush, reports the Spencers of the Great Migration medieval Spencer line.

The Stephen Lawson page shows the Spencer English line.
 
A Discussion of the English Origins of the Spencers
 
Return to the Spencer Index at this Site.

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