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Henry LYON (1623/4 - 1707/8) |
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There is a LYON pedigree circulating that is, in my opinion, totally bogus. Please do not accept or circulate this pedigree without first reading my discussion of the reasons I believe it to be false. |
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| Family
Group Sheet of Henry LYON & Elizabeth BATEMAN
Annotated Bibliography of General Sources for LYON Genealogy |
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The scope of this web site will be limited to:
My motivation in creating this site stems from the fact that there is so much unsupported secondary information in circulation about the genealogy of Henry LYON and his supposed siblings, yet very little in the way of published documentation. It is my intention to supply here as much documented evidence as I can gather to support — or in some cases disprove — the "legends" surrounding this family. And if it sounds arrogant of me to propose that I be the one to embark on such a task, especially considering that the genealogy of this family has been actively researched for at least a century, it is only that I am able to begin where earlier workers left off and that I have a computer, a large personal library, and all the other modern resources at my disposal, along with the research skills of a graduate level education. I would never have had the fortitude and dedication required to have done genealogy "the old-fashioned way," so gratitude and a commendation for the efforts of past workers is certainly due. On the other hand, I do wish some of them had held themselves to a more rigorous standard of scholarship because once an error — or "tall tale" — is in print, it never dies. |
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| Please note that the following discussions are preliminary and are
based on what sources I could find on the web (as of this writing, in 1998)
and in my (extensive) collection of genealogical books, microfilms, and
CDs. With regard to historical items, I need to borrow/buy books
that are more scholarly and dependable sources, which will take time; I
will update these entries as I do.
I post these preliminary discussions mainly as a cautionary to expose the weaknesses of the currently accepted "legends" in the hopes that others will not continue to blindly accept and promulgate them and that you might want to assist in the search for the truth. Any documentation you wish to share will be posted for the use of all, with your contribution fully credited. I might as well state, upfront, that I believe many of our problems with the genealogy of Henry Lyon stem from the uncritical scholarship and wishful romanticizing of Sidney Elizabeth Lyon in her 1907 Lyon Memorial. And in support of this contention, I quote Sidney, herself:
The great irony is that, if you can trace your ancestry back far enough, we all have interesting, illustrious ancestors — along with a few black sheep. And more often than not, the truth turns out to be far more interesting than the fiction. |
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| To quote the tearful young woman whom General Yevgraf had asked if
she didn't
want to believe she was the lost daughter of Dr. Zhivago:
"Yes, of course I do... but not if it isn't true." |
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Quoting further the words of Albert Brown Lyon, in this case from the
Preface of Lyon Memorial I: Massachusetts Families (1905):
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| The first legend to be examined is the one naming Glen Lyon, Perthshire, Scotland, as the birthplace of Henry and his supposed siblings. It is absolutely critical to know whether this assertion is true because if it isn't, we are looking in the wrong place for their parents. And, to begin with, as far as I can tell, there is not one piece of documentation to support any birthplace for Henry, Richard, or Thomas LYON, nor is their any evidence to document that they were, in fact, brothers. We simply do not know where they were born. Nor do we know, for a fact, that they were brothers or even that they were related. | ||
| The three "brothers" are said by some sources to be of the line of
LYONs that was ancestral to the Queen Mother of Britain, Elizabeth
Angela Marguerite BOWES-LYON. It is not surprising that her LYON
ancestry is well documented and well known. However, as the parents
of the three "brothers" are unknown, it is premature to suggest a link
to the Queen Mum's LYON line.
Based on reliable sources, I have so far been able to trace the ancestry of the Queen Mum only as far as Sir John LYON (-1382) of Glamis, Forfarshire, the husband of Lady Jean STUART (c1350-), granddaughter of Robert "The Bruce," King of Scotland. There are other sources, of unknown reliability, tracing this line as far back as Ingelram DE LIONS / DE LIOUNS, said to have come to England with William the Conqueror in 1066, an unproven claim. It's amazing how tenacious is the desire to have ancestors who arrived with the Conqueror and how many have made the claim with no foundation. For an authoritative list of "companions of the Conqueror," please see this page. |
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| It is usually claimed that the three "brothers" immigrated from the Old World to Connecticut in 1648 or 1649. This assertion is almost certainly untrue. These dates are not from ships' passenger lists; these are dates of first appearance of their names in the records of New Haven Colony. We simply do not know when they made the crossing, where they arrived, or where they came from. And there is nothing to establish that they came together. | ||
| In 1662, the King made the New Haven Colony part of the more liberal
Connecticut Colony, much against the will of the New Haven colonists.
In response, many ardent Puritans began making plans to leave Connecticut.
In 1667, a contingent of families from Milford, CT, including Henry LYON and his family, arrived at and founded a town on the Passaic River in the Province of New Jersey, which town they named New Milford. The name was shortly changed to New Ark (now Newark). Henry LYON was founder and first Treasurer of the city of Newark, NJ. This part of the legend is true and documented. |
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| It is interesting to note that there is evidence of a Richard
LYON in Cambridge, MA, as early as 1640. He assisted Henry DUNSTER,
President of Harvard College, in his editing of a second, 1647 edition
of a translation of the psalms commonly referred to as the "Bay Psalm
Book," the first book printed in North America (1640, Cambridge).
Given the classical education required to edit a translation of the psalms,
we can surmise that this Richard was not only of a social class that would
allow for such an education, but that he was most likely a generation older
than the three "brothers," which means he could have been their father
or uncle. However, no connection has been proven.
The close association between Henry DUNSTER and John WINTHROP, Governor of Massachusetts, suggests that this Richard LYON might be somehow related to Thomas LYON, who married a granddaughter of Gov. WINTHROP, which means they had to have been moving in the same social circles. On the other hand, this Richard LYON is said to have returned to England, so he may have no genealogical connection to any American LYON. |
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| If Henry LYON and his "brothers" were in Massachusetts Colony before 1640, then they came to America as teenagers, most likely in the company of their parents. If we want to find their parents, we should begin by looking in Massachusetts, not Britain. | ||
| With regard to the legend that the three "brothers" were soldiers in
Cromwell's army and witnessed the execution of Charles I outside Whitehall
Palace, London, on 30 Jan 1648/9...
There is no way to prove this legend. Official government records were kept only of officers; there are no lists of common soldiers. Short of the existence of a first-hand written account of the event written by one of the "brothers" (e.g., in a letter or diary) — which record no one has ever even suggested exists — there is nothing to substantiate the tale. The fact that Richard LYON left a backsword* in his will has been taken to mean he had seen military service, but it is not proof of when or where, or even if, he served. He may have inherited the sword from his father or some other relative or may simply have purchased it. They were, after all, living in the wilderness surrounded by Indians; it would have been prudent to have weapons. However, there are ways to disprove the legend... If the record that Henry LYON received three acres of land in 1639 in Milford, CT, is correct, then Henry had left England at least ten years before the execution. Martha WINTHROP came to New England as an infant with her widowed mother ca. 1630; therefore, Thomas LYON had to have married Martha WINTHROP in America. If the record showing their second child to have been born in Aug 1649 is correct, then they had to have been married no later than Jan 1648, which means Thomas, too, had left England before the execution.
*My Webster's unabridged gives these applicable definitions for "backsword": 1. a sword with one sharp edge; broadsword. 2. in England, a stick with a basket handle used in fencing... Webster defines "broadsword" as: a sword with a broad blade and a cutting edge. Richard's sword has been called a "rapier" by some, but Webster's definition
of rapier shows it not to be equivalent to a backsword:
If Richard's sword was a fencing weapon, then it is more indicative that he was a gentleman than that he was a soldier. I'm inclined to think "backsword" was meant in the sense of "broadsword," not "rapier," but unless that sword was passed down in the family and someone still has it, we'll never know. |
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In the trivia department, Barbara
(PIERCE) BUSH, wife of President George Herbert Walker BUSH, is a descendant
of Henry LYON, on this line:
Henry LYON & Elizabeth BATEMAN |
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| Everything I have is online at this web site; I have no further information. If you feel I've made an error, please don't hesitate to contact me. |
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