Friday, June 3, 2011

There and Back Again: The Tale of Two Bridgets

I have returned! After a long final semester my wonderful internship is over, along with my days of college. And, since there are no jobs for me at the moment, I will return to the blogosphere.

Back in March, (that is so sad...) I wrote about the Hungerfords and mentioned two women named Bridget. The first was Bridget Shelley, who married Anthony. The second was Bridget Fettiplace who married John.

Bridget Shelley was the daughter of John Shelley and Mary.
Now, Geni.com is clearly trying to drive me insane. Last time I checked, Bridget would have been a great grandmother of some sort. now they're telling me she is my 12th great aunt's 3rd great aunt. I don't know. Shes related to me some how so I'll continue on.

John's parents: Sir William Shelley (another sir! woo!) and Alice Belknap. I love the name Alice. Random side-note hah...

Mary's parents (This is where I'm going to have fun): Sir William Fitzwilliam and Maud Mildred Sackville.

Now, if you don't get it from my username greenbibliophile, I love books. So here comes my inner nerd. Fitzwilliam makes me think of Mr. Darcy from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Yes yes, I know. The character is Fitzwilliam Darcy and Fitzwilliam is not used as a surname. Let me have my fun ok? Also, Jane Austen will come into play later.

Next literary reference: Sackville. If you notice in the title* I used There and Back Again, a Tolkien novel better known as The Hobbit. Now I haven't read that in a while but in the follow up Lord of the Rings Trilogy there is mention of the Sackville-Baggins family. Which, in my little world, I connect myself to those little fictional hobbits by the name of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. And if you don't think I've lost it, just wait. Later I'll pretend to connect myself to Bellatrix Lestrange from Harry Potter. But that is for another time.

Nerdy-ness out of the way, lets move on to Bridget Fettiplace (who's hubby eventually leads to the le Strange family)

She was the daughter of John Fettiplace and Dorothy Danvers.
Dorothy's parents: Sir John Danvers and Ann Stradling.
-Sir John's parents: Richard Danvers and Elizabeth Langston
-Ann's parents: John Stradling and Alice Langford.

John's parents: Richard Fettiplace and Elizabeth Bessiles

Mind you most of these people were born in the 1400s. And it keeps going back.

Next time I'll discuss the line to the le Strange family and the connection to one of my favorite authors. Ta ta for now!

*As far as I know there is no link to Dickens, but I felt like using a reference to A Tale of Two Cities.