ARNOLD-L Archives

From:
Subject: Re: [ARNOLD] Ancestors & toes
Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 12:26:19 EST

In a message dated 12/24/2002 10:28:57 AM Central Standard Time,
writes:

> If you are talking about the RI Arnolds, I have the Arnold Memorial. All
> of this familiy is in print clear back to 1100. Dorothy

I would like to reply to this by sharing this article by Kory L. Meyerlink,
AG, MLS from the September 19, 2002 issue of Ancestry Daily News. It is
long, so bear with me. Carolyn

"Editor's Note. The 10 September Ancestry Daily News, contained an article
by Karen Frisch regarding a castle in Wales. In it, she referenced a
previously published connection between an ancestor of hers and the
historical residents of Abergavenny Castle. (www
.ancestry.com/library/view/news/articles/6314.asp)

As Cory explains below, that connection turned out to be inaccurate and his
message serves as a reminder to us all of the need to be wary when using
compiled lineages. Thanks much to Kory of sharing this!

For most genealogists, the possibility of royal or noble ancestry is
attractive. After all, if our interest is to trace a family as far back as
possible, royal ancestry allows us to do that better and easier than most of
our lines. Besides, it helps give us a solid connection to history. Hence,
I can understand and share the interests of Karen Frisch in learning "about
ancestors so ancient they exist more in the realm of imagination before
photographs or even surnames". (Ancestry Daily News, 10 September 2002).

Unfortunately, in her comments about our mutual ancestor, William Arnold of
Rhode Island, and his descent from a Twelfth Century Welsh princess, she has
fallen into a trap common to many American genealogists. That trap is ready
acceptance of a long-disproved connection to royalty.

A royal line was apparently first suggested for William Arnold by Horatio G.
Somerby in 1870. It was published in the October 1879 issue of the New
England Historical and Genealogical Register. Unfortunately, Somerby was a
very accommodating genealogist who was remarkable for providing his patrons
what they wanted, even if documents had to be re-written or falsely cited to
provide the links to royal lines. His work is routinely shunned by
experienced genealogists today.

Without passing judgment on the earlier generations of this ancestry, the
alleged lineage eventually descends to a Thomas Arnold, second son of Richard
Arnold. Thomas is named as the father of William, who is what we often call
the "gateway" ancestor, the immigrant who left Great Britain and settled in
the colonies. Here, with the gateway ancestor, is where the lineage breaks
down, as is the case with a large number of so-called royal lines.

The Rhode Island Arnold family kept a remarkable family record (begun by the
immigrant William), which documents William (born 1587), his siblings, and
his mother. It does not document his father. That record identified a
younger half-borther of William as Thomas Arnold (born 1599) whom many early
researchers wrongly believed to be the New England immigrant of that name who
settled first at Watertown, Massachusetts, and 20 years later moved to Rhode
Island.

A 1796 obituary of a descendant of this Thomas Arnold identified the
immigrant Thomas as the son of a "Thomas Arnold, a native of England." Hence
the faulty connection was made (and published as early as 1819) that William
was the son of a Thomas. Armed with this information Somerby found an early
Arnold pedigree, adjusted generations 13 through 16 to fit in Thomas and his
alleged father Richard. He then plugged in the immigrant "brothers" Thomas
and William as sons of this Thomas Sr. and presto, a royal lineage was pasted
onto another worthy American family's lineage.

The problem is, it just was not so! The January 1915 issue of the "New
England Historical and Genealogical Register" has an article by Edson S.
Jones, which explains this all quite clearly. It also shows that the
immigrant Arnolds (Thomas and William) were not brothers, and that neither of
them is connected to the royal line published earlier. It further reports
accurate research in English parish registers regarding the parentage of
William Arnold, immigrant and governor of Rhode Island. In 1902, the author,
Jones had visited Northover parish in Somerset where he found two church
register entries, which matched William Arnold's family record exactly. In a
neighboring parish he found additional records, which matched information
about the Rhode Island immigrant.

Ian 1921, Fred A Arnold elaborated in-depth on these and other findings about
the Arnold origins in the Rhode Island Historical Collections. His 24-page
article explains exactly and clearly that William was the son of Nicholas
Arnold, born about 1550 and who was buried 26 January 1622/23. His
half-brother Thomas married and remained in England, as did all of his
siblings. William is not related to the immigrant Thomas Arnold, and the
ancestry of his father, Nicholas Arnold is unknown. His mother's parents are
known, but no further. There is no known (or even suggested) royal ancestry
for this Arnold family.
This same article was transcribed and included in the 1921 Arnold Memorial by
Elisha S. Arnold and the original 1921 article was reprinted in 1983 in a
collection by Genealogical Publishing Company, Genealogies of Rhode Island
Families from Rhode Island Periodicals.

The true ancestry of William Arnold has been known now for a hundred years.
It has been in print for 87 years, in at least four different publications.
It is time to leave mythical royal ancestries behinds us, not only for the
Arnolds, but for the hundreds of other gateway ancestors who have been
plugged into faulty, sometimes fraudulent, lineages."

You can contact Kory through his company's website at:
<A HREF="www.progenealogists.com">www.progenealogists.com</A>

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