GENEALOGY ~ letter from William Stotesbury Leeson questioning Gleason/Leeson relationship

This letter is what precipitated the DNA test we Gleason Footprints took with Will and his brother establishing our connection to the Leeson family line. It is also before I learned independently that our Thomas Gleason, b.1607, was Thomas Leeson when he and his family landed in Watertown/Cambridge, Massachusetts but changed his name to Gleason sometime after 1637.

Email Notes from Will-Mum

8-25-99
I was fascinated to read your message on Aunt Jane Leeson/Pargiter/Leeson spinster.  I would really appreciate getting any further information you might have on her and her Partiger marriage, and why/how the dumping?  She had Partiger children, because that's the Washington connection.

8-29-99 (1)
 (By the way, do you have the Stuart Syndactylism?  Does it show up anywhere in your line?  In our line, it shows up and is the index and middle fingers of the left hand being normal, but the ring and pinky fingers are sort of fused.

About Mistress Jane:  What we were looking for is her birth date or age at death.  We have the information in a "safe place", but we're not quite sure where!  If she were the typical Leeson-born woman, she'd live to a very ripe old age, as opposed to the Leeson men, who seem to die at or before the age of 72.

8-29-99 (2)
Our Leeson information comes from the College of Heralds, in a confirmation dated 9 August 1699, by Piers Mauduit, Windsor Herald of Arms, relating to the Leesons of Whitfield and Sulgrave in the County of Northampton, of which we hold the original.  This traces the family from Thomas Stottesbury of Sulgrave, through Susannah's marriage to Robert Leeson, through their son
Thomas, who married Jane, daughter of a Mr. Lowe of Derbyshire;  their son, Thomas of Norton near Twycrosse, Leicester, married Margaret, daughter of Thomas Kirton.  This is the connection that gives us Oliver Cromwell.  The family then continues down in direct male elder son line, through Thomas's elder son William, through 13 generations to me.

I should add at this point, that all of these people were based in England, and my father, being English, never considered a colonial connection except for cousin George Washington.  The family has lived in the same part of England since the time of William the Conqueror circa 1066.  My father did his research in England before he moved to Canada in 1958, and married a distant cousin there in 1960.  They continued their research in England between 1961 and 1969, at which time they returned to Canada to settle down.

Al, you said in one of your postings that Robert was an outlander, and the Stotesburys held Sulgrave.  This is only partially true.  The Leesons are the Leesons of Whitfield (and now of Sulgrave after that marriage) and had lived in Whitfield for generations.  Now, the Leesons did not "lose" Sulgrave Manor.  The Colonial Dames (or their curator at Sulgrave) don't let the truth interfere with a good story. When one goes there, the curator stands up and swears that Laurence Washington built the manor.  We usually said, "Oh, really?  Then why, in the munimant room upstairs, is there the bill of sale from Thomas Leeson to his "cousin" Laurence Washington?"  After
a few such visits, whenever a family member signs the guestbook, (s)he is taken out of the group and given a private tour.  They are usually very chuffed by this attention, but don't know why.  I'm sure it's so the curator doesn't face the prospect of another embarrassing disclosure/question.

Moving on, one of you asked how your Puritan (G)Lee/asons had the credientials to move to Massachusetts.  In our line, a William (who was four generations removed from Robert and Susannah (not including the latter)) is labelled "Ironside".  Most of the family was Royalist. Remember Margaret Kirton?  Her niece by marriage was a Cromwell, first cousin of Oliver (of
blessèd memory);  therefore, this William was a first cousin twice removed to Oliver.  William stayed in England, but these family connections might have been credientials enough for your Thomas?

In a way, I do sort of feel badly about questioning your background, as I don't have a definitive answer to your claim.  We did have a look in the "Bible" (Burke's General Armoury), and there was no mention of Gleason or Gleeson, which meant that they did not have a coat of arms. (And, to correct Al, having a coat of arms was not indicitive of "royalty".  The proper phrasing to describe such people is armigerous. These people were basically gentlefolk, who ranked between yeomen and knights, and whose families bore coats of arms which were monitored and controlled by the College of Arms.)  However, I should add that the "Bible" did mention the family of "Glysson",
with no county designation.

I have thought about it somewhat over the past few days, and I have come up with some possible scenarios as to why the Leesons and Gleasons have been, for apparently the past 400 or so years, intermixed.
     (1) ? Thomas Leeson and Mary Kirton had a third son, unbeknownst to us, by the name of Thomas?
     (2) ? A Thomas Leeson in a collatoral branch of the family lived in roughly the same time period as your Thomas?  (Although, the chances of such a person marrying a second woman by the          name of Margaret Kirton is highly improbable, at best.)
     (3) ? J. Henry Lea, who did his research some 100 years ago, had either made an honest mistake, or was grasping at straws, or perhaps was not as scrupulous as his fellow researchers?
     (4) ? Relating to the above point, perhaps some Elizabethan script (which is very elaborate and convoluted compared to contemporary English writing) was misread or misinterpreted?  or
     (5) People back then wrote names as they heard them.  So perhaps, somewhere along the line, Leeson was mistakenly written as Gleason.  Your husband-and-wife letter-writing team seem to confirm this?
     (6) The name Gleason might have originated with a glee man (a singing man--a choruster/dispossessed monk) from the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII.
     (7) We don't have a Thomas unaccounted for, and none of them went to America.  Could your Thomas be descended from Simon the Barber (as mentioned in Jane's (1649) will?  This would still give him descent from Robert and Susannah.

Speaking of Mistress Jane, we know she died an old lady.  Would you know how old?  (My mother moved recently, and her genealogical papers are in a "safe place".)

Finally (I again apologize for the king-sized length of this), regarding the D. N. A. tests you propose.  I would be all in favour of such a test.  My question about it is what sort of samples would be used (hair, nail parings)?  (Who said witchcraft was dead? :-) )  I do have a
reservation--how would my contribution be sent to you, as I live in Canada. I do have an older brother, who might be able to contribute.

If you're still reading at this point, then I must thank you for indulging me.  I hope that this answers at least some of your questions, and invite you to respond, please, if you have any more questions.  (Or even if not.)

9-5-99
First off, we were unable to access the Sulgrave download that you put up on the web-site.  Is there a special trick needed to download it, out of curiousity?

Second is the wills.  Margaret/Mum was wondering if you had a copy of Thomas Leeson Snr's and Mistress Jane's wills?  She still can't find hers, which are currently lost in the debris that comes with moving.

In regards to the proposed D.N.A. testing, we here would be all for it.  My elder brother and sister would be willing to contribute a sample for this cause, as would I (and Mum if necessary, although, with her being born a Howard, its usefulness would be doubtful.  Her distant cousinship with my
father is through the Woods of Sligo, not through the Leesons).

And, just to clear something up...my mother here is the resident historian of this branch of the family.  Although I am into genealogy myself, I tend to concentrate on my mother's side of the family, because our Leesons, so far as I know, are proven.  (We still don't have an extra Thomas :-) )

Anyhow, it is I who am the typist here, since I am quick with the keyboard, and am fairly computer literate and Internet-friendly.  Mum's just learning it, but for now, she is the one who is basically dictating to me, while I type.  Just so that there's no misunderstanding or confusion.