Sir William VIII Horton, Baron Horton of Mowsley and Gumley 1575–1637

Sir William VIII Horton, Baron Horton of Mowsley and Gumley

1575–1637

Birth 1575 • Saddington, Leicestershire, England

Death 14 FEB 1637 • Gumley, Leicestershire, England

 Ancestry does a new feature (well, in the last 5 years new) of making a story out of the facts they provide. Thus follows this...

When Sir William VIII Horton, Baron Horton of Mowsley and Gumley was born in 1575 in Saddington, Leicestershire, England, his father, Sir Thomas Horton, was 50 and his mother, Lady Anna Louisa Kingsbury Horton, was 50. He married Mary Isabella Freeman Horton on August 29, 1597. They had ten children in 22 years. He died on February 14, 1637, in Gumley, Leicestershire, England, at the age of 62, and was buried in Gnosall, Staffordshire, England.

Well,  I don't want to spend all my time discussing the difficulties with Ancestry.com...however, there are some questions that come to mind.  Namely his mother only having one child at age 50.  Not possible folks!

Now speaking of that birth, Ancestry not only provides the most obvious one located in Saddington, but there's a baptism at Areley Kings, Worcestershire, Eng, three years earlier, 8 Feb 1572.  That would have been possibly easier on his mother!

Wait, there's also a baptism at Boughton-Aluph, Kent, England, on 20 Apr 1576.

Each of these birth/baptism dates give his father as Thomas Horton.

I just keep plowing on with the records that are given me.  There's very little to substantiate them at these older dates.  Except when someone was knighted perhaps there were some records written, and then passed along.  All the ones I can find have his amazing mother giving birth at age 50.

Dates of his children's births are just as amazing...first daughter born when he as 15.  Then he had a son, and eventually married their mother when he was 22.  But wait, he has 4 more children and then another marriage to their mother when he's 32.  Did I mention his wife, was 8 when that first child was born.  Oh well...

Suffice it to say, these records are a jumble.  Where are the facts, I wonder.  I just hope that these people's lives in reality were much more solid than the pieces of paper which recorded such a confusing mess.

Ancestry does provide some demanding needs in keeping the records as straight as I can...like merging the duplicated people in each generation.  It seems when someone like Sir William VIII (what on earth does that VIII mean anyway?) had different birth dates, there are 3 of them listed as children of the same name on that tree.

How am I related to the Hortons?  Sir William VIII Horton's son, Thomas Horton 1596-1687 sailed off to America, married a woman who had been born there, and they had a daughter, Mary Horton who married Job Tyler.  This line of New Englanders married into the Swasey family, and eventually they married a Rogers, and that is my family.

Sir William VIII Horton was my 11th great-grandfather.

Today's Quote:

One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, "What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?"

Rachel Carson