Adriana Alids de Weden Pratt Rogers

She married a religious and educated man. She was Belgium...whatever the correct term for citizens of Belgium may be. Adriana Alids de Weyden Pratt married Rev. John Rogers in 1537 in Antwerp Belgium.  She was 25 and he was 29, according to my records...where there also is an English marriage dated in 1527 as well. Yes, he was British, or English. They have 2 words to describe their citizenship, while Belgiums just call themselves Belgiums.

Rev. John Rogers (1507-1555) was among those educated clergymen who worked on publishing editions of the Bible in English, or German...or any other languages besides Latin which had been the only available editions prior to their work. Rogers used the name Thomas Matthew as his nom de plume for his work to translate the Latin Bible into English for the first time. However, his work was finished just at the time that Queen Mary came into power, and she used her Catholic faith to go against the new church of England that her father, Henry VIII had instituted. So Rev. John Rogers appeared at the wrong time and preached to Queen Mary and she jailed him, then had him burned at the stake, because he was not willing to recant his "Protestant" views. And yes, the Reformation was also happening then.

Back to his wife, Adriana went with Rev. John Rogers while he studied in Germany, and their family grew by many children. By the time he appeared again in England they had had 13 children. Two had died while young. So when Rev. John was burned at the stake, his wife and 11 children observed the event.

I'm interested at this point in Adriana's parentage. She had been born in 1511. We only know of one sister, Anna, who was born in 1505, and lived until 1536.

Their father was Micheydon van der Weyden (1473-1567) who lived his whole life in Antwerp Belgium,  I don't know what he did there. I've just changed my Ancestry tree to remove the English knight as his father. So I don't know who his father really was.

Bruges Belgium

Adriana's mother was Joan van Meteren (1490-1567) with Antwerp Belgium for her birth and death records. And her parents were from the Netherlands. 

Her father was Cornelius Jonkher Van Meteran (1474-1519) born and died in Deil-Tielerwaard-Betuwe, Geldermalsen, Gelderland, Netherlands. Her mother was Cornelia Sparenburg van Meteran (B. abt. 1470 - 1519) born in Deil, Geldermalsen, Gelderland, Netherlands, and died in Antwerp, Belgium. They were my great times 14 grandparents, and I know no further back on that tree branch.

Friesland landscape in the Netherlands

The new (older) ancestors in the Rogers history

Thomas Matthew Fitz Rogers (11 Jul 1565 - 20 Feb 1611) was the son of Bernard Fitz Rogers (1543-1609), who was the son of Rev. John Rogers the Martyr.

Thomas Matthew had been named after the nom de plume of Rev. John when he translated the Bible into English. 

Thomas' mother, wife of Bernard, was Agnes Carter Rogers, (1544 - 20 Feb.1583)

But also we now know the parents of Agnes. Her father was Thomas Carter (1520 - 24 June 1584) and her mother was Cicily Isobel Grove Carter (1524 - 14 Feb 1593)

I just found these ancestors, so have a whole bunch of hints to follow...some of which may change the information that I already have...none for Thomas Carter, but 14 hints for Cicily.

And most of them were that various church records told of the children of Thomas and Cicily...so I added a few brothers and sisters besides Agnes.  

Cicily Isobel Grove Carter's parents were Robert Groves II (1498-1580) and Lady Joane Baskerville (1500-1545) These 13 times great grandparents are the furthest back in her side of the family.

But now I have 11 hints for her husband, Where did they come from anyway? A few minutes ago there weren't any for his name. Perhaps these will be just the parentage of those children from the church records...let's see..

Well, the3 new Ancestry trees all combine Thomas with a William...and give records of William Thomas Carter...with the same birth and death dates. But hey folks, there are written legible church records from the time of his actual life, where he is cited as Thomas Carter, not William Thomas Carter. Therefore, bah humbug on William!

Thomas  Carter (1520 - 24 June 1584) married Cicilye Grove on 2 Feb 1572 according to at least 3 different sources. That's fine, but look at their ages in 1572. If they had been born in 1520 and 1524, Cicilye was past childbearing age. So there's still a bit of a crunch going on here. and I'm going to consider these were the parents of Agnes Carter (born in 1544) still. If Thomas was her father, someone else was her mother. Or perhaps the marriage didn't occur until Cicilye was 48 years old. Still a bit iffy.

Now if Thomas was really William...and that marriage to Cicilye was his brother Thomas...or he had these other 2 marriages earlier...see how much wiggle room ancestry has? Not good at all!

So I'm going to just accept that Cicilye Grove and Thomas Carter had Agnes as their daughter in 1544, but didn't get married until 1572.  I can't go any further, because the records all suggest the next generation of Carters are parents of the newly minted William Thomas Carter.

Thomas and Cicilye Carter are my 12 times great grandparents. I'll accept that!

11 children of Rev. John Rogers the Martyr

Next on my list is Philip Rogers (1547 (Wittenberg Ger.) - 1628 Scotland)  He apparently married Joan or Jane Stafford in 1591. We have no record of their children. So he quite probably was a real man...and shall remain on the list.

I did just notice on another tree the description (but not the actual text unfortunately) of Fox's record of John the Martyr, with a list of the children alive at the time of his death. So the two who predeceased him wouldn't be part of the 11 count, I'm guessing. Nothing like another piece of evidence that perhaps is somewhere out there.

Starting from my list, the next child born would have been Augustine Rogers, (1550 London - 1628 London. Though he does sound very plausible for a son of Rev. John he has no evidence on other trees, nor a definite date of death. One other tree states he died 21 Apr 1618 at St. Mary Aldermary, London. There was no marriage nor children. But I can update my entry on Ancestry with the new date and place of death for him.

Elizabeth Rogers (1549 Dorset Eng - 14 April 1634 London Eng) married James Procter in 1575. She is not the Elizabeth Rogers who married Thomas Eyre...as that Elizabeth was daughter of John Rogers, Esq, Our Rev. John was never described that way. If she was known as daughter of Rev. John Rogers, it's certain they would have said "the Martyr."

The above excerpt shows description of John Rogers, Esq., of Poole, and his daughter Elizabeth (not on my tree)

Rev. John's daughter, Elizabeth Rogers' husband, James Procter is listed with some variable dates of birth from 1549-1556. Their marriage did take place in 1575. He has been described as the Chancellor of Salisbury. He died between 1581 and 1642. That's quite a wide range. 

And Elizabeth Rogers Procter has other dates for her life, being born in 1553 rather than 1549, and dying on 24 Dec. 1612. It's no wonder that it's difficult to keep track. The other Elizabeth Rogers who married Thomas Eyre does appear in my tree after the Eyres came to America. Small world!

My next listed child was Richard Rogers (29 June 1551- 21 April 1618) He was born in Chelmsford, Essex, Eng, and died in Wethersfield, Essex, Eng. 

There were 3 other trees for Richard Rogers, but the parents were wrong...mother being Agnes Carter, or father being Richard, or John married to Agnes Carter. That's too bad because that Richard was a Rev. and even has a portrait painting of himself, as well as 2 wives and a dozen or more children. I'm back to square one as they say.

I'm not even sure this Richard Rogers is the son of Rev. John and Adryan...nor died in Wethersfield, which is where the noteworthy Rev. Richard Rogers, son of Richard (not Rev. John) died. I'm pretty sure our Richard didn't have all those children, nor a wife named Barbara Rogers!

So I have a Richard, not the Rev. Rogers without much detail as to his life, because I'm pretty sure all the dates I do have belong to the Rev.

Did Rev. John and Adryan have a son also named Richard? I'll leave him on the tree for now, but it would have been nice to have details about his life.

Hester Rogers is the last child on my list. Born in 1555 in London, she supposedly died there also in 1659. That's a bit longer than a century. So folks, let's change some of those numbers so she is more believable! And there was an almost clearly written page of clergy listing the deaths and baptisms in 1697, where a son named Solomon was buried, son of Henry and Hester Ball. Also I found another Ancestry tree (Rogers and Bakers) which gave Hester's date of death at a more believable 24 June 1626. So that's the preferred date on my tree now.

Of all 13 children, 2 had died before their father. So that would let these 11 be alive at the time of his death in 1555. I've finished this task. Of course in a year, or a month, something new may come to light which will change everything. This may be history, but there's a sense of piecing it together like an archaeologists dig. As you've already noticed, the dates belonging to many of these children changed.

Digging into the lives of the Rogers children

Continuing to look at information on Rev. John Rogers, The Martyr's family.

Our Sixth child of Rev. John was Samuel (1541-1545) who apparently died at 4 years of age, before his father returned to England from Wittenberg, Germany

So he might not have been counted as one of the 11 children.

Next comes Ray Barnaby Rogers (1543-1564) born in Wittenberg, Germany and died in Scotland. I must say right away that Ray was not a name of those times, so whoever put it on this ancestor didn't think very well. So first I'm making my tree just say Barnaby Rogers.

Barnaby may have lived further than the record I started with, till 1627, dying in Boxted Hertfordshire, Eng. If that was his date of death, he may have married Mary Wells in 1578, 1583 or 1610. They may have had children named Thomas John, Sarah and Barnaby II. 

That's all the information that I've been able to substantiate at this point for Barnaby Rogers. But an interesting footnote which talks of Mary Wells being married to Barnaby Rogers was found in an 1996  publication..."New England, The Great Migration and The Great Migration Begins,1620-1635, Vol. 3" Look under Edward Howe...

So I'll add this daughter Anne Rogers who will marry John Stone of Sudbury.

More confusing information

I read one biography which describes Daniel Rogers, (1540-1590) as the son of Rev. John Rogers, who fled England when Queen Mary came to power. This Daniel clearly wasn't the son of the Rev. John Rogers the Martyr...burned at the stake by the same Queen.

Which one was he?

Here's the questioning biography. He lives the same life, marries the same woman, but just had a different Rev. John as his father. This is known as Chalmer's Biographical index. It is noted that he confronts another biographer as being the source of evidence that shows the mistake...namely Strype, in his Life of Whitgift had made the error (as shown in the second and third screen shots below)

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...

However, many other biographies do connect Daniel to Rev. John the Martyr.

This above, gives the same history, with the Martyr as his father, in "The Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. 17."

The following is from "Families Directly Descended from All Royal Families in Europe (495-1932)

and Mayflower Descendants"

The next page continues with John and Adryan Pratt Rogers' children (as already shown previously)

And further down the page is a discussion of the Rogers coat of arms, as well as additional  descendants...

So Daniel may or may not have been son of the Martyr. Let's look at the rest of the listed children...

Now let's go to the fifth child listed, Thomas Rogers. Again, there is cross-over information with similar dates and marriages to a brother's. And he isn't even listed among the names of John and Adriana's children. So I'm taking him out of the tree for now.

Six: Bernard is definitely of interest, because my line flows from him.

In The History and Genealogy of the Mayflower Planters and First Comers to ye old Colony, Vol 1. under the Rogers we see...

It's interesting that the history of the Martyr's family is by Chester, where the oldest I've found was by Fox...just something to keep checking.

Bernard was born in 1543 in Wittenberg, Saxony, He married in 1564 to Agnes Carter. who had been born in 1544 near the English/Scottish border. They had a son, named after the grandfather's "nom de plume" used while translating the Bible into English, Thomas Matthew (Fitz) Rogers. The Fitz in the Rogers name supposedly came from Scottish connections, but we don't see any in reality. Bernard died on 20 Feb, 1609 in Stratford on Avon, Warwickshire, England. His wife Agnes died in 1644 in Northhamptonshire near the English/Scottish border. Their son Tomas Matthew Rogers had been born 11 July 1565 in Stratford on Avon, Warwickshire, Eng. and he died in the same place on 20 Feb. 1611. 

It was Thomas Matthew Rogers' son with his same name who was a member on the Mayflower. He is not in my lineage, however, but his brother, John Fitz Rogers (born 1609 or 1611) who immigrated to Virginia, and is thus my ancestor.

But let's not forget the rest of Rev. John the Martyr's children. If there's anything else I can find about them, I'm actually getting close to having only 11 on my tree.

Next post...

Oops, maybe I've got the wrong relatives here...

Rev. John Rogers, the Martyr. (1507-1555) was burned at the stake by Queen Mary, the Catholic.  He is noted as the first that she had burned. He also is known for having translated the Bible into English for the first time, under a pseudonym of Thomas Matthew. 

He had 11 children, and the last one was born while he was in prison, according to an early biography by Fox (probably the first one.) Another biography lists the 11 children by name.

But on my current (soon to need a revision I think) Ancestry chart, I've got these 13 children of John and Adrian Pratt Rogers:

Susanna or Susan Rogers Short (1527-1565)

Daniel Rogers, Esq. (1538-1590)

Sir John Randolph Rogers , Baronet, "Proctor of Civil War" (1538-1639) (Warning, this is not a lifetime that people would have at that time!! But see my research below.)

Ambrose Rogers, (1540-1591)

Thomas  Rogers (1540-1561)

Samuel Rogers (1541-1547)

Ray Barnaby Rogers (1543-1564)

Bernard Fitz Rogers (1543-1609)

Marye Rogers (1544-1553)

Phillip Rogers (1547-1564)

Augustine Rogers (1550-1628)

Richard Rogers (1551-1618)

Elizabeth Rogers (1553-1634)

You may notice first that none of these children were born in 1555, at the time their father had been incarcerated by Queen Mary. But wait...he was put in prison in 1553/4. All dates are within the 2 years that are represented by the use of the new year occurring in March at that time. So it's possible that Elizabeth was born while he was in prison.

Secondly I note that Samuel and Marye died before 1553/4 and certainly before Rev. John was burned at the stake.

So my list needs to delete two people completely. And then I need to figure out how to add possibly

Augustine and Hester. This is where it becomes very difficult.

So I now will spend the rest of the day looking at what details Ancestry does have about each of these (perhaps) ancestors. If I find more strange dates, I will change my listings. 

One: Susanna/Susan Rogers Short of Belgium is listed on 3 different trees as marrying Mr. Ayers...but he was clearly married to Susan Rogers, daughter of John Rogers an attorney. Surely they wouldn't have confused her father with a martyr. She probably married a Mr. John Short. Nothing more gives me information about her. I'm not even willing to change the dates that are on my tree, to those of Susan Rogers Ayers (1539-1630).

Two: Daniel Rogers, Esq. has a lot of information listed about him, and his descendants. There's no doubt that he was as he is described. He married a German woman, Susan Yetsweirt, and they had only two children in England...the last born after he had died and even named "Posthumia." Though there is a wonderful document of his will available, I am unable to read the writing of 1580.

Three: Sir John Rogers, Baronet "Procter of Civil Law" has exact dates of birth (21 Nov 1538) and death (18 Oct 1601)...a much more believable lifetime than I had originally.  His wife, Lady Mary Leete (1541-1579) is confirmed as daughter of William Leete, and they had five children, including Thomas Rogers who was to go to America on the Mayflower. (Actually I've seen the Mayflower Thomas listed as an ancestor in another Rogers family.) But I'll give Sir. John his place in the Martyr's family...even if Thomas his son may not have been the adventurer on the Mayflower. I am also changing the date of his death to the 3 July 1601 on my tree.

Four: Ambrose Rogers (1540-1591) comes up on two other trees as being married to Mary Leete also. And his dates include complete birth (21 Nov 1538) and death (3 July 1601). Notice the same birth and death dates as Sir John? Not only the same birth and death, but the same wife! But those two trees have more children and no Thomas.  So I'm a bit hesitant about Ambrose, and think that Sir. John has more verification on his information, except for maybe Thomas of the Mayflower.

Five: I've worked through about 8-10 references on each of these 4 ancestors...and am trying to find out more about the 5th mentioned child, Thomas Rogers...but my head and eyes are going bonkers. Time out for me...I've done 3 solid hours today. So this is where I'll start again next time.