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Why do I have a photo of a castle from England?
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Read
the edited article below from the Sibille family news letter to see what
it is.
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| What About Our Burleigh Ancestors? | |
| Well,
folks, this is a very interesting tale our cousin brings to us! It seems
that Norma searched for many years, well before the advent of the Internet
and the World Wide Web. She did not have much difficulty with information
in America. (As you have already heard from us, the first Burleighs over
were Robert and Sarah Burleigh who arrived in the Colony of North
Carolina, from England, in the mid 18th Century. They had two sons, one of
which was Robert who took a Spanish land grant in Grand Coteau, married
twice and in his 60's became father to our ancestor, Penelope) We had
received that information some time ago from another Burleigh descendent.
Norma is the source for all that information, but she was stumped, as we
have been, in trying to find Robert's and Sarah's roots in England. Then
came the power of the Internet!! Norma discovered, via the www, a rather
prominent title in history, Lord Burghley. On a lark she and her nephew,
Kevin Burleigh, began to poke around with that name, sending letters and
e-mail messages to many folks in England and she hit the jackpot! Many
respondents began to lead her, not to a Burleigh family, but to the Cecil
family, some of whom live today in the Burghley House!! Well, enough
mistery. Let us cut to the chase. With help from the Cecils of Burghley
House, Norma has learned that our Robert was the son of Brownlow Cecil,
8th Earl of Exeter, 9th Lord of Burghley and Hanna Sophia Chambers. Robert
had an older brother, named Brownlow, and a twin named Thomas. Robert, of
course, came to the Colonies. It is believed that Thomas also came but
proof cannot be found. The older brother remained in England where he
became 9th Earl of Exeter and 10th Lord of Burghley. It is my
understanding his descendents occupy the Burghley House today. So, What's
With The Name Change? It seems that a certain special young woman by the
name of Sarah Allerdge caught the fancy of our Robert. They were married
at St. Thomas a Becket Church in Portsmouth, England on February 28, 1745.
Sarah must have been very special, indeed. Robert was willing to give up
his heritage for her because something about her made a marriage very
unfavorable to the Cecil family. In marrying her Robert was disowned by
the Cecil family and probably disinherited as well. That is when he and
his new bride picked up their stakes and moved to the New World--and, God
Bless Them, aren't we glad they did! Either Robert could not take the
surname Cecil with him, or, more likely, he wanted to make a new beginning
in America so had a name change. In doing so, however, he did not make a
clean or complete break with the family traditions for he chose the title
of a prominent ancestor as his surname. He chose Burleigh, a slightly
different spelling from the title of William Cecil, Lord Burghley.
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| Want to study a little history? | |
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William
Cecil is an apt subject. You will find much about him in the British
history books. He became the right hand man of Queen Elizabeth I in her
struggle for power and provided England with its basis for economic
superiority in that century. There are history texts which feature him
but he is also prominent in texts on Elizabeth I and on 16th Century
England.
What
Was So Special About Sarah? We can speculate here because we do
not
yet know the answer. But, rest assured, we will be searching for it.
Here are a couple of thoughts:
1)
Perhaps she was a commoner! [The Cecils were of the noble class] or
2)
Perhaps it was because Sarah was Catholic [she was and when they arrived
in North
Carolina
Robert was registered as Catholic as well.] Let us hasten to admit,
however, we do not yet know the religion of Brownlow Cecil, nor, if they
were Anglican, do
we
know if they objected to Catholics in the family. We do know that many
nobles of the
time
were quite anti-Catholic. It has to do with English history.
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The photo below is the Burghley House in England. |
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Click here to visit Burgley House website.
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