John Masters - John Masters and Adelaide de la Thoreza

I would be interested in knowing of any Spanish DNA has shown up for their descendants. It is under question the whole story of Adelaide as written by Reverend /James Cameron in "A Chequered Career" and her early life. Research has been undertaken and none of the claims of her life in Spain can be substantiated at all.. Her name is not in fact Spanish and what is true is that she was a servant in London that was sent down to the colonies for stealing sheets. Lucy Frost and Susan Ballyn have extensively researched her history and none of it is substantiated. Whether Adelaide reinvented herself once here in the colonies and with the help of James Cameron is not clear. She apparently maintains in the book, her knowledge of English was taught at an exclusive Spanish Convent when hl er father a prominent nobleman was in political danger as a minister. None of this can be verified. IN fact the other language taught at that time would have been French...Her father was supposedly assassinated and her mother died soon after and she was taken in by a prominent English widow by the name of TOuts Trotter.. Again the story around this has not been substantiated. .

My take is she was English, a servant and a thief...She may have had acquaintance with a Spaniard or he was her father living in England as a merchant, a seaman or such.... THe one event that is substantiated is her trial in London for stealing sheets and being sent to the colonies in 1829...