Philip Harington Lloyd Brereton

The records from PHLB consist of two notebooks and some loose papers which he left on his son John Brereton ( (1917-1996). These notebooks are presently held by Nona. I have a photocopy made for me by Rosemary. •The Green Note Book contains 180 numbered pages. Pages 1 to 117 contain details of families numbered from 1 to 466. For each family the ancestors are given in reverse order with Philip's mother and father labeled generation 1. his grandparents labeled generation 2, and so on as far as generation 20. He started with a logical sequence for family numbering. Family 1 is the male Brereton descent of his father Joseph Lloyd Brereton from Sir Ralph Brereton (living 1275). Family two was his mother's descent (again the male line) from William Martin (Mayor of Evesham). However in this case there are only 8 generations recorded, before his knowledge of the line ended. Having dealt with his parents male lines, he next addressed his two grandmothers. Family 3 was that of Frances Wilson his paternal grandmother., which only goes back 5 generations. Family 5 was Jane Champernowne whose paternal grandfather was actually a Harington and changed the family name from Harington to that of his wife Champernowne. This line thus continues back with Harrington and is carried all the way to 20 generations. Families 5 to 8 those of his great grandmothers, and 9 to 16 of his great great grandmothers. The Maitlands (7), the Bullers(8) and the Champenownes(12) are all shown back to 20 generations. The important conclusion I have drawn is that this green notebook was not the first written list that he had prepared. He must have been working from other notes or more likely an earlier notebook plus notes which he combined to start the green book. These earlier notes must have been completely transferred to the green book which is why the early notes were not retained. I do not have pages 118 to 135. They are presumably blank. Page 136 is blank. Page 137 is headed ADDENDA. and contains "5. Lloyd (contd) see page 3" followed by generation 12 to 20, thus completing the extension of this line back to Cadwar of Dinawelof Gilach & Castle Howel. There follow various extensions of other families at first in family order ie 22, 30, 42a, 44, 46, 47, 49a, 50, 57, 57a, 61a, 67, 80, 86a, 87b, 90, 90a, 91, 98a, 109a, 111, 111a, 125a, 127a, 148, 175, 160(out of order), 173, 196a, 227. the order now seriously breaks down with 70, 77 92, 113, 118, 116a, 127b, 259a, 164a, 208a, 271a, 170a, 216a, and so on for a further 8 pages to page 167. I interpret this sequence as follows. Where the families are initially in order Granfa was either transcribing a set pile of notes on separate families, or he was methodically researching exhaustively each family in order before writing down the data. I tend to think that the former was more likely, and this is confirmed when we study the contents of the Blue Book. Eventually however when the order breaks down he enters the families directly in the Green Book as soon as he has complete data on them. The last pages of the Green Book 176 to 180 contain what must be examples of his working notes. Page 180 is a list of dates of the Kings and Queens of England - probably used as a reference. •The Blue Note Book is headed Book II,. This contains the extensions which were added as addenda in the Green Book. The family order is here no longer the numerical order but must be the order in which he worked on separate families . The order is 5, 57a, 30, 79, 81, 44, 50, 57, 88, 109, 131, 89, 143, 153, 181, 127a, 189, 163, 46, 90, 67, 90a, 111a, 111, 22, 47, 98a,125a, 91, 127a, 61a. At this point there are 10 more pages of families most of which are not numbered. The last part of the blue book consists of some 18 ancient European families of Nobility. These start with his 14th great grandmother, Jaqueline of Luxemburg which goes back to generation 28. Jaqueline is linked to the Lloyd (family5) and the Courtenay family 34. Several of the other Noble families go back to 33 or even 34 generations. A link to Robert I of France who married the daughter of Hugh, the natural son of Charlemagne (=generation 33), is especially notable, since it is fashionable amongst those wishing to claim famous forbearers to claim descent from Charlemagne, which the Brereton descendants of Francis Martin (and Joseph Lloyd Brereton) can do with some justification! •The final major set of documents are some unbound papers. These seemed to have been prepared after the writing of the green book. The first sheath consists of listings by generation. ie the first generation contains just Joseph Lloyd (family 1) and Frances Martin (family 2)These continue to generation 17 which contains approximately 222 names as shown in the following list where the generation numbers are shown as Roman numerals: ◦I 2 ◦II 4 ◦III 8 ◦IV 16 ◦V 24 ◦VI 29 ◦VII 34 ◦VIII 38 ◦IX 44 ◦X 53 ◦XI 66 ◦XII 93 ◦XIII 118 ◦XIV 146 ◦XV 178 ◦XVI 196 ◦XVII 222

During his lifetime I never knew of Granfa's work. My first sight of the notebooks was around 1985 after I had seen Charles's charts. When on a visit to Little Massingham, Uncle John showed me the notebooks. At that time I did not realise exactly how I could make use of the information contained therein. The numerous details of distant ancestors it seemed to me could only be handled and appreciated if entered into a genealogical computer program. I had at that time just acquired a Sinclair QL computed and had typed in a genealogical program and was using it to enter details from Charles's charts. I can remember saying that I should need to return on a future occasion to enter details from Granfa's notebooks.

A worthwhile project would be to publish the results of this most painstaking research undertaken by Granfa. The first step in such publication could be placing the material on the Web. Here then is that first step, the male Brereton line of the ancestors of Philip. source http://brereton.org.uk/genealogy/