DNA Testing and its effect on Cotgrove history.

To read more about the theory of DNA testing for Family History read the MacGregor Web Site. ( http://www.clangregor.org/macgregor/dna.html ). Richard MacGregor is married to a Cotgrove.

You will note that the Macgregor Clan recommends the FamilyTreeDNA. method with 25 Marker points (See first page under “Testing”). This $169(= £90). Sorry about the error in mentioning the cheaper and less accurate 12 marker version mentioned in my E-mail.

More details on http://www.familytreedna.com/ which is that company’s general web site.

Bill Cotgreave of New York who has cooperated with his English cousin, Peter Cotgreave, has set up a Project with FamilyTreeDNA of Texas to carry out these tests at an advantageous cost. Peter is known to me and has a study of the Cheshire Cotgreave/Cotgrave going back to 1200 which has taken 15 years. If you click here you will see the Cotgrove Project Home Page :-

http://www.familytreedna.com/surname_join.asp?code=P81225&special=True .

Select the 25 Marker version. Bill has a separate Home Page at :- http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=bilcot.

History of a possible connection.

Today the world population of people with the surname COTGROVE [NOT COTGRAVE nor COTGREAVE} is about 350 and everyone can be said to be a descendant of Benjamin Cotgrove from Leigh on Sea, Essex. Benjamin is traditionally said to have come from Holland or most likely from that area which today includes much of Belgium as well as Holland. His arrival in Essex is first noted in about 1688 when King James II requested a legal commission to find the ownership of mud flats and marshlands in south east Essex. It reported that in Hadleigh Creek one such piece of land was in the possession of Benjamin Cotgrave (it later changed to Cotgrove) and Henry Fisher and had been so for the previous five years. Benjamin also had a son baptised on 22^nd February 1687 who died a few days later. Although some 20 years before there had been Cotgreave family further upstream at Ilford there is no trace of any connection between the two families. The Ilford Cotgreaves had four children for whom no marriage nor death can be found and the last reference was in 1664. It is assumed that all died in infancy. So if the Dutch connection is true can it be proven ? Todate the proven pedigree starts at 1687 but there is a another theory which although logical is as yet totally without proof and it is this connection that the current DNA Project sets out to prove.

The Cheshire Connection – taken from published pedegrees in the “Cheshire Sheaf” and not from more modern research by Peter Cotgreave.

In about 1250 a certain Hugh Buran, son of the Lord of the Manor and land owner, from the village of Cotgrave in Nottinghamshire, moved to Cheshire to marry a noble widow who had good connections with the Earl of Chester who had been Hugh's overlord in his home village. The widow was a descendant of the Le Belward family and can be be traced back with some uncertainty to Hugh Lupas, nephew of William the Conqueror, whose illegitimate son Robert FitzHugh was the first Norman Baron of Malpas, Cheshire, and who was alive in 1090. As the result of this marriage, Hugh, now known as Hugh de Cotgrave became the founder of a family holding the Lordships of three Manors in Cheshire and bearers of Coats of Arms. Among well known members of the family was Hugh Cotgrave, Rouge Croix Pursuivant and later Richmond Herald who died in 1584. He was noted for producing false pedigrees. Another was Randle who wrote a dictionary and died 1634. Many years later, in the mid 19th Century, the Cotgrave family was a victim of a genealogical fraud perpetrated by the family of the widow of Sir John Cotgreave (1770 - 1836). Thus the pedigree recorded in the first edition of Burke's Commoners is completely false. By 1600 some members of the family were strong Protestants and one at least may have left England to join fellow like thinkers in Holland. By 1680 the mood in England was changing, while on the other hand the French had invaded Holland and were persecuting non Catholics. A return to England was called for. So did a descendant of this Cheshire family return to England after about 90 years in exile, still bearing his English surname and still speaking English, to settle on the north shore of the Thames ? Modern research shows that one member of the family was in fact overseas and there was a also Benjamin born in Warrington about 1655 of whom nothing else is known. Was he the Benjamin of Leigh ? It is this theory that we seek to prove.

Therefore why not sign up to the Project and help take the Cotgrove Tree back several hundred years.

Bill Cotgreave tells me (24^th Feb. 04 ) that he already has 6 volunteers from among the Cotgreaves/Cotgraves,

Before signing up please contact me with the name of your parents on the E-mail address at the top of the Home Page. I can thus check that you made a true male line back to Benjamin. N.H.H.

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