Detailed Proof of Paternal Ancestry of Thomas Dudley

by H. Allen Curtis, a overview and proof of the paternaty of Thomas
Dudley's father, Roger Dudley.

Nathaniel Taylor...

This is an interesting document. At best it restates some of the very
careful and well-stated work of Marshall Kirk presented and circulated
in the early 1990s but never published--the work which underlay the
inclusion of this line in Faris and Richardson's compilations.

Some things in Marshall's work which are missing here include his much
more detailed exploration of the known agnate descendancy of the
baronial Sutton-Dudleys (using much better sources than Dean Dudley's
work); as well as a more conservative approach to the relevance of the
differenced arms used by Dudley; and the confusing identities of the two
contemporary Capt. Sir Henry Dudleys, who BOTH happened to be second
surviving sons of their respective fathers, whom Marshall reviewed as
candidates for Gov. Thomas' grandfather.

As for taking the approval of the NEHGS Committee on Heraldry as prima
facie evidence for the genealogical validity of Gov. Dudley's use of
arms, I would be rather more cautious.

joseph cook...

I completely agree with this, but thought it was a good statement of
the overall evidence. Another article on the same page by the same
author lists out the previous theories and their flaws. (and gives
larger credit to Marshall Kirk)

Be that as it may, I remain convinced that Marshall's hypothesis (the
same one as reflected here) is probably correct, but it lacks proof.

Nat Taylor

a genealogist's sketchbook:

my children's 17th-century American immigrant ancestors:
http://home.earthlink.net/~nathanieltaylor/leaves/immigrantsa.htm

Todd A. Farmerie...

This argument is based on a classic process of elimination, but as in
all such cases it depends on the assumptions which underlie it, and in
this case, these are flawed.

1. It is taken on faith that a crescent on a shield is indicative of
descent from a second son at one and only one point in the pedigree.
This is an oversimplicifation of the practice of differencing.
Ultimately the operating principle of systematized heraldry is that each
individual has distinctive arms. Thus the second sons of successive
generations would not have the same difference. Further, the heraldic
representative of a predicessor may have used his exact arms even if he
was not the first son, or first son of first. If the senior line died
without issue, the senior surviving line would adopt the arms as senior
representatives, and appear as if they were first sons. (However, in
one of the cases, a third son is examined, since the second died without
issue, the argument being that as the second son with issue, he would
have had the crescent, yet this has not been my experience - a
differenced arms was a differenced arms, and a third son would be
unlikely to 'trade-up' one differenced arms for another.) Thus the
situation is more complex than this analysis attempts to portray.

2. The NEHGS Heraldry Committee was primarily interested in whether the
immigrant adopted arms in America, or carried some armingerious
tradition with him from England. The arms used by Dudley were clearly
brought with him, but the use of arms in England need not imply legal
right to them - just look at the number of disallowed arms in the
English Visitations, of about the same time. Further, that he had the
right to some Sutton-Dudley arms and that he had the right to the
specific version with the crescent that arrived on his seal are
different prospects. I have heard of at least two examples where a
non-entitled descendant used the arms of an ancestor without further
difference, either using their progenitor's seal itself (rather than
having a fresh one cut) or using the older arms as model for new arms,
copying exactly where a difference would have been appropriate.

While a systematized analysis of the Sutton-Dudley is certainly helpful
in identifying possibilities, I think these conclusions are reading too
much into one arc on a seal.