| From: | Deborah Sweet |
| To: | Bonnie Bunce |
| Subject: | De Courtenay Line |
| Date: | Mon, 15 Sep 2003 |
While perusing the tree you have on the royal ancestry of the Loomis family, done by David Martin, I noticed an error which you might want to correct.
Renaud De Courtenay [185], b. ca. 1125, father of Reginald De Courtenay by an unknown first wife is not the son of Ermengarde de Nevers & Milo de Courtenay of France, according to Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots of Certain/Sixty American Colonists... (1992) Weis has this to say about this mistaken connection on p. 121, line 138, #23 for Ermengarde De Nevers: m. Milo (or Miles) De Courtenay. [They did have a son Renaud, but apparently this is not the same Renaud as the one in England.] Weis says:
(See line 107-24 for their son Renaud de Courtenay, who in Ezra Cleveland's A Genealogical History of the Noble and Illustrious Family of Courtenay, (1735), pp. 114-115, is identified as Reginald de Courtenay." (Weis's ref. #24, line 138, [our Reginald whom I mentioned above]. Weis continues— "The story is told that the great possessions in France of Renaud de Courtenay (a man of high social rank and described in personal terms as in effect a glorified bandit) were seized about 1150 by King Louis VII who granted them to his own younger brother, Pierre [de Courtenay] (ancestor of the French Courtenays), with Renaud's daughter Elizabeth, in marriage, and that Renaud then appeared in England as a minor functionary to the English Court with a small manor and another family. LINE BREAKS HERE. Although Old-CP III 102 states that the alleged connection between the English and French families has not been established, CP IV 317 INEXPLICABLY revived the connection. Herbert F. Seversmith, The Ancestry of Roger Ludlow pp. 2419-2424, in addition to demonstrating the LACK of contemporary EVIDENCE, points out the chronological, personal character, and social status difficulties with this identification."
This line was actually corrected in Weis by David Faris. Renaud De Courtenay is my 28th Great Grand, for your reference. Just thought you'd like to know. Thanks for taking the time to check this out.