Add Your Ancestral Stories

Many of us have heard that we are related to the Dukes of Norfolk, or descended from Royalty. This is a place to relate any information you have on those stories.

Oliver Otis Howard

As a boy in S.E. Kentucky my high school princpal told me and my brothers that we were descended from English royalty. The princpal was from the same area that we were born in. He died in 1961 and all his family have moved away from that area. Much later on [ about 50 years ] I got the fever to pursue my family history and while doing so I came across a local history written by a local scholar on the history of Bell County,Ky. In it he stated that civil war General Oliver O. Howard had come there in 1901 as a missionary to establish churches and schools. Gen. Howard was from Leeds, Mass. While in Ky. he stated he was kin to the upper Straight Creek Howard's and that we were of English gender. I have since done a lot of research on Gen. Howard and he has become my hero. There is much on the internet on him. Abraham Lincoln respected him greatly. I have not lived in Ky. since 1956.

Edward, John & Joseph/Josiah Howard

I recently found a note someone had given me saying our Howards arrived from England between 1728 - 1740. One of the stories circulating was that they came with the Kennedys and the Hendersons, and indeed there were early Kennedys and Hendersons in some of the lines. Another story was that the ancestor was Henry Howard who had married a woman who was considered beneath him and he came to the Colonies because his family would not accept her as his wife. Others say it was a John and he married Francis Denson, a Welch woman. The note only gave the above date and went on to say that our ancestors were great-grandsons of the 6th Duke of Norfolk.

Research showed that Henry Howard, 6th Duke of Norfolk, was a son of Henry Frederick Howard and brother to the 5th Duke of Norfolk,Thomas Howard. Both were grandsons of Thomas Howard and Alatheia Talbot, The Earl and Countess of Arundel. Henry took a mistress after the death of his first wife, Lady Anne Somerset, and later married her. His second wife, Jane Bickerton was an actress, daughter of a Scotch gentleman, Robert Bickerton. Many thought the Duke had married beneath himself, including the children of his first wife. Henry's youngest son (by Jane) was Frederick Howard, who maried Catherine/Katherine/Elizabeth Blake Kennedy, widow of Sir Robert Kennedy, son of Sir Robert Kennedy of County Wicklow, Ireland and his wife, Frances Howard d/o Ralph Howard, Viscount Wicklow. Elizabeth Blake and Robert Kennedy had one child, Elizabeth Kennedy, who married Sir William Dudley.

Lord Frederick Howard died in 1727 and his father-in-law, Blake of Ford Castle, Northumberland, County left a will in which it is said he left a piece of property to whichever son of Dame Susan Dalston or Lady Frederick Howard took the name of Blake. What was interesting, was the article mentioned "sons" of Lady Frederick but did not mention names, she died c 22 Jan 1733. I have been unable to find further information on this family.

I believe Frederick Howard or his sons should have been next in line for the dukedom, however the next Duke was from the line of a brother of Henry's...I think, I need to do more research.