Yorkshire Beaumonts Y-DNA Project

 I have recently had my DNA tested. My "haplogroup" (don't ask me what that means) is R-M269, the same as Gary L Beaumont, the organiser of this project. Wikipedia tells me this group is very common in Western Europe.

Gary's West Yorkshire Beaumont surname project is about male lines, father to son only.

Gary can trace his family tree back father to son to a John Beaumont in Almondbury in the seventeenth century.

Our father to son family tree goes back to Humphrey Beaumont in Flockton in the sixteenth century, with reason to suppose that Humphrey's family came from Netherton in Almondbury (see previous).

So it would be no surprise if Gary and I had a male ancestor in common older than the c17. 

Whether our father to son ancestry would go all the way back to the "First Yorkshire Beaumont" - William, who I wrote about on this blog in June 2020, is something else, but I'll set out our possible father-son line below. 

The years in brackets refer to the individual's place in an alphanumeric index system which I use.

Flockton. Looking west (Google)

Humphrey B (1535) of Flockton died in 1568.

Humphrey was a younger son. It is likely that his father was John Beaumont (1510), of Netherton.

It is likely that John was son of Lawrence (1483).

Lawrence was son of another John (1443).

John was son of Roger (1408), who is found in references of the late 1300s and early 1400s.

Roger was a younger son of Henry de Beaumont (1375) (of Crosland, and maybe also of Whitley), whose dates were c.1335-c.1400, important in the sense there is lots of documentary evidence about him.

Henry was a younger son of a John de Beaumont (1335), who is sometimes called Sir John. Again there are numerous references. About "Sir John" I recall the phrase "criminal knight!"

John was son of Sir Robert (1310) d.1330, of Crosland, who figures in the old story (legend) about the "Eland Feud." But I don't think Sir Robert died in the supposed circumstances of that story.

The site of the old Crosland Hall (I think) (Google)

Above here there is quite a lot of documentary evidence if not actual proof. The generations seem a bit long but it is what I have to go on.

Sir Robert (1310) was son of William de Beaumont (1280) who appears from about 1280 and is thought to have died about 1323. Beyond here there is no real proof of father-son relationships but there are several references to men called William de Beaumont back to about 1200 (the "first Yorkshire Beaumont"). Of these, it seems fair to suppose that the later ones must be heirs or successors of the earlier ones rather than entirely new people coming in.

Since there are numerous references, in the documents I have seen, to generations comprising several brothers, it seems really more likely than not that more male descent lines existed. 

But there are unlikely to be any surviving documentary records to show these. 

In my "First Yorkshire Beaumont" article I speculated a little about the background of that William of c.1200, and I will try to develop that further some time. I think it might be suggested that he may have been a younger son, landless in his own family, but from a family known to Roger Constable of Chester because of earlier feudal or landlord/tenant type relationships in other places. I think it may be possible to take that back another hundred years or so but with little or no documentary evidence of father to son relationships.

EMB 3 October 2020