Genealogy

History & Genealogy
Genealogy

A Personal History

For many years, close friends and family have given me the nickname "Princess." Thanks to my love of all things historical, I have delved deeply into my family’s genealogy and discovered that they may not have been too far off! In all seriousness, however, there is a school of thought that the Van Orden side of my family is descended from an illegitimate son of King Louis XI of France. If true, that would make me the great-granddaughter (X14) of "The Spider King" of France.

My parents have always been an unending source of information about our family genealogy and have encouraged me to build on our existing data. Starting with some substantial leads, I have conducted further research and, aside from being a greatly diluted (I said diluted, not deluded) descendant of a bastard son of an ancient French king, I am able to claim some very interesting ancestors, including:

Spartlingus, 1st Dean of Whalley (England) -
He lived sometime around the 10th or 11th century, and is, so far, the earliest ancestor I've definitively identified. This is the very beginning of the Townley (also spelled Towneley) branch of my genealogy. The family seat of the Townley family, Towneley Hall, still stands in Burnley, Lancashire, England, now a park and museum, and I hope to visit it soon.
Several hundred years later, in the 17th century, Colonel Richard Townley, descendant of Spartlingus, emigrated from his home of Towneley in England to Elizabethtown, in the Colony of New Jersey.
His son, Charles Townley, born in 1686, had a son with the unfortunate name of Effingham, who was the ancestor of Helen Parrot, the mother of Charles Van Orden, my paternal grandfather; and a daughter, Mary Townley, who was the ancestor of Helen Aller, the mother of Catherine Hill, my paternal grandmother, who's maiden name I carry as my middle name. Therefore, both my paternal grandparents were descendants of the Townley family!
And, this particular grandfather, Charles Van Orden, was also the descendant of the French king, Louis XI, and his mistress, Catherine d'Mailly. This illegitimate child of the king was made Baron d'Conty, and his descendants maintained the d'Mailly name until...
Seigneur Pierre d'Mailly, a French Huguenot, was driven out of France due to his unpopular religious beliefs, escaping to Holland, where he changed his name to Mabille.
Two generations later, in the early 1600s, Pieter Casparzen Mabille, sailed from Amsterdam, Holland, to New Amsterdam in the Colony of New York, where he also changed his name, this time to Van Naarden - meaning, "from Naarden" (his hometown in Holland).
Within another two generations, the name further evolved - first with his son, who changed it to Van Norden, then with his grandson, who became William Van Orden, my first ancestor to go by the surname I carry today.
Through the various lines of my paternal lineage, I can claim some fabulous and interesting ancestors, including a feisty early American settler named Richard "Bull" Smith, who was one of the founders of Smithtown, Long Island; one Mr. Thomas Makepeace, another early American pioneer who, apparently caused as much commotion as he did peace; and two (pious, we presume) female ancestors named Temperence.

All of this and I have hardly begun to tackle my mother's side of the family! Actually, I still have a tremendous amount still to discover on all sides, as we know very little about the Hill's on my father's side, and the natural family of my maternal grandmother, who was adopted. One thing is for certain, learning about one's genealogy is a never ending and always changing process.

The Towneley's of Towneley