THIRTY GENERATIONS OF QUINCY Willy van Ryckeghem Quincy is a familiar name in England and the US, even the immortal Quincy Jones received his given name after it. Few know that the name originates from what used to be part of Flanders in the Middle Ages. The town Cuinchy is a farming village in the Franco-Flemish Westhoek, seven kms east of Bethune, its nearest neighbor1. Not surprisingly, there were at least two marriages celebrated between the family of Cuinchy and that of Bethune. Also, they share common viking ancestry as suggested by the name of the founding father of the Cuinchy dynasty, who was called Saer. Saer comes from the Old Norse Saer, which means the sea. One of the early bearers of this name was Saer Jokulsson of Kvenland. This paper will be divided in three parts, rst the original generations in Flanders, next the generations in England and nally the generations in the US, with a surprise at the end. fi Cf. my earlier paper Thirty Generations of Bethune, PDF on this site. fi 1 Part I. THE EARLIEST GENERATIONS FROM CUINCHY Generation I. Saer I of Cuinchy was born c. 890 and probably a descendant of vikings who had entered Flanders in 881 via the river Lys. Judging by his name, we speculate his ancestors came from Kvenland in Norway. His mother may have descended from the local Morini tribe. Generation II. Saer II born c. 920 was the son of Saer I. Nothing more is known about him. Generation III. Saer III born c. 950 was the son of Saer II of Cuinchy. Generation IV. Robert I born c. 980 was the son of Saer III of Cuinchy. Generation V. Richard I born c. 1010 at Cuinchy, died c. 1070 in Daventry, Northamptonshire, in central England. This implies that he must have participated in the invasion of England in 10662. Daventry appears in the Domesday Book in the hundred of Gravesend and the county of Northamptonshire. In 1086, it had a recorded population of 34 households. A family branch continued at Cuinchy and surfaced in 1100 with a series of Baldwins, a popular name among nobility because of its association with the counts of Flanders. —————————————————————————————————Baldwin I of Cuinchy Baldwin II “the Fat” of Cuinchy x Marie de Beaumetz Baldwin III “the Red” of Cuinchy x Mahaut de Hamelincourt Roger of Cuinchy x Marie de Lannoy Marie-Marguerite x Jean I de Wavrin de Bethune —————————————————————————————————- Abigail Adams, the wife of President John Adams, wrote that she had seen in the possession of her grandmother, the wife of John Quincy, a parchment genealogy of the Quincy family from the time of William the Conqueror. 2 Generation VI. Richard I married twice and had a son from each wife. His rst wife was Helen Medonal, the mother of Sir Richard II who was the rst to change his name to Quincy. Maybe the Normans called him that way. He married Arabella de Leuchars of Fife from Scotland and they had a son Robert II. Generation VII. Robert II married Matilda Waltheof of Bernicia, also in Scotland, and had three children : Roger, Richard III and Janet. From here on, we distinguish two branches, that of Roger and that of Richard III. We will deal rst with the prestigious branch of Richard III, which would be the rst to become extinguished rst at Generation XII. Branch of Richard III Generation VIII. Sir Richard III married Judith Orabilis and they chose the name of Saer for their only son in honor of the viking founder of the dynasty. He became the rst by that name in the line of the Quincys. Generation IX. Saer I de Quincy married Maud of Senlis, a daughter from the rst marriage of the Scottish Queen Maud of Huntingdon. He was lord of Long Buckby and became a crusader and died in 1158 leaving two daughters and two sons, Robert III and Saer II. Generation X. Sir Robert III married Arabella de Leuchars and received important lordships from his cousin William the Lion who was King of Scots from 1165 to 12143. His brother Saer II married Asceline Peverel and also had a son Saer but who preceded him in death without o spring. Generation XI. With Sir Robert’s son Saer III this line reached its peak. He enjoyed the wealth of his wife Margaret of Beaumont who inherited half of her father’s immense fortune of Leicester in 1207. Saer III also became Earl of Winchester the same year. After joining the other barons in the opposition to King John, he was one of the 25 sureties of the Magna Carta who were appointed to monitor King John’s future conduct. ff fi They both descended from Maud of Huntingdon who married twice. fi fi 3 fi fi fi fi Part II. The QUINCYS of ENGLAND and SCOTLAND Saer III de Quincy as crusader Winchester coat of arms on Magna Carta Saer had earlier served under Richard Lionheart, ghting along him during the successful assault on Acre in July 1191. In the spring of 1219 he also joined the Fifth Crusade to Egypt, where he fell ill to disease in November after the crusaders entered the heavily infected town of Damietta, and died soon afterwards at the age of 64.4 The town had been under siege since May and the population had been ravaged by disease. fi 4 Generation XII. Saer III had two daughters and two sons, Robert and Roger. By lack of further male o spring, his line thus came to an end. Branch of Roger fi fi fi fi ff ff GVIII. Roger GIX. Roger x Maud de Clare GX. William GXI. (Sir) William GXII. William of Biskel x Margaret Colhan GXIII. William of Brampton GXIV. William GXV. Geo rey GXVI. Henry of Shorn GXVII. Henry of Ash eld GXVIII. John of Ash eld GXIX. John of Ash eld GXX. Edward of Ash eld GXXI. William of Moneweden GXXII (Sir) John of Aldwinkle x Susannah GXXIII. John x Mary Ellsworth GXXIV. Edmund I of Lilford x Judith Pares PART III THE QUINCYS OF AMERICA It was c. 1640 that Edmund Quincy, nicknamed the Puritan, and his wife Judith Parish migrated with their only son from Lilford in Northamptonshire to America where they were among the early settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony at Braintree. Braintree Town Hall in 2009 GXXV. GXXVI. GXXVII. CXXVIII. GXXIX. GXXX. Edmund II x Joanna Hoare Daniel x Hannah Shepard Col. John x Elizabeth Norton Elizabeth Quincy x William Smith Abigail Smith x John Adams John Quincy Adams Edmund and Joanna Hoare were married in Braintree near Boston in 1648 and had no less than ten children, of which Daniel was the eldest. Daniel and his wife Hannah Shepard continued to live in Braintree near Boston where their second son Col. John Quincy was born. Shortly after, Daniel already died at the age of forty. His son John became a major in the colonial militia but was commonly referred to as “the Colonel”. He entered politics after graduating from Harvard College in 1708 and became Speaker of the House of Representatives of Massachussetts. He became so popular that the town of Quincy was named after him. He died at the age of 77, two days after the birth of his namesake and future President John Quincy Adams. Town of Quincy in Greater Boston John Quincy Adams was a single-term president between 1825 and 1829. Afterwards he continued to represent Massachussets in both houses and distinguished himself by defending the abolishment of slavery. John Quincy Adams P.S. Note on Quincy Jones Quincy Jones, the outstanding musician and record producer with 28 Emmy Awards, born in Chicago and still alive at 91 with a fortune estimated at 500 million dedicated to philanthropy, received his rst name from his father who was an admirer of John Quincy Adams. Since then, many other parents have followed this example. Quincy Jones in 2014 fi In 2011 he was honored by President Barack Obama with the National Medal of the Arts.