SHAKESPEARE IS OUR COUSIN!

Most of us have spent a lot of time tracing our Blencowe ancestors and perhaps paid scant attention to the female lines. Antony Farnath, a retired businessman living in Wolverhampton, shows what fascinating things may turn up if you have the necessary persistence and are prepared to spend time on searching some of the more ancient records. The tree he has drawn shows that John Blencowe of Radstone (1604-1667) was a fourth cousin of William Shakespeare — that's right, the Immortal Bard! That John was descendant of the Blencowes of Marston St Lawrence, and ancestor of those ‘down under’, and also of the Blencowes of Virginia.

In 1997, my son Scott was an invited guest, representing his Melbourne school at the opening of the New Globe Theatre in London. He was well aware of the auspiciousness of the occasion; however, it would have been a very special experience had he realised he was the fourth cousin, eleven times removed of William Shakespeare.

For those who travel to the reunion in England next July, the obligatory trip to nearby Stratford on Avon will take on a new significance.

Antony has also produced a ‘ready-reckoner’ for working out those distant relationships. We look forward to him telling us of some other of our very distant kinfolk.

Anne