Appreciate your message James, I am in the process of researching our
ancestors way back from Dudley, they were yeomen according to records we
have found, I have found articles that referred to them as Noble
family.again I have found their Surrenders in 1700s relating to land
holdings, one becomes confused trying to understand how the system worked
from the 15th century.
Regards.
Kath from N S W Australia.
----- Original Message -----
From: "James Evans" <Blorenge(a)btopenworld.com>
To: <POWYS-L(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Friday, August 30, 2002 7:22 AM
Subject: Re: [POWYS] Gentlemen and Yeomen
Dear Charles,
The simple answer to your question is yes. Younger sons of gentleman often
became yeomen farmers when their fathers would give them (large) farms
which
made up parts of the ancestral lands and estate. A prosperous yeoman
could
often make his way up to the rank of gentleman as with my ancestor Edmund
Henry of Aberystruth in Monmouthshire. He started off as a tenant farmer's
son, became a yeoman/substantial freeholder and died a gentleman. His wife
was of the local Miles family who were an old family of landed gentry.
Throughout the centuries, different members of this family were referred
to
as yeomen and gentlemen while they lived in the same places and with
little
variation in their fortune. It is said that a yeoman of the
seventeenth
century will almost certainly descend from at least petty/minor gentry as
social mobility was more difficult back then and significant landholding
was
often dictated by one's family history. I'm not sure to what
extent this
is
true but it seems to make sense and certainly applies to my own
findings.
I
hope this helps.
Best wishes
James Phillips-Evans