WREN FAMILY HISTORY


SOME NOTES ON THE KNOWN DESCENDANTS OF SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN

Bill Burgoyne's website includes a comprehensive summary of the known male line descendants of Sir Christopher Wren.

It should be noted that the majority of the individuals in this tree lived in Warwickshire, and that many of the Wren families originating from other parts of the British Isles are likely to connect to a different part of the Wren family, some of which are summarised on the Genealogies page. Anyone interested in their potential descent from Sir Christopher should first review Bill's tree in the context of their known family, and then review the other trees summarised to see if one of these presents a better match in terms of location or names.

Many US researchers have attempted to link their Wren ancestry to Sir Christopher's son William (1679-1737/38) as one of the few relatively undocumented male line descendants. It should be noted that any connection of this sort is quite unlikely. This son of Sir Christopher was referred to as ‘Poor Billy’, was probably handicapped in some way, and apparently never married. Sir Christopher asked his daughter to care for William shortly before his own death (in 1722/23), suggesting that he was still in England and unmarried at that point. A lot of US researchers keen to see a descent from Sir Christopher have picked up on this individual and equated him to the William Wren who married Elizabeth Steptoe and died in 1710. So far as I’m aware (from researchers who have investigated the issue more than me), this is completely spurious, but because it has been propagated for years via LDS submissions, Rootsweb postings and various printed works it has become an ‘established’ hypothesis.

 

 

Any inquiries relating to this page should be addressed to Ian Hall.

This page was last updated 03 August 2005 Return to main page >>>