♀Joan (surname unknown)

Joan (living in 1286) married first William de Oddingseles, lord of the manor of Solihull in Warwickshire, and after his death Ralph de Limesi. She was the twenty-first great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through her son William de Oddingseles (died 1295).

Life

Her own family is not known. William de Oddingseles and Joan had at least two sons, William and Nicholas. Her husband had probably died by 1271, and their elder son succeeded him at Solihull. After William’s death Joan married Ralph de Limesi, who in 1286 presented a priest to the church of Solihull in her right. Nine years earlier, in 1277, her son William is said to have founded a chantry^W in the church of Solihull, an altar endowed for a priest to say masses, “with the consent and assistance of his mother Joan then wife of Ralph de Limesi”.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through her son William and his daughter Margaret de Oddingseles (born about 1277), and then through Margaret’s son John de Grey (1300–1359). One comes down through Thomas Dudley^W (1576–1653), later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, to Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844); the other reaches Nathaniel’s wife, Anna Smith (1764–1825). The two lines meet again in their daughter Sarah Dudley (1795–1839).

Notes

The county history

What is known of her comes from the Victoria County History of Warwickshire (vol. 4, the article on Solihull), a compiled history. It gives the 1286 presentation to Solihull church by “Ralph de Limesi in right of his wife Joan widow of William de Oddingeseles”, and says that the chantry of 1277 was founded “with the consent and assistance of his mother Joan then wife of Ralph de Limesi”. It places her first husband’s death by 1271 from a Close Roll entry naming “William and Nicholas, his sons”. It does not give her surname or her parents.