♂William Dauncey

William Dauncey was an Englishman of the late Middle Ages, remembered as the father of Alison Dauncey. Through Alison he was an ancestor of Thomas Dudley^W, later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W. He was the sixteenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Alison Dauncey (died 1479). Alison was one of his daughters and heirs, so William most likely left no surviving son, and what he held passed to his daughters together. The names of his wife and of Alison’s sisters are not recorded. Alison married first Richard Wightam, who held the manor of Wytham in Berkshire, and secondly Thomas Denton of Fifield, by whom she had a son, John Denton.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his daughter Alison Dauncey, her son John Denton, John’s daughter Alice Denton, her son Edward Purefoy, Edward’s daughter Mary Purefoy, Mary’s daughter Susanna Thorne, Susanna’s son Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) and Thomas’s son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). One comes down through Samuel’s son Stephen Dudley (1654–1735) to Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844), and the other to Nathaniel’s wife, Anna Smith (1764–1825); the two lines meet again in their daughter Sarah Dudley (1795–1839).

Notes

Where he is named

William is known from a single line of the Denton pedigree in the Oxfordshire heraldic visitation^W (The Visitations of the County of Oxford, 1566, 1574 and 1634, Harleian Society vol. 5, 1871, p. 228), which names his daughter as “Alison one of the daurs. & heires of Willm. Dauncey”. The pedigree gives no dates for him and does not name his wife or Alison’s sisters. The Victoria County History of Berkshire (vol. 4, 1924, ‘Wytham’, pp. 427–430) spells Alison’s maiden name Daundesey.

His dates

No record gives William’s dates. Alison’s second husband, Thomas Denton, was holding land at Wytham in her right by 1428, and her daughter by her first marriage married about 1437, so William was probably born in the second half of the fourteenth century.

The visitation’s order of marriages

The visitation makes William Browning Alison’s first husband. The county history shows that Browning married her daughter Agnes Wightam about 1437, so he was Alison’s son-in-law; this page follows the county history, as does Alison’s own page.