♂William Talvas

William Talvas was a count in northern France and the father of Ela Talvas, Countess of Surrey. He was the twenty-sixth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Ela Talvas.

The Complete Peerage styles him Count of Alençon and Ponthieu^W, and his wife was Ela of Burgundy, a daughter of Odo, Duke of Burgundy. Their daughter Ela Talvas married William de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, and after his death Patrick, Earl of Salisbury.

Notes

Sources

The titles, the marriage and the daughter are given in the first edition of the Complete Peerage (vol. 7, 1896, under Surrey, p. 326), which names Ela Talvas as “da. of William, called Talvas, Count of Alencon and Ponthieu, by Ela, da. of Odo, Duke of Burgundy”; the same volume repeats the parentage under Salisbury (p. 30). These are compiled peerage accounts, not records of the time, and no date of birth, marriage or death is given here for either parent. The Complete Peerage’s “Odo, Duke of Burgundy” is not tied here to a numbered duke.

Another William Talvas

The same volume (p. 135) names an earlier William, called Talvas, Seigneur de Belesme and d’Alencon, as the father of Mabel, first wife of Roger de Montgomery. That is a different and older man, not the Count of Alençon and Ponthieu.

The descent through John Washburn

The line from Ela Talvas to Nancy Jane Blanchard runs through her daughter Isabel de Warenne and her descendants to John Washburn of Bengeworth, who died in 1547. That the John Washburn of the pedigrees was this man is the identification of the Washbournes’ historian, James Davenport, not a record’s, so the descent through him is probable.