The Spine
Fifteen generations are asserted, from a Brisbane insurance manager to a Yorkshire castle. Eight of them are documented. The break is at one man, and it is marked here rather than smoothed over.
What a fortnight of registers did to it
| Where | What changed |
|---|---|
| Robert D'Arcy generation 8 | His marriage and eldest son are documented at last — Joseph, baptised Portsea 19 March 1780, father Robert, mother Jean. And his burial is found: Chatham, 19 May 1827, aged 76. His parentage is still unknown. → |
| The Sneyd line below the Keele graft | Three of four links now documented — the 1769 Madeley marriage of William the weaver, Samuel's baptism there in 1781 rather than the tree's 1769, and Samuel Charles's at Hanley in 1811. → |
| The Saniger line the archive's oldest claim | Contradicted in the middle and unfindable at the join. The maiden name is settled five times over from Queensland; the woman herself is in none of Gloucestershire's 81 Saniger households, and was born outside the county. → |
This is the male D'Arcy line exactly as the family tree carries it — and then, against each generation, what this archive is actually willing to defend. The colour of the chip is the claim; the sentence beneath it is the reason.
Where the exported tree is demonstrably wrong, the corrected value is shown here and the tree's own version is printed underneath it. Correcting quietly would conceal the one thing this archive is for.
2 living generations are omitted from this build. The line continues past the last person shown here.
| Gen | Person | Born | At | Died | Trade | Standing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | Thomas Darcy Elizabeth Conyers | 5 Jul 1565 | Of, Hornby Castle, Yorkshire, England | 6 Nov 1605 | — | unproven |
| 14 | Conyers (of Hornby Castle) D'arcy Dorothy Bellasyse — m. 2 May 1594 | 27 Aug 1570 | Hornby Castle, Yorkshire, England | 3 Mar 1653 | 7th Lord Darcy Knayth, 4th Baron Conyers, of "Hornby", Sir | unproven |
| 13 | Conyers 1st Earl of Holderness 8th Lord Darcy de Knayth 5th Lord Conyers D'arcy Grace Rokeby — m. 14 Oct 1616 | 24 Jan 1598 | Hornby Castle, North Riding, Yorkshire, England | 14 Jun 1689 | Earl of Holdernesse ( 1st | unproven |
| 12 | Conyers, 2nd Earl of Holderness Darcy Frances (Lady of Berkshire) Howard — m. 8 Feb 1650 | 1621/22 | Westminster, Middlesex | 13 Dec 1692 | — | unproven |
| 11 | John Darcy, Lord D'arcy, Lord Conyers Bridget Sutton Alianna (Aline de La Ley) de la Legh Juliana | c. 1659 | Darcy Meynill, Yorkshire — the tree's geocoder has appended a county in New York State | 6 Jan 1688 | — | unproven |
| 10 | Robert Darcy Friederike Susanna Frederica von Schönburg — m. 26 May 1715 | 24 Nov 1681 | St. James Palace, London, Middlesex, England, Kingdom of England | 20 Jan 1721 | Earl of Holdernesse ( 3rd | unproven |
| 9 | Thomas (Francis) D'Arcy Margaret? D'Arcy | between 24 Nov 1681 and 21 Jul 1710 | St. James Palace, London, Middlesex, Englan | c. 21 Jul 1776 | — | disputed |
| 8 | Robert D'Arcy Jean Ward — m. 21 Jun 1779 | by 1758, and probably earlier | unknown | 13 May 1827 | Army Officer, Major General and Commander of Royal Engineers, Chatham, Kent, England | documented |
| 7 | George Pitt D'Arcy Miss Ludlam — m. September 1805 Maria White — m. c. 1819, County Wicklow | 18 Feb 1783 | Portsmouth, Hampshire, England or West Indies | 22 Jul 1849 | Army Officer, Major in 39th Battallion of Foot | documented |
| 6 | George Lindsay D'Arcy Eliza Keeling — m. 7 Jun 1863 | 24 Aug 1829 | Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia | 13 Jul 1901 | — | documented |
| 5 | George Pitt D'Arcy Ida Kathleen Atkinson — m. 10 Oct 1888 | 5 May 1864 | Brisbane, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia | 21 Mar 1931 | Chief Clerk Railway Department | documented |
| 4 | Lindesay Atkinson D'Arcy Ivy Miriam Sneyd — m. 18 Mar 1916 | 15 Jul 1892 | Brisbane, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia | 10 Nov 1936 | Clerk | documented |
| 3 | Kenneth Lindsay D'Arcy Audrey "Dell" Murdoch — m. 5 Apr 1952 | 17 Aug 1927 | Sandgate, Queensland, Australia | 3 Mar 2010 | Insurance Manager | documented |
The upper rows reproduce the exported tree's own fields verbatim, including its truncations — "Earl of Holdernesse ( 3rd" and "St. James Palace, London, Middlesex, Englan" are what the file actually contains. They are left as they are rather than tidied, because tidying data the archive does not defend would suggest a confidence in it that does not exist.
Generation by generation
The inserted generation, and the weakest link in the chain. Said to have been born at St James's Palace, with two birth years sixty-nine years apart. The Earls of Holderness are a documented family; a son of theirs who founds a Portsmouth line is not, on present evidence, one of them. Nothing below this man depends on him — the line stands perfectly well without him.
Documented from commission to grave. Connolly's Roll of Officers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, entry 203: second lieutenant 17 January 1776, lieutenant-colonel 29 April 1802, colonel 1813, major-general 12 August 1819, C.B.; Minorca, Portugal, Copenhagen, Walcheren; 'Died at Chatham, 13 5 1827'. Married Jean Ward at Portsea 21 June 1779; a son christened at Bridgetown, Barbados, in 1786; buried at St Mary, Chatham, 19 May 1827. Everything ABOVE him is a different matter entirely.
superseded The tree says born in 1751, in North Yorkshire. It is wrong because the 1751 is arithmetic from an age of 76 stated on a burial register, not a birth record, and nothing at all places him in North Yorkshire. His commission as second lieutenant on 17 January 1776 pulls the other way, since Academy cadets were commissioned at sixteen to twenty. Set out in full →
Major, 39th Regiment of Foot, thirty-four years in it. Commanded the regiment at Orthes, 27 February 1814, and was given a gold medal for it that took four years to reach him. Brought a detachment of thirty men out as the guard on the convict ship England, with his wife and baby daughter in the cabin, reaching Port Jackson 18 September 1826. Died at Parramatta 22 July 1849; six newspapers carried the notice. His birth year is the one soft spot: they say he was 69, which gives 1780, and the tree says 1783.
superseded The tree says two marriages, both at Chatham in 1810 — to “Maria (Catherine) Whiite” and to “Maria or Mary Le Meassier”. It is wrong because the Salisbury and Winchester Journal of 23 September 1805 announces the marriage of “Captain George d'Arcy”, son of “Lieut Colonel d'Arcy”, to “Miss Ludlam”. Le Mesurier was that bride's mother's maiden name, which is how it entered the tree as her own. The second marriage was in Ireland, about 1819. Set out in full →
Born Parramatta 1829, christened at St James's Sydney that November — the register entry names his father George Pitt Darcy and his mother Maria. Schooled at The King's School, Parramatta; pastoral work and the California goldfields; then Queensland in 1863 and the Colonial Secretary's Office until his death.
Born Brisbane 5 May 1864, the first generation born in the colony of Queensland; Chief Clerk of the Railway Department. Found dead in the kitchen of his house at Banyo on 21 March 1931 and buried at South Brisbane Cemetery, Dutton Park — the cemetery record confirms 1864, so the newspaper's 'aged 76' at the inquest is an error for 66.
Born Brisbane 1892, died there suddenly on 10 November 1936 aged 44; the Courier-Mail carried both an obituary and a funeral notice. Sergeant 11335, 12th Australian Depot Unit of Supply — enlisted 13 December 1915, married nine weeks before he sailed, home in July 1919. A grocer who failed in 1926. His death at 44 is the hinge of the next generation's childhood.
Birth, marriage, death and burial all recorded, and a three-part eulogy delivered by his own children survives in the family's hands.
A solid node is a generation this archive will defend. A dashed node is one it is repeating from the family tree and has not proved.
What would settle the break
Robert D'Arcy's parentage
The one question the archive cannot answer. His whole adult life is on paper and not a single record of it names a father. What is left needs an archive rather than a search: the Board of Ordnance minutes and registers, and the will of the 4th Earl of Holderness. The case, in full →
And what does not need settling
Everything below him. The Australian line is proved from a surgeon's journal, a christening register, six newspapers and a corps roll. It does not depend on the Yorkshire descent and never did. Arrival, 1826 →