Earliest Known Ancestor (Blake et al)

Robert Welles
Christened: November 6, 1540, Stourton, Whichford, Warwick, England
Died: About 1619, England
Relation to Author: 12th Great Grandfather In-Law

My wife's grandfather was an historian and did what appears to be significant genealogical research on his and his wife's families. There are entries as far back as 15 generations from my wife (16 from our son). Robert Welles is the oldest such ancestor in the 15th generation (William Curtis is also listed, but we only know that he died in 1585 - we don't know when he was born).

Robert Welles lived from approximately 1540 to 1619 in England. In other words, he was born 471 years ago. How far back is that?

He was born 100 years after the invention of the printing press. In Europe, the Italian Renaissance was just ending but the Scientific Revolution was just getting started (he was three when Copernicus set out the heliocentric theory of the solar system, but he doesn't live to see Galileo demonstrate then recant this same theory).

And throughout Europe, including in England, the Protestant Reformation was well under way. He was born twenty years after Martin Luther hung his ninety-five theses on the door of the Castle Church of Wittenberg (Germany). But Robert didn't have to look so far as Germany to see the Reformation; England was having its own battle, played out by the monarchs, over whether to be a Catholic or Protestant country.

Robert was born just as Henry VIII was breaking the Church of England away from the Catholic Church and he was 7 when Henry died. The rest of his pre-teen years were spent under the short reign of Edward VI (plus the 9 day reign of Lady Jane Grey).

The rest of Robert's youth was spent under the reign of Mary I (Bloody Mary), daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. She brought Catholicism back to England and killed (burned at the stake) hundreds of dissenters while doing so. She died in 1558 when Robert would have been 18.

The next 45 years - much of Robert's adulthood - was spent under Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth returned England to Protestantism, ushered in an era of English drama, and saw the Spanish Armada defeated.

The last 16 years of his life were spent under the rule of James I (2nd Great Grandson of Henry VII), who, among other things, sponsored the King James Bible.

Robert died the year before the Mayflower set sail for America. His son, Thomas Welles would move to the American colonies and serve as governor of the Colony of Connecticut in 1655 and again in 1658.