Family Tree

I have always been interested in history and visiting castles and museums, ever since I can remember. I was adopted and in 2000 it became legal for adopted children, (in South Africa) to trace their birth parents. I had always wanted to know who my birth parents were but I was very unsure as I did not want to disrupt their lives. Finally in February 2002 I sent in the forms and in April 2002 I had my first contact with my birth mother. I met her in October of that year, and in December we travelled to South Africa were I met my two aunts.

My aunt to me that we were descended from Miles Bowker and his wife Anna Maria Mitford who were 1820 British Settlers to Southern Africa. She also told me that there was an Archbishop of Canterbury in our family tree, he turned out to be Thomas Bourchier (1412-1486.) That is when I became totally hooked and wanted to find out more.

Miles always claimed to be related to the Bourchier family, the Ancient Earls of Essex and Eu. In the book ‘The Bowkers of Tharfield’ by Ivan Mitford-Barberton he writes:
In the Gentleman’s Magazine, dated June 1759, there appeared a brief article about the ancient family of Bourchier, Earls of Eu and Essex, and a crude woodcut showing the Bourchier arms and crest.
‘One day, when I was reading in in’, wrote Miles Bowker in his memoirs, ‘my father happened to overlook it, and just observed that the families spoken of there were our ancestry and that was our name, and this was the only time I ever hear him speak of his family, which he considered had treated him very ill.’
Miles goes on to say:
‘I hold the ancient silver seals of this family [the Bourchiers] (my great grandfather being the lineal heir, collaterally of the Earldom of Essex, then in abeyance, as well as the heir male to the family of Berners, now gone to a Colonel Wilson) sent to my father after the death of his two uncles, as the head of the family. His Uncle Benjamin left three daughters . . . Holden had only one son who died without issue. I sold a small estate in Northampton that came by Holden and sought to recover other large propertied both of Holden’s and Major Brabbin’s, in London, Manchester and near Preston, but in vain – the mortgage possessors had held them beyond the time allowed by the Statute of Limitation. These mortgages were to discharge the amercements on account of their attachment to the Stuarts.’

I am still trying to find the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ which Miles Bowker talks about, I have a copy of the June 1759 one and it does not mention the Bourchier family at all.