The FAMILY of JAN de LANNOY and his relations with the Pilgrim Fathers
BN Leverland 1954 "Our Ancestors (magazine of South Holland Genealogy Society)" pp 79-85
This contribution to the Leiden edition of "Our Ancestors" finds its origin in a question to the Leiden municipal archive for data on PHILIPPE de LANNOY and his parents. This Philippe de Lannoy emigrated from Leiden to America as an eighteen-year-old person in 1621 with the "FORTUNE" and has become the father of the branch of his DELANO (corruption of de Lannoy) line.
At first sight, this was a routine question like so many others, which however unexpectedly became interesting; then in the course of the research, it appeared that information concerning this young man had already been requested several times and, among others, once by Daniel W. Delano Jr., writer of "Franklin Roosevelt and the Delano Influence". (Late president Franklin Roosevelt was descended through his mother Sara Delano from this de Lannoy line). This book was included as potential research material because of the first two chapters, which address the European period of the de Lannoy/Delano line.
However, comparison with the Leiden municipal archive data, the municipal archive mentioned in those two chapters in particular showed clearly how dangerous it is in genealogical work to speculate; it is desirable to double check the work of writers of earlier times.
Hereunder follows then, firstly, what is contained in the Leiden archive (c.s.?) about PHILIPPE de LANNOY and thereafter what was made of it.
Philippe’s parents: JAN LANO and MARIE MAHIEU married in 1596. Their marriage register dated 13 January 1596 in Leiden states:
"Jan Lano, young man of Torckangie, accompanied by “Piere de Bu and Gijsbert de Lano, bridegroom’s father with "Mary Mahieu of Lyle, accompanied by Jane Mahieu her mother and Anthonette Morth, her friend. It is stated that they have had up to that point, only two children, as it happens: JENNE, baptized in the Walloon church in Leiden on 18 March 1601, with witnesses: Pierre de Bu, Ollie le Pla, Jenne le Mahieu and Jenne de Lano; and PHILIPPE, baptized (Walloon church) on 6 November 1603, with witnesses: Francois Kock, Philippe Marines, Tonnette de Lannoy and Margueritte de Lannoy. We get the following table:
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JAN LANO young man of Tourcoing witnesses: Pierre de Bu Gijsbert Lano, father |
X MARIE MAHIEU young daughter of Lille witnesses: Jane Mahieu, mother Anthonette Morth |
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JENNE DE LANNOY baptized 18/3 1601 witnesses: Pierre de Bu, Oliver le Pla, Jenne le Mahieu, Jenne de Lano |
PHILIPPE DE LANNOY baptized 6/11 1603 witnesses: Francois Kock, Philippe Marines, Tonnette de Lannoy, Marguerite de Lannoy |
Jan Lano must have died in 1604, since his widow’s marriage with Robert Manoo was registered on 18 February 1605. ROBERT MANNOO, woolcomber, originating from Namur and widower of SYMONE PACHETTE. The witnesses of this were her mother Jane Mahieu and her sister Antoinette Mahieu.
Furthermore there appeared from the marriage records, the register of MAGRIETTE LANNOY’s marriage as follows:
Oliphier de Plaes of Mouvau, accompanied by Jaeckes de Plaes, his brother, and Corneille du Pla, his good friend, with Margriete Lannoy of Tourcoing, accompanied by Jeanne de Lannoy, her mother and Noelle de Lannoy, her sister. Categorized in a table:
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OLIPHIER de PLAES Young man of. Mouveau (near Lille) witnesses: Jaeckes de Plaes brother; Corneille du Pla, friend |
X MARGRIETE de LANNOY young daughter of Tourcoing (also near Lille) Witnesses: Sjan (Jeanne) de Lannoy mother; Noelle de Lannoy, sister. |
Her husband probably died in 1602/1603, because on 27 February 1604 she signed as a widow of Ollie (Olivier) le Pla with JAN de ROUSSEAU, wool comber of Moevau near Lille as widower of JANNETGEN SALMON. Her witnesses at her second marriage were her aunt CATHELINE MARLIERE and sister MARIE de LANNOY.
Jan Lano and Margriete Lannoy are most likely brother and sister. It is not proven with absolute certainty (because there is too little data), but in my opinion the conclusion can nevertheless be drawn on the basis of the following facts:
Margriete de Lannoy and Ollie (Oliver) le Pla are baptism witnesses for the children of Jan Lano and Marie Mahieu;
Margriete de Lannoy widow le Pla, brings to her second marriage as witness her sister Marie de Lanoo;
both Jan and Margriete come from Tourcoing.
The marriage registers of Jan Lano and Oliver le Pla, first spouse of Margriete de Lannoy, do not tell us about their social position, but we can infer that from the second marriage of their widows.
Robert Mannoo, second husband of Marie Mahieu and stepfather of Philippe de Lannoy, was a wool comber; likewise Jan de Rousseau, second husband of Margriete de Lannoy. And since it cannot be assumed that both these women moved into a higher social class upon their second marriage, we also must classify Jan Lano and Oliver le Pla as in the group of immigrant Walloon textile workers.
PHILIPPE de LANNOY left for America in 1621, where he established himself with the emigrants, who left a year previously from Leiden: the Pilgrim Fathers. Although the readers will be familiar* with the history of these puritans who escaped from England, I want to cite here some years; this concerning the question of the PESIJNHOF in Leiden, about which there appear to be several questions - mainly on the American side – much confusion reigns.
The Pilgrim Fathers were a group of puritans, who - persecuted for their belief in England branched out to the Netherlands - from 1609 up to 1620 lived in Leiden, their spiritual leader being Rev. John Robinson, who lived close to the Pieterskerk in the Kloksteeg. On 5 May 1611 (transport register MM folio. 105) he bought with three other members of the English community from Johan de Lalaing "a house and lot with the western adjacent lot beside it, standing and lying within this city on the South side of Pieterskerckhoff around the Clockhuys, with the named Green Gate, to its side.” Robinson lived there until his death in 1625
At the place of Robinson’s house and the surrounding houses arose much later, in 1681, the "PESIJNHOF".
JAN PESIJN, originating from Wallonia, married on 1 February 1636 MARIE from Bondu (near Lille). Since their only child MARIE (baptized 6 Sept. 1637 in the Walloon church) had died in May 1652 they decided to spend their capital on a small estate for "the old married people of the Walloon nation ".
The small estate was ready in 1683, two years after Marie de Lannoy died. (Her spouse, Jan, Pesijn, had already died in 1655). Above the doorway a four line poem sings the founding*:
IS ESTABLISHED A BEAUTIFUL BUILDING, BUILT BY A CHILDLESS COUPLE
WHERE MANY NEEDY FOREIGNERS, CAST OUT
FROM THEIR FATHERLAND, SETTLED PEACEFULLY.”*
And now the surprising connection: Marie Pesijn-de Lannoy Is confused with Marie Lannoy-Mahieu.
The result becomes: The homeless Puritans touched the great heart or Marie DE LA Noye and she turned over twelve houses she owned in Leyden to the refugees. One or them, having escaped the ravages of the Luftwaffe (that never bombarded Leiden!) still stands on the KLOKSTEEG, Saint Pieterskerkhof and is used today as a hospital for the aged. Over the door is a fitting memorial to this great woman. Over the door in archaic Flemish is the statement that the ancient house was used as a shelter 'for poor foreigners who were cast out of their Fatherland and lived here peaceably'. (Fr. Roosevelt and the Delano influence, page. 37).
And this in spite of the following facts, which have been communicated to the writer:
that the Pesijnhof came about just after 1681
that Marie Lannoy-Mahieu had already been dead then for approx. 50 years
also that the Pilgrim Fathers HAD already LEFT more than 60 years previously with the Mayflower from Leiden, and
that the above-mentioned purchase contract dated 5 May 1611, for 1900, had already been published for 50 years.
This is an example among many others concerning incorrect insight into the relationship between Philippe Lannoy c.s. and the Pilgrim Fathers.
Apart from the above about Phillipe de Lannoy in Leiden it is only known that that he left for New England in 1621 with the FORTUNE. This ship landed in November of that year at New Plymouth, where the Pilgrim Fathers had founded their colony. In spring of 1623 he, with the other emigrants of the Fortune, was assigned, by lottery, a piece of country west of the settlement.
He had an arrangement concerning two acres with MOSES SIMONSZ (SIMONSON). He must have married Hester DEWSBURY in 1633 at New Plymouth and after her death have remarried with MARY PONTUS GLASS, widow of another colonist. (This last data has been taken from E. Arber: The story or the Pilgrim Fathers as told by themselves, their friends and their enemies, 1897; and from: Fr. Roosevelt and the Delano influence).
In the above everything that has been mentioned about Philippe de Lannoy c.s. in Leiden from documents and printed sources concerning the Pilgrim Fathers is certain.
There now follows what the writer of "Franklin Roosevelt and the Delano influence" has made of this.
It starts (on page. 36) with the information that GIJSBERT de LANNOY, Philippe’s grandfather, was a son of JEAN de LANNOY, knight of the Golden Fleece, but that he was disinherited as an 11-year-old boy because he had become a Protestant. Gijsbert’s son Jan – Philippe’s father - with his wife Marie (le) Mahieu left France for Leiden.
From the already mentioned marriage register we know that Jan de Lannoy and Marie Mahieu married in 1596 in Leiden and that in that record there is absolutely not a word written on the event -in that case the very noble affiliation of Jan and his father Gijsbert.* Nor does Marie Mahieu’s second marriage with the wool comber Robert Mannoo point in that direction, nor also the second marriage of Margriete de Lannoy who as we have seen above was most likely an aunt of Philippe.
A second inaccuracy concerns the case of Jacques de Lannoy and his son Peter, who must have gone to America in 1657.
Jacques is named as Philippe’s brother, as it happens, and he will have solicited the hand of PRISCILLA MULLENS, daughter of one of the Pilgrim Fathers. After Priscilla's departure
on the Mayflower in 1620 she however married another, from which marriage in 1634 the above named Peter would be born (page. 38 and 57). In Leiden in 1634 a Peter de Lannoy has indeed been baptized, son of Jacques de Lannoy and Hester Ferret (or Fara). However it appears that Jacques de Lannoy cannot be Philippe’s brother, because Jacques is shown at his marriage as "young man of Rons". Moreover Jacques de Lannoy and Hester Ferret (from Cologne), had already married in 1619 (note dd.13 June), thus many years before the departure of the Mayflower instead of afterwards.
And finally, in the baptism books of the Walloon church no records have been found for the assumption that Jan de Lannoy and Marie Mahieu had more children than the mentioned Jenne and Philippe.
These two examples are sufficient, however, - apart from those concerning the former European generations – to seriously undermine the claim of nobility for this de Lannoy line, which requires a serious revision of the basis of this genealogy. The "troublemaker” responsible for all this, however, we must seek in the sources of Fr. Roosevelt and the Delano influence, and in "The Genealogy, History and Alliances or the American House or Delano, 1621-1899, compiled by Major Joel Andrew Delano, with the History and Heraldry of the Maison de Franchiment and de Lannoy to Delano, 1096-1621 and the Royal Ancestry of Lannoy from Guelph, Prince of Scyrri, to Philippe de Lannoy, 476 AD to 1621. Arranged by M. Delano de Lannoy, New York, 1899"
What can be the basis for the higher ennobling of this de Lannoy genealogy? Nothing more than the marriage register dd. 13 January 1596, which further refers us for the origin of Gijsbert and Jan de Lannoy to Tourcoing, some baptism and marriage witnesses, and to the presumption bordering on certainty that Gijsbert and Jan belonged to the flow of Walloon textile-workers, who tried to build a new life in flourishing Leiden at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
B .N. LEVERLAND