A relatively recent article appeared in the February 2021 issue of “Who Do You Think You Are?”
On page 41, a contributor asks, “How can I prove that Sir Laurence Fermour de Richards is one of my ancestors?”
The reply contains a lot of guidance in researching English ancestors in the 1500s and concludes that today’s point-and-click genealogy is perpetuating errors.
Questions like this from other family historians as well as some really bad family trees out there is the reason I published “Thomas Fermor and the Sons of Witney” complete with source citations.
The article does a good job pointing out that Laurence would never have been referred as “Sir Laurence Fermour de Richards.” Research shows he clearly adopted the Fermor surname and its various spellings like Fermour or Farmor. There is no evidence he was a knight or clergy to have been referred as Sir Laurence.
Research also shows that Laurence was the son of Thomas Richards alias Fermor by his first wife Alice. When his father remarried to the widow Emmote (Hervey) Wenman, Laurence married Emmote’s daughter Elizabeth Wenman and had four children: William, Thomas, Johan (Joan), and Mary.
Philip Farmer is the author and publisher of “Thomas Fermor and the Sons of Witney” tracing the family history from 1420 to 1685, and “Edward Farmar and the Sons of Whitemarsh” following their 1685 arrival from Ireland into Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Harlan County, Kentucky.
