Ann Farley - ROBERT E LEE son of Col. RICHARD LEE

Good luck with that ;)

Your ancestor Ann Farley may have married A Lee, maybe even A Richard Lee, but not that particular Col. Richard Lee. We have it from the notes of John Gibbon, steward to Col. Lee and later Bluemantle Pursuivant, that Mrs. Lee's birth name was "Constable". (Gibbon had a bad habit of writing notes on the margins of books, including books that weren't his, and on the margins of his papers. It annoyed his Heraldic colleagues no end.) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Gibbon,_John_(DNB00)

As to the Confederate General Robert E. Lee, he was several generations later. It can get hard to maintain one's perspective across such a stretch of time.

Early Virginia had a lot more Lees than most people think. Most of them were not related...not to Col. Richard Lee and not to each other.

There's a bit of a puzzle regarding the ship "Anne", on which the Farley family traveled. Most of the passengers disembarked at Plimoth, Massachusetts...but a handful, including the Farleys, were noted (by Hotten in his Muster list) as having got off in Virginia. We don't know whether the "Anne" made two voyages, or whether some prospective colonists found Plimoth too forbidding and rode on down the coast (the "Anne" resumed cargo shipping after stopping at Plimoth, and may have picked up a cargo in Virginia for the return trip, which would be an economical thing to do).

A Loren Boyd, in Australia, posted these findings on Genealogy.com back in 2007:

This is a LEE family of Virginia but is it the one your after? Perhaps you can match the children. Was he a Colonel?

Husband
Col. Richard LEE
Birth:1620 Richmond [County], Virginia

Father:James LEE
Mother:

Wife
Ann FARLEY
Birth:1623 Archers Hope, Richmond [County], Virginia [or]
Birth:1625 Archers Hope, James City, Virginia

Father:Thomas FARLEY
Mother:Jane SEFTON

Children of Col. Richard LEE & Ann FARLEY

1.Samuel LEE
Male
Birth:03 APR 1640 Henrico [County], Virginia

2.Thomas LEE
Male
Birth:1646 Henrico [County], Virginia
Death:1647

3.James LEE
Male
Birth:1648 Henrico [County], Virginia

4.Mary LEE
Female
Birth:15 JAN 1653 Henrico [County], Virginia

5.John LEE
Male
Birth:01 JAN 1655 Henrico [County], Virginia

6.Rachel LEE
Female
Birth:10 OCT 1658 Henrico [County], Virginia

7.Elizabeth LEE
Female
Birth:05 MAR 1661 Henrico [County], Virginia

8.Thomas LEE
Male
Birth:11 MAR 1663 Henrico [County], Virginia

9.Arthur LEE
Male
Birth:04 OCT 1667 Henrico [County], Virginia
Death:25 OCT 1667

=====================================

Since this list in no way resembles the known children of Col. Richard Lee and Anne Constable, and since *this* "Colonel" Richard Lee lived in Henrico County, not Northumberland County, and since he outlived the famous Col. Lee (d. 1664) by at least several years, it's clear this is a different individual.

Getting to be a "Colonel" in the Virginia militia wasn't that difficult, if you had the money and manpower to provide your own troop.

Tag the post, which has all of Ann's brothers and sisters: https://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/lee/19946/

(I am highly skeptical that Jane Sefton was a "Lady" - titled gentry had little incentive to go and live in a howling wilderness. Untitled gentry might, and some *did*, usually younger siblings in hopes of improving their prospects.)

Oh. We actually do have Thomas Farley Thomas Farley, Esq., wife Jane Molyneux (raised at Sefton, hence the erroneous surname) - but not his daughter Anne.

From Hotten's Original Lists of Persons of Quality, p. 230 https://archive.org/details/originallistsofp00hottuoft/page/244

Archer's Hope, James City

Thomas Farley came in the Ann 1623
Jane his wife in the same Shipp
Ann a Child

So yes, there was a daughter Ann, born either aboard ship or within a year after landing (Thomas Farley, "ux Farley", and "a Child" are also in the Lists of Living, same address, the year before).

All fascinating. I didn't know about John Gibbon nor that there were people who did not get off in Massachusetts but stayed on until Virginia.

“Thomas Farley & the Molyneaux's. Actually, Thomas Farley & Lady Jane Sefton Molyneaux were kicked out of England because of gambling and because they were Quakers. They landed in America on the English ship Ann in 1623 and I've even found a bill of lading from their voyage that included a pig and a servant ...”

“lady Jane” assumed that name for herself. It seems she was born out of wedlock.

NB. Too early to be Quakers, but the gambling ...

Perhaps this Richard Lee

Colonel Richard Lee
1620 - 1714
Birth:
1620
Paradise, Gloucester, Virginia, United States
Marriage:
Marriage to: Ann Farley
1640
Death:
Mar 12 1714
Mt Pleasant, Westmoreland, Virginia, United States

Ann Farley

Nope - unless someone finds those kids.

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/boards/surnames.farley/1032.2.1.1.3/mb.ashx

DAVID HALLE, GENEALOGIST FOR THE SOCIETY OF THE LEES OF VIRGINIA, HAS PROVEN BEYOND A DOUBT THAT RICHARD LEE MARRIED ANNE CONSTABLE. REFERENCE: THE LEES OF VIRGINIA - SEVEN GENERATIONS OF AN AMERICAN FAMILY, PAUL C. NAGLE, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, FIRST ISSUED 1992.

IT REMAINS UNKNOWN WHO ANN FARLEY MARRIED.

“NOTE: No records have been found that verify that Jane was ever listed as a Molyneux. She was styled Lady Jane Sefton in all records found to date.”

Qualifying Ancestors

Fareley/Farley/Farlowe, Thomas - A2506; born 1590, died 1634; Plantations between Archer's Hope and Martin's Hundred: 1628 (Burgess), Harrop Plantations between Archer's Hope and Martin's Hundred: 1630 (Burgess).

http://www.jamestowne.org/essington---fawcett.html

https://worldconnect.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&a...

Note: It is unlikely that the Thomas Farley who had a child during the voyage or shortly after landing, is the same one named in the 1622 Will of Roger Farley as his son. It's plain that the Thomas in the 1622 Will is a younger son evidently the fifth son, and as such simply could not have been an adult by 1622, given the known or stated dates of his supposed brothers. - wsj

Research of Will Johnson, professional genealogist, copyright 2007. Visit my wiki at http://www.countyhistorian.com

Also, Ann would not have been sent to England for schooling - daughters generally didn't get the same attention to their education, and were considered well enough educated if they could read, write and do basic arithmetic. She might have been married off young, though, and pushed on into the fringes with her new husband.

I would not bet against there being another "Col. Richard Lee" in early Virginia. There are a lot of unexplained Lees who just pop up out of the woods.

London to Massachusetts to Virginia to London wasn't the usual thing, but neither is it usual to have two ships with the same name. It is thought that occasionally a ship bound for Barbados or St. Christopher continued on to Virginia and dropped off a few (more) passengers. And there are more than a few people that we have absolutely no idea when or how they got there.

Thank you ladies :)