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Famous Bufords from History |
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It is not possible, with the data now in possession of the writer, to connect the America family immediately with the English Buffords. While this is most, unsatisfactory, there is no doubt that they are one and the same, and the search for documentary proof which is still going on will probably establish the fact and show which Richard or John was the emigrant to this country and the progenitor of the family in America. Many members of our family in the United States still spell the name Beauford, having never allowed the change to Buford, which gradually came to be the accepted from. It is readily seen how the change to Bufford would come about in England, when one remembers that few people in the Tenth century, the Eleventh, and even down to the Thirteenth, could read or write, and that literary attainment were confined chiefly to the clergy, lawyers, clerks, etc. Of course, it was impossible to convey to a clerk any way of spelling a name other than phonetically, and he wrote what seemed to him to be the correct spelling. There are few of the old wills and deeds examined which do not contain several ways of spelling the name of the same person, and often it is only by close study and comparison that the web is untangled. |
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Pre-American History Continued |
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The BEAUFORTS have been prominent in the history of England since the early part of the Eleventh century. They entered with William the Conqueror. Here we take a few extracts from People's Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge: |
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HENRY BEAUFORT, born 1370, died Winchester, 1447. Cardinal and Bishop of Winchester; was half-brother to King Henry IV. He was educated in England and Germany. In 1404 he became Bishop of Winchester. He was present at the Council of Constance, and voted for the election of Pope Martin V., by whom he was subsequently made Cardinal. In 1431, Beaufort conducted the young King, Henry VI, to France to be crowned in Paris as King of France and England. Here he also endeavored, but vainly, to reconcile the Duke of Burgundy. His memory is stained by his suspected participation in the murder of the Earl of Gloucester and of the Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc. |
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1441 - 1509. BEAUFORT, MARGARET, Countess of Richmond and of Derby, daughter of Duke of Somerset, and wife of the Earl of Richmond, who was a half-brother to Henry VI., and mother of Henry VII. Born, 1441; died, 1509. |
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1662. BEAUFORT, Duc de (Francois de Vendome), leader of malcontents in the war of the Fronde. Commander of the French Fleet 1662; killed at Candia, 1669 |
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1824. BEAUFORT, H. C. F. S., 8th Duke of; an English soldier; born in 1824; was aide-de-camp to Wellington, Hardinge. and Duke of Cambridge. Text quoted from: History and Genealogy of the Buford Family In America With Records of a Number of Allied Families |
