Someone mixed up John Sale, leader of a line that comes to the US, and John Shirley, a later descendant of John Giffard, and it got me interested in this line.

There is evidence aplenty for her marriage to John Congreve, her children's births, and then her death and burial, however, I'm noticing a curious problem with her birth. In each one of the visitations I've read, she is listed as the daughter of Jane Hoaard/Hoord, who died in 1491.

The Staffordshire Visitations, the Burke's Peerage, and the probate of William Underhill all mention Dorothea's death information, but not her birth information.

Several folks have said their source for her birth in 1510-1520 is Douglas Richardson, Royal Ancestry, Vol. V, p. 127 and Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry, 2nd Edition, Vol. IV, p. 175.

I don't have access to either of those books - is the information cited there trustworthy? Because it it is, Jane Hoord cannot be her mother as she died as many as 20 years before Dorothea's birth.

The only clue that I can find to Dorotheas birthdate is the information that Francis Shirley, her second husband, was underage when they married, implying that he was younger than her, not older. (See Stemmata Shirleiana, who cites the original license dated 8 April 1535.) https://archive.org/details/cu31924029787250/page/n85/mode/2up?q=Francis+Shirley

That then gives more mysteries, because if she was born between 1510-1520, she would have to be the daughter of John's second wife, Elizabeth, who was supposedly the daughter of William Gresley...but none of the visitations have any data to back this up either.

My head is spinning a bit with this one for sure!

Concetta Phillipps