William Reed/Farncombe

While in De Soto Library recently, I was looking through their files and found this. It was a very faded copy---this is actually more readable than the original. It was stapled to a lot of genealogy of local French families---Roussin and Lalomondier are two that I recall. I don't know who wrote it. It is slightly different from the other story that other Reed cousins had. I'm going to try to transcribe it to the best of my ability without making comments. But, before beginning I want to be clear that William Reed was not royalty---his father was a "Chelsea pensioner" having retired from the British army before he was born (and he wasn't an officer, either). Please click on the "Lables" to the left on Reed or Farncombe for other stories.

Brief Genealogy Reports Taken from Report made in 1861 at London, England Reed-Forncomb-German Holcomb Sir Edward Wm James Reed Forncomb mother's maiden name. Born Sept. 20,1830 at Sheerness, Enlgand in 1853---age 23 was designer of various vessels for the British -- Until he denounced royalty in Dec. 1856.
One brother remained in England. In 1857 Sir Edward Wm James Reed went to America--arrived under the name of Wm James Reed--arrived at age 22 in Ste. Genevieve Mo, from New Orleans on the ship Defience owned by a cousin Ferdine Rozier, a fur trader. After refusal entry at New York because on trip over ALL indentification of Royal connections were thrown overboard---
upon arrival in Ste. Genevieve, the Old Town---he was taken in by a Catholic priest. (on record at church). He later married Ann Francis Glanville in 1858 at Valle Mines, Mo. Set up business, as carriage maker in Valle Mine. Then, expanded to the west side of Joachim Creek or river and built wagons (Later built home on a Spanish Land Grant 640 acres Twp 35, Range 2E, 3 miles east of De Soto--a native stone---to him were born 9 children)

As I have said before, I think there is some truth here. For example, I think he probably threw overboard papers with his true identity which is why he was denied entry in New York. There are so many elements that are not even correct historically speaking---I don't think he was born when Spanish Land Grants were handed out for example (Missouri was a state in 1823 before he was born). But, he did build a beautiful stone house in that location. Click here for photos of the house. I wanted to publish this because I think this does settle what his name originally was.


The other half of the paper has information on the Glanville Family---it looks like it was just taken from a book. Our Glanville Family was from Cornwall and they appeared to be miners living in the same area of England (Camborne, Cornwall) for several hundred years (I've seen parish records going back to 1587) before immigrating to the United States between 1841 and 1845. So, I'm not sure that these items are about anyone we are related to.