Holbrook Line: Anne Lovelace, "gateway" immigrant and heroine

Gateway immigrants are precious jewels in the world of genealogy.  These are people who immigrated to America before the year 1700 and have proven ancestors back to one or another line of royalty.  Anne Lovelace Gorsuch fits this definition.  We have to go back 11 generations to get to Anne, born about 1610, and then another 15 generations to get to royalty through at least one of her lines, but there he is, King Edward I, married to Eleanor of Castile, who was the daughter of King Ferdinand III of Castile, and through those two gentlemen there is royalty all the way back to Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, and most of the other royal lines of Europe.  So, we now have reason to be termed "royal pains", I guess.

Anne Lovelace has always fascinated me.  Her brother was a famous poet, some were governors here in the colonies,  her parents were important people ("Sir William"), and she married an educated minister, John Gorsuch.  Her parents were William Lovelace, who was a member of the Virginia Company that founded the Jamestown colony, and Anne Barne, who was also of a famous family. She was the granddaughter of the Archbishop of York. Reverend  John Gorsuch was a Royalist, and during the English Civil War, in 1647, he was killed by opponents.  His name is still listed in the English Book of Common Prayers, as being a martyr. 

At that time, Anne was the mother of as many as 11 children.With her husband gone and extremely difficult and uncertain times in England, she came to America with three of her children about 1650, and four more followed shortly.  Anne died in 1652 in Lancaster County, Virginia, so she did not enjoy life in America for long.  It was difficult to leave England during this time period (Civil War still in progress), so she must have had some help in making her escape, if that is what it was. I sometimes think about what she must have gone through, in making the decision to leave, in taking only part of her family with her, and in starting life anew in America.  It surprises me that she didn't remarry, because widows typically remarried quickly, so she must have had steel in her backbone. 

There is an excellent article posted on line from the Carolina Journal, called "They Were Cavalier About It", by John Hood, and this is worth Googling if you're at all interested in this family. There is much more information available on the web, too, but this is a blog, not a book, so I've tried to keep it short.  

This is our line of descent:

John Gorsuch/Anne Lovelace
Charles Gorsuch/Sarah Cole
Charles Gorsuch/Sarah Cole  (it looks like they were first cousins)
Hannah Gorsuch/Thomas Stansbury
Rachel Stansbury/Alexis Lemmon
Sarah Lemmon/Abraham Hetrick
Isaac Hetrick Elizabeth Black
Mary Alice Hetrick/Louis E Stanard
Etta Stanard/Loren Holbrook (my grandparents)

Anne is one of my most interesting ancestors. I'd love to sit down to English tea with her, wouldn't you?