Frances Greville

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Bef 1635

Notes:

An unnamed writer on her WikiTree page notes the various theories that have been ventured about her origins.

She could not have been the Frances Greville who was daughter of Giles Greville of Lymington (who appears in the 1623 visitation of Gloucestershire), because that Francis married (1) Giles Backhouse in Charlton Kings, Gloucestershire in 1636, and (2) Walter Currier in the same place in 1654.

She was also not the daughter of Edward Greville of Nazing, Essex and his wife Jane Grey. Edward was a brother of Fulk Greville (1535-1606), who was in some way related to the wife of William Tracy, with which couple Frances Greville arrived in Virginia in 1620 on the Supply. (John Frederick Dorman, citation details below, says that Fulke Greville was an uncle of William Tracy's wife.) But the Frances Grevelle who was born to Edward Greville and Jane Grey, born in 1578, married John Chamberlain.

The Wikitree writer concludes: "Another possibility for Frances's parents is the spendthrift and ultimately destitute Sir Edward Greville of Milcote and wife Joan Bromley (married 1583). This Edward Greville, second cousin and neighbor of the above-mentioned Fulk Greville, had seven daughters, three of whom never married (presumably for lack of dowries). (The names of his seven daughters are given in this old Greville genealogy. Could there have been an eighth daughter Frances who escaped a life of impoverished spinsterhood by accompanying her kinswoman, Mary (Conway) Tracy (sister-in-law of Eleanor (Greville) Conway, daughter and sister of Fulk Greville, Sr. and Jr. to Virginia?"

Frances married Nathaniel West in 1621 in Virginia. Nathaniel (son of Thomas West and Anne Knolles) was born on 30 Nov 1592; died before Feb 1624 in Virginia. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Frances married Abraham Peirsey between 1625 and 1626. Abraham was born in of Maidstone, Kent, England; died about 16 Jan 1628 in Peirsey's Hundred, south side of the James River, Virginia. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Frances married Samuel Mathews after 24 Mar 1628. Samuel died before Mar 1658 in London, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Francis Mathews was born between 24 Mar 1628 and 1634; died before 16 Feb 1675 in York County, Virginia.
2. Samuel Mathews, Governor of Virginia was born about 1629; died in Jan 1660 in Virginia.