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Monthly Archives: December 2007

The palace of Diego Gómez (2: Diego Gómez frieze)

[Part of a series of posts and pages dedicated to Sancha de Ayala] Here we continue to look at the palace of the parents of Sancha de Ayala, which has since become the Franciscan convent of Santa Isabel de los Reyes, Toledo. The convent’s ‘sala capitular’ (chapter, or meeting room) was once a formal room […]

The palace of Diego Gómez (1: Tomb of Fernán Gómez)

[Part of a series of posts and pages dedicated to Sancha de Ayala] The palace of Diego Gómez, one of the magnificent Mudejar-Gothic palaces in the old heart of the city of Toledo, long ago became the Franciscan convent of Santa Isabel de los Reyes; but it has only recently (2005) become a “convent-museum” with […]

Merovingians among us?

I recently noticed a fresh hereditary society here in the United States, whose membership requirement is proof of descent from Merovech, the legendary founder of the Frankish royal dynasty, who would have lived in the mid fifth century if he were real: the Order of the Merovingian Dynasty. The website states that it was “conceived […]

Inbreeding in Gloucester (Riggs & Haraden)

I’ve known for a long time about the many duplications in my grandfather’s Gloucester ancestry. With the forthcoming publication of an article on the probable English origins of Thomas Riggs of Gloucester (d. 1722), I looked back at my database and realized that in nine different lines my grandfather descends from five (!!!!!) of his […]