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Pearsall Surname Project
Number of Pearsalls By Location
Maps by Family
Surname
History and Genealogy
of the Pearsall Family in England
and America:
Volume I
Front Cover
Inside Front Cover
The Motive
Thanks
Illustrations
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Appendix I
Volume II
Volume III
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CHAPTER TEN
ROBERT
FITZ GILBERT DE CORBEIL
Eighteenth
in Ancestry
Section 1, Family of
Robert Fitz Gilbert de Corbeil-Section 2,
Robert de Stafford-Section 3, History.
SECTION
1.
*18.
ROBERT FITZ GILBERT DE CORBEIL, son of Gilbert de Corbeil,
Chapter 9, Section 1, and his wife Isabella Lupus, daughter of Richard de
Goz and his wife Emma, half-sister to the
Conqueror. Married . Child
1.
*17. ROBERT DE PESHALE DE LUMLEY, Chapter 11, Section 1.
In
the Dictionary of Family Names of the United Kingdom, by Mark Anthony,
M.A., F.S.A., it appears that Pearsall is an estate in Co. Stafford, now
written Pearshall or Pershall.
The family is of Norman origin, having been founded at the place referred
to by Robert a follower of Robert of Stafford, early in the reign of the
Conqueror. He was son of Gilbert, son of a Count of Corbeil
in Normandy.
Robert
Fitz Gilbert de Corbeil was the first of our
ancestors who owned the Manor of Peshale. He
married into one of the families who formed the colony of emigrants from
Northumberland and who settled near Stone Priory in Stafford-shire. At
this time Staffordshire was almost an unbroken forest with only here and
there clearings which had been made by the English prior to the Conquest.
Among these clear and cultivated spots in the forest was that of Peshale, which had been forfeited from its English
owner and which was now included in the holdings of Robert de Toesni, de Stafford. The deed of confirmation
discloses that his manor was purchased by Gilbert de Corbeil
for his son Robert Fitz Gilbert de Corbeil.
Thither the young man journeyed with his bride to begin life in a country
as undeveloped as was the great forest of New York
and Pennsylvania
at the close of the Revolutionary War. It is known in English History as
a wilderness, and the whole country teemed with wild life from the great
wild ox of Brittany
and the terrible forest wolf to the smallest varmint, and there was game
in abundance of all kinds for food for the successful hunter. Instead of
the Indians of the American forest, there was the Welsh-man, who although
a white man of good ancestry, had been forced to become a lurking savage.
Therefore life was filled with continued and bloody encounters between
the newcomers and the Cymry, the latter being a
foeman much more formidable than the Indian ever was. Robert Fitz Gilbert
de Corbeil was a soldier and held his land of Robert de Stafford by military
service, particularly as to the wars against the Welsh, so that his time
was largely occupied by attendance with de Stafford in active warfare.
This was the frontier of the English kingdom and as there was much
fighting and playing at war, there was but little time to make
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