“Ralph de Anesty” in the Bodleian Library, Oxford University

In the ‘Dodsworth Manuscripts’ Volume Four on page 21 there is drawn a pedigree of the sub-branch of the medieval Ansteys descendent from Richard de Anstey. The pedigree was drawn by Roger Dodsworth in the early 1600s and, although we have not yet been able to access the volume or the page itself (it is not currently online), we know that the pedigree contains an entry for “Ralph de Anesty”, in addition to Richard, Hubert (II) and Nicholas, who we know well belong to that sub-branch.

Since the third edition of our first book ‘ANSTEY: Our True Surname Origin and Shared Medieval Ancestry‘ we have made great advances in our understanding of where and how Ralph de Anstey fits into the early medieval Anstey pedigree. He was connected to Battle Abbey in the early 1200s and he actually belongs to the sub-branch of John de Anstey, but there may well be additional information written on the pedigree by Roger Dodsworth of which we are not currently aware, which we could then include in the fourth edition of ‘ANSTEY: Our True Surname Origin and Shared Medieval Ancestry‘, research for which is currently ongoing.

To the best of our knowledge, the ‘Dodsworth Manuscripts’ are held at the Bodleian Library, Oxford University and they are only accessible to a select few (presumably history undergraduates/graduates/alumni and such like). If you are one of said ‘select few’, we would very much appreciate if you could send a photo of the pedigree on page 21 of Volume Four to gary@theansteystory.com.

Gary