THE WARREN FAMILY FROM ENGLAND TO ALABAMA 1066-2011 A family history began in 1979 By James R. Warren PREFACE AS a guide to this history, the reader should be aware of the format in which it is written. Every attempt was made to make this a readable account of the WARREN FAMILY. We did not want it to be perceived as a simple listing of obscure people with names and dates attached. In that format, interest is soon lost, and the book is set aside. History is boring to most of us because we do not make the connection that we were there as a family helping make it. We want each person to be real to the reader. That is why as much available information for each person was included, and more is added as new facts are discovered. The first section THE WARREN FAMILY ORIGIN gives the beginnings and history of the first people to use the name Warren (or de Varenne in France). It is provided to us largely by REV. THOMAS WARREN F.R.S.A. of Ireland from his History of the Warren Family A.D. 912-1902. The first WARRENS in his book, in turn, were taken from the REV. JOHN WATSON'S Memoirs of the Ancient Earls of Warren and Surrey and their Descendants to the Present Time, Volume One & Two, 1782. This brings the Warren Family out of France (Normandy) to England, and establishes their kinship to the Kings of England. THE LINEAGE also is taken from the above two accounts along with the Warren line of descent from Notes on the Southerland Latham and Allied Families by Edward Kinsey Voorhees, Atlanta, Georgia, Nineteen thirty one (For private Distribution) Microfilm No. 0875383 Salt Lake City, Utah. This traces the Warren Family through the Kings of France and England to America. OUR WARREN ANCESTORS IN ENGLAND starts with the first Earl of Warren and takes us through Edward Warren, Esq. called "Stag Warren", and is also provided by the above references. THE WARREN FAMILY FROM ENGLAND TO ALABAMA begins with our first ancestor in America. He was Humphrey Warren, and it should be noted he was here one hundred years before the American Revolution and only 30 odd years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620. From here we proceed down to each of us in this Warren Family, which extends over 30 generations. We have used the direct line of male descent to reach the author, and then added my grandfather’s brothers and sisters It is my hope each of you can easily find your own unique place in this history. May you find personal satisfaction in knowing who you are and from where you came. That you can stand today and feel yesterday looking over your shoulder and receive a moment of true bonding with the past. It will come unbidden, flower in a heartbeat, and be gone almost before it can be savored. But the afterglow remains and the feeling of it is etched forever…an instant of full communion with those who lived the period…the past will be around you, and in you, and you will know. Introductory Letter 10/22/93 The following pages were started in 1979, and have continually expanded each year since then. Uncle Leon Warren and Aunt Olema Chameless Warren copied from several family Bibles the birth, marriage, and death records of George Washington Warren and his children. These three pages gave us a starting place to begin what I hope is the continuing history of our Warren and related families. Thanks to Leon's memory of the oral family history, we had a starting point in DeKalb County, Alabama. The Birmingham Public Library was the first place I searched where I found George in the 1850 census of DeKalb County. He was three years old living in the Robert Joe and Mary Adams Warren family household. Next door was the Notley M. Warren family, who later proved to be Robert's father. In 1980, I placed a query in The Genealogical Helper Vol. 34 / No. 2 March-April 1980 page 51 and was answered by Audrey Warren from Pontotoc, Mississippi. She had a will of a Tennessee Revolutionary War soldier, Robert Warren, naming our Notley and eighteen of his brothers and sisters. Also she had a Chapter 14 of The Southerland, Latham and Allied Families by E.K. Voorhees, 1931, which traced the Warren family into Maryland and further back to England. I spent the next few years validating this information and made contacts with family members and others from Canada, Oregon, California, Texas, and from Florida to Maine. I visited courthouses in Tennessee and Alabama to locate probate, marriage, and will records, and visited cemeteries that seemed to lure me to their sites; as if their occupants were eager to be rediscovered. I walked straight to their markers like one being led there for an old reunion. I also received many letters from friends and relatives answering questions, sending photos, and relating family information that found its place in this endeavor. There is one observation I have made through the years of research. Everyone in the family is not as interested in family history as I am! I suspect those of you who continue this work will find the same to be true in the future. To me, it is akin to a knot being untied, or a puzzle to solve while time passes -- taking with it the lives of those who may possess the memories and answers about our family’s history. For the answers we have found, I am most grateful to those of you who have indulged me in my task of grafting the limbs back on the Warren Family Tree. I sincerely thank all who helped, and I leave everyone with one charge: find more limbs, branches or leaves and add to our Warren Family Tree. James Ronald Warren 532 Edgeknoll Drive Birmingham, Alabama 35209 (205) 942-5454 THE WARREN FAMILY ORIGIN The name Warren is derived from Garenne or de Varenne, a small river in the old country of Calais or Caux, in Normandy, France which gave its name to the neighboring commune, and is only a few miles from Dieppe. There is at present a village called Garenne (now Bellencombre) in the same district, and it is here we place the cradle of this ancient family. On the West Side of the river de Varenne, on a small eminence, was built the Castle of Bellencombre, which was the ancient baronial seat of the de Warennes. In the early part of last 19 century a bronze wavern of 13th-century date, the badge or crest of the Warren family was found among the rubble of the castle as the flints and dressed stones were being quarried for the general construction in the village. Many of the older homes, flint walls and some of the church can still be recognized as being from the ruins of this castle. In 1832 a written description On The Castle Of Bellencombre The Original Seat Of The De Warennes In Normandy was written by Mr. M. A. Lower and several drawings made of the remains, part of which is in a booklet that can be purchase from the marie (court house) in Bellencombre. All that is left of the castle in September 2006 are five standing wall sections and a memorial shrine arranged on top of the old castle mount overlooking Bellencombre. The lordship of Garenne belonged to the noble family of St. Martin. Camden says, "Mortimer and Warren are accounted names of great antiquity, yet the father of them (for they were brethren) who first bore those names was Walterus de Sancto Martino." The property having become vested in William, one of these brothers, he was henceforth distinguished by the title Count de Garenne, or de Warenne, which became the surname of the family. The name has assumed different forms from time to time-such as Gareyn, Wareyn, Waryn, Warin, Warynge, Waryng, and Warren. In Ireland there has been much confusion between the names Waring and Warren; but as the former was first established in County Antrim in the reign of James I., all previous references in the records of Ireland to the names Warynge, Waryn, etc., must be taken as solely applicable to Warren. In fact we find the Warrens of Navan, County Meath, at the end of the 16th century denominated Warynge or Warren. The only exception to this is name of Fulk Fitz-Gwarine or Warine, who was sent to Ireland by King John on an important mission, but does not seem to have remained there long. He was grandson of the famous Lorrainer Gwarine de Metz, who fought for and won Mellet, the daughter of Sir Wm. Peveril, and received as her dower the old Norman castle of Whittington, in Shropshire, which still stands in its grim grandeur. There are some notices of the Fitz-Warines in Ireland, but they do not seem to have made a permanent settlement in the country. Can you imagine how much it took to heat large castle rooms? This painting is actually the depiction of William son of the Fifth Earl Warren described from page 302 Vol. 1 Ancient Earls of Warren as follows: William died in his father's lifetime, for being at a tournament at Croydon in Surrey, he unfortunately lost his life there. Stowe,* sais he was by the challenger intercepted, and cruelly slain. His death happened Dec. 15th, 1286, and he was buried before the high altar at Lewes.