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mcc-jrr_511-019
Jordan - Lanier Cemetery, 51-1 Summary Report, page 19
dying on December 3, 1841, slightly less than a year after William's death on December 26, 1840. However, her tombstone gives the death date as December 31, 1841. Nancy / Ann was born in 1789 in NC. She was reported in the 1902 family paper as being buried beside her husband in the Lanier family cemetery, and her tombstone is there today, with the name as “Ann” rather than “Nancy”. William Lanier's ancestry is documented in several publications back to the 16th century in Rouen, France. The family name is spelled variously as Lanye, Lanares, Lanyer, Lanier, and Lenoir. They moved from France to England beginning in the mid-1500s. According to one source, William Lanier's father was Thomas, whose father was Burwell. Burwell married Elizabeth Hill, daughter of William and Catherine Hill, who lived in Brunswick Co., VA, and later in Duplin Co., NC, where Burwell and Elizabeth Lanier moved in 1772. Burwell was a Revolutionary Patriot, as he “testified against a preacher who was inciting the people not to fight.” [According to page 205 of the book “LANIER: A Genealogy of the family who came to Virginia and their French ancestors in London” by Louise Ingersoll, 1965; available at the Heritage Room of the Huntsville - Madison County Public Library, call number H 929.2 ING.] Burwell's father was Sampson Lanier, Jr., born about 1712. He married Elizabeth Chamberlain around 1742 and had 8 children. Sampson Lanier, Sr., was born in 1682 and married Elizabeth Washington. Elizabeth was reported to be the daughter of Richard Washington and his wife Elizabeth Jordan on page 345 of selected pages from a book with the title MY SOUTHERN FAMILIES at the top of each page. This title may be a chapter title, rather than the book title, but without more of the book, the precise title and author are uncertain. The 1902 Lanier family manuscript draws upon another (older) source that gives the father of Elizabeth Washington as “John Washington, paternal great grandfather of General George Washington”. John Washington's wife (and the mother of Elizabeth) was Annie Pope, who was part of the Pope family (with known Washington, Custis, and Dandridge family connections) that in later generations came to Madison County, where LeRoy Pope became the “Father of Huntsville”. [The Pope, Dandridge, Custis, Washington, and Lanier families of Virginia apparently all had an early influence on the growth of Madison County and Huntsville.] This same 1902 Lanier family manuscript gives the father of the Rev. William Lanier as Burwell Lanier, son of Sampson Lanier and Elizabeth 19 - (2038)