Golding/Golden/Goulding Family History on Facebook
Updated 2015.10.06
A number of Golding genealogies include (Sir) Nicholas Golding in the line of the Glemsford Goldings. His father was supposedly John Golding b.1350 at Glemsford, Suffolk, England. There is plenty of evidence for John Golding being at Glemsford (the 1327 Gleanings Report; 1350’s John, son of Simon c.1330, son of John, c.1280) but no mention of Nicolas … and there is no known declaration of his family members.
Glemsford was not then, and is not now, so large that anyone named Golding should not be related.
>>> Anyone male Golding of this line up for a YDNA test? I will pay for a 12 marker test. There are two North American Goldings that can claim descendency from Percival Golding, son of Arthur Golding. Their YDNA is very similar, and both are unique. There is however no known English Golding of the Glemsford line that has taken a YDNA test. For more info, contact me: Bill Golden, Norfolk1956@gmail.com
Truth is that I can find no historical record of Nicholas Golding anywhere. Yet Nicholas’ existence is referenced in numerous unsourced entries within various genealogies — with the additional claim that the English-fathered Nicholas Golding was born in Estonia. Of course, if Nicholas was born in Estonia then his father John Golding must have been in Estonia … which was not exactly the resort district of its day.
What business would an Englishman have in Estonia in the mid-1300s?
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A CONJECTURE
There is a very interesting hypothetical explanation: WHAT IF Nicholas’ father John Golding was a knight of The Hospitallers of St Thomas of Canterbury at Acre, usually called the Knights of St Thomas.
What if?
Knights of St Thomas was a Christian military order of the Catholic Church. Membership was restricted to Englishmen.
Their order was established during the Third Crusade in 1191 for the defense of Acre in the Holy Land.
In 1236 the Knights of Saint Thomas adopted the rules of the Teutonic Order (essentially merging but maintaining a separate identity). Some Knights of St Thomas are believed to have fought alongside Teutonic Knights in 1241 at the Battle of Legnica against the Mongols. Legnica is not so far from Estonia, in what was once Prussian Silesia and now modern Poland.
Almost 120 years after 1236 the Teutonic Knights were again on a crusade: to convert the pagan Baltic region to Christianity. That included Estonia. In 1346, what is now Christian Denmark — which had continuing strong ties to England — sold its territory in the north of Estonia to the Teutonic Knights. This causes the whole Baltic region to become loosely ruled by the Teutonic Knights. Did the Knights of St Thomas, allied with the Teutonic Knights, play any role in Christianizing the Baltic?
About the time of Nicholas Golding’s birth (c.1370), the military arm of the Knights of Saint Thomas dissolves. During the 1370s the order moved its headquarters to its London house at the site of what is now Mercers Hall – a house which was the birthplace of Thomas Becket. The Knights of St Thomas survived as a hospital order until it was dissolved along with other orders in 1540 under King Henry the VIII.
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Again, I can find no evidence of Nicholas Golding’s existence outside of references within genealogies that he is the father of Sir (Robert) William Golding, my 12th great grandfather. Sir (Robert) William is the first great grandfather for whom I have an unbroken line of descent; William is my known documentable forefather although some genealogies refer to Nicholas’ son as Robert — with Robert having the same birth and death dates as Sir William.
A secondary mystery is that I have yet to discover by what means Goldings became knights. It would seem that Goldings are of Anglo-Saxon descent, with occasionally strong, forceful introductions of Danish blood into the family tree. The ‘-ing’ within the family name is of Danish origin. Soon after the Norman conquest the Goldings enter the history books under the Golding name in 1202 — William Golding was a witness in the “Assize Court Rolls of Lincolnshire”, during the reign of King John, 1199–1216. The relationships of various Goldings is all a bit hazy until about 1390 with the birth of Sir (Robert) William, fathered by the supposedly Estonian-born Englishman Sir Nicholas Golding.