“Float like a butterfly! Sting like a bee!”
Perhaps the Queen should knight Ali, she knighting Cooper after he lost to Mohammed? They may be kindred.
“They migrated from London, where an ancestor had served as a musician in the court of Queen Elizabeth I
Jon Presco
LONDON – Henry Cooper, best remembered for knocking down Muhammad Ali in a 1963 fight, was knighted Tuesday by Queen Elizabeth II, the first boxer to achieve that honor.
In a traditional ceremony at Buckingham Palace, the queen, wielding her royal sword, tapped the kneeling 65-year-old Cooper on his left and right shoulders and then draped a medal around his neck.
“The old heart starts thumping and the adrenaline gets going,” said Cooper, who eventually lost to Ali on a fifth-round TKO. “It’s marvelous and I’d like to thank everyone concerned. I’ve been to the palace on several occasions but this is special.”
“People always say the highlight was the Ali knockdown, but for me that was still a losing fight,” said Cooper, who held the British, Commonwealth and European heavyweight titles.
Cooper retired in 1971 and has been recognized since for his charity work.
Peerage
Sarah Smith was born on 1 January 1660/61.1 She was the daughter of Colonel Lawrence Smith and Mary Debnam.1 She was baptised on 8 January 1660/61 at Hull Parish, Hull, Yorkshire, England.1 She married Colonel John Taliaferro in 1682.1 She died in 1720 at Westmoreland, Virginia, U.S.A..1
Clay was born in Jefferson County, Kentucky, the son of Herman H. Clay (March, 1876 – February 1, 1954) and Edith E. Greathouse (December, 1890 – December 30, 1971[4]). He had a sister and four brothers, including Nathaniel Clay.[5][6] His paternal grandparents were John Clay and Sallie Anne Clay. Cassius Clay, Sr., probably had English ancestry because, according to the Clay ancestry, Muhammad Ali’s 9th great-grandfather,
was born in London, England. Taliaferro emigrated to the United States in the 17th century.
Clay, Sr., painted billboards and signs.[7] He also played the piano. He was always interested in music, received piano lessons, and wrote music. He was named after the 19th-century abolitionist and Republican politician Cassius Marcellus Clay, and his ancestors worked as slaves on the Clay plantation.[7] Around 1933 he married Odessa Grady.[8]
Taliaferro ( /ˈtɒlɪvər/ TOL-i-vər), also spelled Talifero, Tolliver, or Toliver,[1] is a prominent family in the United States Commonwealth of Virginia. The Taliaferros (originally Tagliaferro, ironcutter in Italian) are one of the early families who settled in Virginia in the 17th century. They migrated from London, where an ancestor had served as a musician in the court of Queen Elizabeth I. The surname originates with a northern Italian immigrant who had moved to England.
A legend exists about the name having originated in Roman times in what was called Gaul, which leads many bearers of the name to believe that their ancestors were actually French, not Italian, since Gaul is generally known to be the ancient name for today’s France; however Gaul was a term applied to a very wide region that also comprised the whole of northern Italy called Cisalpine Gaul. Tagliaferro is a common surname in northeastern Italy, especially in the area around Venice.
Arms of Tagliaferro family of Tuscany. Sketch sent from Thomas Jefferson to George Wythe, 1786The origins of the Taliaferro name were of interest to George Wythe, Virginia colonial lawyer and classical scholar, who had married a Taliaferro. Wythe urged his former student and friend Thomas Jefferson to investigate the name when Jefferson traveled to Italy. Jefferson later reported to Wythe that he had found two families of the name in Tuscany, and that the family was of Italian origin.[2] Jefferson enclosed his sketch of the coat-of-arms of the Tagliaferro family as reported to him by a friend in Florence, Italy.[3]
Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., was born on January 17, 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky.[13] The younger of two boys, he was named after his father, Cassius Marcellus Clay, Sr., who was named after the 19th century abolitionist and politician of the same name. His father painted billboards and signs,[13] and his mother, Odessa O’Grady Clay, was a household domestic. Although Cassius Sr. was a Methodist, he allowed Odessa to bring up both Cassius and his elder brother Rudolph “Rudy” Clay (later renamed Rahman Ali) as Baptists.[14] He is a descendant of pre-Civil War era American slaves in the American South, and is predominantly of African-American descent, with some Irish and English ancestry.[15]
Clay was first directed toward boxing by the white Louisville police officer and boxing coach Joe E. Martin,[16] who encountered the 12-year-old fuming over a thief taking his bicycle.He told the officer he was going to “whup” the thief. The officer told him he better learn how to box first.[17] For the last four years of Clay’s amateur career he was trained by legendary boxing cutman Chuck Bodak.[18]
Sarah Smith was born on 1 January 1660/61.1 She was the daughter of Colonel Lawrence Smith and Mary Debnam.1 She was baptised on 8 January 1660/61 at Hull Parish, Hull, Yorkshire, England.1 She married Colonel John Taliaferro in 1682.1 She died in 1720 at Westmoreland, Virginia, U.S.A..1
Col. John “The Ranger” TALIAFERRO
1656 – 21 Jun 1720
ID Number: I10843
TITLE: Col.
OCCUPATION: Sheriff & House Of Burgess 1699-Essex Co. VA
RESIDENCE: Gloucester & Essex Cos. VA
BIRTH: 1656, Gloucester Co. VA
DEATH: 21 Jun 1720, Essex Co. VA
RESOURCES: See: [S324] [S494] [S511] [S539] [S551] [S597] [S613] [S1205]
Father: Robert TALIAFERRO I “the Immigrant”
Mother: Katherine DEBNAM
Family 1 : Sarah SMITH
MARRIAGE: 1682, VA
1. Catherine TALIAFERRO
2. +Lawrence C. TALIAFERRO
3. +Mary TALIAFERRO
4. +John S. TALIAFERRO
5. +Robert TALIAFERRO
6. +William TALIAFERRO
7. +Elizabeth TALIAFERRO
8. +Charles TALIAFERRO
9. Zachariah TALIAFERRO
10. +Richard TALIAFERRO
11. +Sarah TALIAFERRO
Notes
John’s will was proved 21 Jun 1720, in Essex Co., VA. He named most of his eleven children in his will, written in 1715 and of record in Essex Co. Will Book 3, pp 157-158.
“His will is dated 1 June 1715 in Essex Co., Va. It was proven 21 June 1720. Will Book 3, page 157. Information from an early researcher found in GS film #1316359, Item 6.
Notes from this film state: Nicklin’s article on the Taliaferro’s says this couple was the parents of John Taliaferro 1687-1744 who married Mary Catlett and of of Mary Taliaferro who married Francis Thornton 1683-1758.”
!Laquita Armstrong to Janet Weston on Fido 8/6/94: “On 28 Sept.1681
John Taliaferro was granted land from his brother Francis, John ‘then being about to marry Sarah daughter of Lawrence Smith.” …if she were b. 1631 … that would fit with Sarah being married in 1682 (making her birthdate ca. 1662)…”
Jul 1702, along with Francis Taliaferro, probably his uncle. John was listed as Sheriff, Essex Co., 1699 and a member of the House of Burgesses for Essex County 17 Apr 1699. He is also listed as Lieutenant, County Militia-Rangers, John is listed as a Justice of Essex Co., VA.
James City, 13 Jan 1692. In the Quit Rents of 1704, he is listed with 2,000 acres in Essex Co., VA. John was also known as, “The Ranger” by family and friends.
Son of ROBERT3 TALIAFERRO (FRANCIS 2, BARTOLOMEO 1)
“John Taliaferro, the Ranger, d 1719 married his cousin, Sarah Smith, daughter of Col. Lawrence Smith 1629-1700 and Mary Debnam.”
“Col. John-4 Taliaferro “The Ranger” was born before 1656 in Gloucester Co., VA. He died on 21 Jun 1720 in Essex Co., VA. He was married to Sarah Smith in 1682. Sarah Smith was born in 1661 in York Co., VA. She died in 1720 in Essex Co., VA. Col. John Taliaferro.”
“Major John Taliaferro. A Colonel in the Caroline Company of Rangers, Sherrif of Essex Co, VA. Served in the Virginia House og Burgesses in 1699.
His will is dated 1 June 1715 in Essex Co., Va. It was proven 21 June 1720.
Will Book 3, page 157. Information from an early researcher found in GS film #1316359, Item 6.
Notes from this film state: Nicklin’s article on the Taliaferro’s says this couple was the parents of John Taliaferro 1687-1744 who married Mary Catlett and of of Mary Taliaferro who married Francis Thornton 1683-1758. He was married to Sarah SMITH about 1682.”
Select Clay Ancestry
England. The Clay surname has been mainly evident in the Midlands and in Yorkshire. It was said first to have been found in the vicinity of Nottingham, the name bearer then living on clay land.
A John Claye of Derby was knighted by Edward IV at the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471. His descendant is thought to have been the Sir John Claye, the coal baron of Wales with his estates in Monmouth during the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
The place name of Clay Cross in NE Derbyshire may have been the root of the Clay family from North Wingfield which dates back to the early 1500’s. These Clays were later to be found at Shirland and at Hucknall across the border in Nottinghamshire. Another Clay family traces itself back to a Henry Clay, born in Wirksworth in 1672.
There were also early references in Yorkshire. Nicholas del Clay was the name that was recorded in the Yorkshire subsidy rolls of 1302 and there was a Clay family at Greetland near Halifax from late Elizabethan times. A Clay family from the Halifax area, blacksmiths in the 18th century, became well-to-do mill-owners in Ossett in the 19th. Their business, Edward Clay & Son, still flourishes. Yorkshire was accounting for more than 20 percent of the Clays in England by the time of the 1891 census.
America. John Clay, the English grenadier, arrived in Virginia in 1613 and his wife Ann followed ten years later. It is claimed by some that he came from the Welsh Monmouth family; but others believe that he was of English origin. He had at least three sons and from these sons came most of the Virginia Clays. It was said that the strong-willed Clays of colonial Virginia were prosperous yeomen farmers and church ministers of the upper middle class stratum of the time, but not of the ruling gentry.
These Clays were established in Kentucky by the 1790’s through General Green Clay and, famously, the American statesman Henry Clay. These Clays were divided by the slave issue, with some on the Union side during the Civil War, including (prominently) the emancipationist Cassius Marcellus Clay, and others on the Confederate side.
Henry Clay’s cousin was the Alabama Governor and Senator, Clement Comer Clay. A relative Nestor Clay was an early settler in Texas in the 1830’s; and another of these Clays, Charles Edward, was a pioneer in Wyoming territory in the 1860’s. The genealogy of this Clay family was first traced by Mary Rogers Clay in the Filson Club’s 1899 book The Clay Family.
There were also other early Clay lines in the South. Joseph Clay arrived in Georgia around 1760 and prospered as a merchant in Savannah in the late 18th century. Alexander Stephens Clay grew up in Georgia and became that state’s senator in the early 1900’s. His sixth son Lucius rose through the US Army ranks to become Eisenhower’s deputy and the military governor of the US Zone in Germany in the years after World War Two.
The emancipationist Cassius Marcellus Clay left two significant legacies:
•first his daughters – Laura, Mary, Annie and Sallie – who became early women’s rights activists
•and second his name, handed down to the boxer Cassius Clay who later derided it as his “slave name.”
Clay as an African American name cropped up noticeably in Alabama and Texas, as well as in Kentucky. One family traces their history back to Gurley in Alabama. The jazz band leader Sonny Clay was born in Chapel Hill, Texas. He moved at an early age to the West Coast. More recently there has been the athlete Bryan Clay, born in Austin, Texas of Afro-Asian origins.
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