Birthright: The True Story That Inspired Kidnapped

PromQuincenera Info: New York Fashion Tips

Get PhotoVideoDaily Fashion Show, Prom & Quincenera Couture, Eureopean Fashion Styles

PromQuinceanera Dresses Shops

La Petite Coquette Wedding Boutique

---

Virginia Tech Professor of History A. Roger Ekirch did a good job telling this moving story. He used his research conducted in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States, especially Delaware where Annesley or "Jemmy" served as an indentured servant.





Born in Dublin in 1715, Annesley, or 'Jemmy', was the presumptive heir of five aristocratic titles. At the age of eight he was turned out of house and home by his bullying father, Baron Altham, probably at the instigation of the latter's mistress. Though he managed to keep in touch with his family after a fashion, he had little option but to look for work running errands or as a shoeboy, sleeping in doorways or beneath market stalls in the streets, until he was taken in by a kindly butcher and his family. His 'uncle Dick' eventually traced him and kept a distant but unsympathetic eye on him. When the lad heard about his father's funeral in 1727 he made his way to the ceremony and attended, though only as a spectator, and reviled by his uncle as nothing better than an impostor and a vagabond.

Five months later the same uncle had the moment he had been waiting for. He saw the boy visiting a market, had him abducted by accomplices, and sent by ship to the United States as an indentured servant in Delaware. As heir to one of the greatest family fortunes in Ireland, Richard Annesley had every reason for wanting him out of the way, so he could seize his nephew's lands and inheritance.

After thirteen years of virtual slavery he escaped, returned home and took steps to reclaim what was rightfully his. His uncle had already become (or one might say made himself) Earl of Anglesea, and the stage was set for a lengthy battle through the courts. The impostor Earl had a few more dirty tricks in his armoury, and the plaintiff was involved in at least one accident which may have been a deliberate murder attempt. It was also asserted that he was illegitimate, the son of a wet-nurse employed by the family.