I have been busy researching more into this family and have found a link to the Knight Templar’s. Now at first I thought no no no… This just can’t be right. Also I found a site that showed Knights tombs that a chap had put up on the internet and sure enough the writings I found did say about this knight and his wife and where he lived. On the internet there is an awful lot of different research to be found.
Working so far back in history I have to be-careful what I read and how I use it, because so much is not confirmed. However, when you start to read writings that have been translated, and start to understand how it all works the you can start to put the puzzle together.
We all know that the Waller family worldwide is linked back together to one family. We also know that make changes happened. I must add that in saying this families in the olden days had NO second name as some people believe. They were taken from Villages or towns from where they lived. It is only in the Norman times that this started to change.
Interestingly, the De Valers, lived in a village that was a Valley… hence the name DeValer ‘ of the Valley’. I can here people saying ok then why so many different variations in the spelling? Well this is quite easily answered as not many people wrote in those days. Basically through research I find that the Monks, Priest’s etc were the only ones that could wrote or tried to write. This in turn changed over time as Royalty and Hierarchy also learned to write, but the normal everyday person was very limited. Also these people ALL wrote differently. So spelling mistakes were very common and hence the different variations. De Valer was also spelled, de Valeur, De Vallier, De Viler. Now De Viler was also used in another family the De Villiers. So Careful tracking has to be used to make sure it is the correct family.
In the Battle Abbey Roll http://archive.org/stream/battleabbeyrollw03battuoft#page/238/mode/2up On Page 238 we will find the following:
‘Michael De Valer, Nicholas De Valer and Ralph Waler. – Nicholas De Valer was granted land at Down-Amney in 1271 by Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster. ‘
After researching the place and the name I turned up all of this:-
http://www.britainexpress.com/counties/glouces/churches/Down-Ampney.htm
This tells us that this person did exist and had a wife and was a Knight.
Here is a link the Website of ; The Medieval Combat Society’ and a whole lot of photographs that have been taken of knights and Nicholas De Valer is in there plus many many others.
http://www.themcs.org/armour/14th%20century%20armour.htm
In the Ancestry line there are generations missing. Is this the link to that? Are these the Missing De Valers? Or are the names written differently else where?
Waller & De Valer Family History 