HISTORY OF THE LEAGANS FAMILY
IN ENGLAND
The history of the Leagans family begins at our ancestral home in England--Madresfield Court.
Madresfield Court is located next to the village of Madresfield, in Worcestershire (about 100 miles west of London). It is the ancestral home of the Lygon family (spelled Ligon in America), who became Earls Beauchamp {1} (pronounced “Beecham”){2}, who are the ancestors of the De Bracys. This manor has been in continuous possession of the descendants of its first owners, the De Bracys, from near Domesday (1086) down to the present time. The Ligon (Lygon) family came from Normandy to England with William the Conqueror, (1066). The Lygons go back to the time of the Norman Conquest, and when Madresfield was possessed by the De Bracys. Madresfield Court passed to the Lygon family from the De Bracy family when Joan, only daughter of William and Isabel Bracy, married Thomas Lygon before 1423. They had two sons, William and Thomas Lygon. In 1450, Isabel Bracy made a demise to her grandson William Lygon the manor of Madresfield. The earliest patriarch of the family was George Lygon and is first of the family in the pedigree given by the Lygons to the Heralds. George Lygon was succeeded by his son William Lygon (1342), who was succeeded by his son Richard Lygon. Richard is the first mentioned Lygon in Madresfield Muniments around 1400. Richard Lygon was succeeded by his son Thomas Lygon whose first mention is in 1414 and 1416, when he is commissioner of the King (Henry VI) for Worcester. This is the earliest know history of the Leagans family.
IN AMERICA
The patriarch of the family in America was Colonel Thomas Ligon. Colonel Thomas Ligon, of Madresfield, Worcestershire, England, born 1586, was the founder of the Ligon family in the New World, accepted his portion of his father’s estate in England, and came to Jamestown, Virginia, in 1641, with is near kinsman, Sir William Berkeley, Royal Governor of Virginia. In the various records of the counties of Virginia, in reference to Colonel Thomas Ligon and his descendants, the name Ligon is spelled Lygon, Lyggon, Liggon, Liggan, Liggin, Ligon, and Leagan. Colonel Thomas Ligon became established in Henrico County Virginia. He married Mary Harris, 1648-1650. The sons of Colonel Ligon emigrated to the west, south, and southwest frontiers of Virginia and were among the founders of the region now comprising the counties of Prince George, Chesterfield, Powhatan, Amelia, Goochland, Nottoway, Luneburg, Brunswick, Cumberland, Prince Edward, Charlotte, Mecklenburg, and Halifax, or what is romantically called “South Side” Virginia. Owing to the destruction of the records in Henrico County prior to 1677, the tracing of the life of Colonel Thomas Ligon (Lygon), the founder of the family in Virginia, is necessarily limited to such compass as the existing records will allow. It has been fully established, however, that members of the family who can authoritatively trace their line of descent to a Ligon ancestor in Virginia, prior to the year 1800, is without question a descendant of the founder. Our Leagans line traces it ancestry back to James Ligon, Sr. who was born about 1775. He was the son of John (Ligon) Leagan and Annisand. The earliest surviving records show James Ligon (Leagan) Sr, was married in Mecklenburg, Virginia, on November 14, 1798 to Anne Gregory. They had six children, Etha (1805), James T. Leagans, Jr (1812), Hugh Leagans (1820), Ananias Leagan (1820), Sousannah G. Leagan, and Tabitha C.S. Leagan. We are the descendants of Ananias Leagan who was born in Surry County, North Carolina on December 21, 1820. He died in Yadkinville, Yadkin County, North Carolina, on May 31, 1901. He was married to Elizabeth E. Forester.
Source: “The Ligon Family and Connections” Vol. I & II by William D. Ligon, Jr.
Research Conducted by Jack, Bill & Bryan Leagans
{1} The title Earl Beauchamp (pronounced "Beecham") was created in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1815 for the 1st Baron Beauchamp, along with the subsidiary title Viscount Elmley, in the County of Worcester. The 1st Earl had been created Baron Beauchamp, of Powyke in the County of Worcester, in 1806. All three peerages became extinct upon the death of the 8th Earl in 1979. The Earls Beauchamp were descended in the female line from the Barons Beauchamp of the fifth creation ("of Powyke"), and through them from the early Earls of Warwick. The family surname was pronounced "Liggon".
{2}William Lygon, 1st Earl Beauchamp (1747–1816), William Beauchamp Lygon, 2nd Earl Beauchamp (1782–1823), John Reginald Lygon, later Pyndar, 3rd Earl Beauchamp (1784–1853), Henry Beauchamp Lygon, 4th Earl Beauchamp (1784–1863), Henry Lygon, 5th Earl Beauchamp (1829–1866), Frederick Lygon, 6th Earl Beauchamp (1830–1891), William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp (1872–1938), William Lygon, 8th Earl Beauchamp (1903–1979)