Tu ne cede malis
Every English Damery, Damory and Amery the records actually name, drawn as one tree, with the joins shown as what they are.
Four separate pedigrees, three broken links, one ghost, and one false branch that was manufactured to order. Compiled August 2026 from the printed record. Each pedigree stands on its own evidence; the joins between them are graded, never assumed.
primary record
strong inference
placement unproven
shown to be another family
The grade marks the strength of a link, not whether the person existed. ✗ extends the site's three grades for claims that have been actively refuted.
Pedigree one · Oxfordshire · c.1138 – 1381
The only medieval English Damery family with a continuous documented descent. It begins as a knightly sub-tenant of the d'Oilly honour and ends, twice over, in daughters.
Robert d'Amaury
fl. c.1138 · grant to Godstow Nunnery
The Complete Peerage's terminus. No father, no place, no wife recorded. Nothing above this man exists in the peerage record.
Robert d'Amaury = Joan
d. 1236
Roger d'Amaury
living 27 May 1281
Sir Robert Damory of Bucknell
living 12 July 1285 · d. before Kirkby's Inquest
Held Bucknell and Woodperry (Oxon), Thornborough (Bucks), Ubley (Som). No inquisition post mortem survives - so no document ever enumerated his children. That gap is the one real opening in this pedigree, and it is where a phantom was later inserted.
Sir Richard Damory, 1st Lord = Margaret
d. 21 Aug 1330 · she d. 28 Mar 1354
Sheriff of Oxfordshire & Berkshire 1308–10; Constable of Oxford Castle 1311–21; Forester of Whittlewood for life from 1309, Keeper of Salcey 1325; Steward of the King's Household 1322–25. This is the Richard-and-Margaret of the pedigree literature.
Sir Richard Damory, 2nd Lord
b. 1315/6 · d.s.p. 29 March 1375
In the King's own division at Crécy; at the siege of Calais. Sold or enfeoffed away almost everything - Woodperry and Headington to Sir John Chandos, 1358–60. Complete Peerage: "He d. s.p., 29 Mar. 1375. His heirs are unknown."
✕ Line ends - no issue
John Damory
named in the entail of 10 June 1347
No children. The 1347 remainder ladder runs "rem. to John his br., rem. to Joan his sister and the heirs male of her body, rem. to his own right heirs" - when the family's lawyers listed every Damory male who might inherit, they could name one.
Joan Damory
named in the 1347 entail
Sir Roger Damory, Lord of Bletchingdon
d. 13/14 March 1321/2 at Tutbury
Favourite of Edward II. Baron of Bletchingdon, Holton, Sandal and Vauxhall; Lord of Knaresborough and Usk; Constable of Knaresborough, Corfe and St Briavels; Keeper of the Forests of Dean and Purbeck. Turned against the Despensers with Thomas of Lancaster; fought at Burton Bridge, was taken sick or wounded at Tutbury, tried and condemned for treason - and respited, because "the King had loved him and he had married the King's niece." Buried St Mary's, Ware.
Arms: barry undy of six argent and gules, a bend azure. The bend is his cadency mark as the younger brother - and it is the coat every later claimant differences.
Elizabeth Damory = John Bardolf, 3rd Lord Bardolf
b. bef. 23 May 1318 · m. bef. 25 Dec 1327 · d. bef. July 1363
By Elizabeth de Clare, granddaughter of Edward I. The 1360 inquisition names her "propinquior heres predicti Rogeri" - nearest heir of the said Roger.
✕ Only surviving child - a daughter
Margaret Damory
living 1329 · d. before Aug 1337
Katherine Damory = Sir Walter Poure of Oddington
Sister of Sir Richard the elder. Her grandson Hugh Poure is "of Bletchingdon" by 1376 - the only manor that may have passed by blood, and it passed through a woman.
✕ "Nicholas Damory"
does not exist
A transcription error, and the document has now been read. Dugdale (1676) cited Cart. 6 E. 2. n. 65 for a Nicholas Damory holding Bucknell, Bletchingdon and Thornborough. That entry is printed in the Calendar of the Charter Rolls III, p. 194: "Grant to Richard Damory… of free warren in all their demesne lands in Bokenhull and Blechesdon, co. Oxford, and Thornebergh, co. Buckingham." Same manors, same order, same regnal year, same entry number - and the name on the Roll is Richard. See below for what was built on it.
Sir Nicholas Dammory = (1) Alianore, widow of Sir Alan la Zouche (2) Joanreal, but not a brother
King's scholar, Cambridge, 14 April 1318 · d. 1381, Depden, Suffolk
The one genuine medieval Nicholas - and he cannot be a son of Robert (d.1285). He was an undergraduate in 1318 and still buying civil-law books in 1326, so born about 1300–1304. A university-trained lawyer and career administrator: Steward of the Household to Princess Isabel, Knight of the Shire, JP for Oxfordshire, and first-named of Elizabeth de Burgh's fifteen executors. Complete Peerage calls him "probably his first cousin" - an inference, not a record.
His will, made at Depden in February 1380/1, mentions his wife Joan and no other relation.
✕ The surname leaves the record with him
Break one · 1375–1381
There is no Damory male left. Richard the younger died without issue in 1375; his brother John had no children; the 1347 entail could name no one else; the last man of the name died in 1381 naming no relation but his wife. Every manor had already gone - Ubley sold 1341/2, Thornborough 1346, Woodperry and Headington to Chandos 1358–60, Bucknell granted away by the Crown in 1366. Nothing below this line descends from anything above it.
The bridge · asserted, never documented
Three men in three centuries built a way across Break One. None of them had a record; two of them said so.
?? Damory
Stirnet's own placeholder
Stirnet, following Hutchins, prints a literal "??" at the joint and writes: "It appears to be accepted that the Damers of Dorchester, etc., were connected to the above Lords Damaury but it seems not to be known exactly how… We speculate in showing the connection as follows."
Sir Richard Damorie
"ob. 1376"
This is the man who died childless. The whole Devon descent is hung from the one Damory in the pedigree who provably left no issue.
Robert Damorie
no dates, no place, no record
Roger Damorie
no dates, no place, no record
Robert Damorie "in Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire"
"possibly father of…"
Stirnet's hedge, printed on the page. And note the descriptor: holding Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire is what identifies Robert d.1285 - four generations above, not below.
John Damerie of South Molton, Devon
the Visitation pedigree begins here - see below
What the bridge is worth
Sir William Pole of Colcombe and Shute (1561–1635) is the source; his Collections were not printed until 1791. Vivian reprinted the descent in 1895 in roman type above the italics, with a footnote saying exactly where it came from - the italic portion, and only that, is the 1620 Visitation signed by John Amory. John Hutchins carried the same descent into his History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset. Stirnet prints it with "??" and the words "We speculate".
Three compilers, one unsourced descent, and two of them flagged it themselves.
Pedigree two · Devon · c.1490 – 1709
Bishops Nympton and South Molton. A real family in a real house, recorded by the heralds in 1620 and by the parish register throughout - and watch the surname lose its D as it goes down the page.
John Damerie of South Molton
active c.1490s–1530s
Where the 1620 Visitation actually begins - Harl. MS 1163 fo. 194, signed by John Amory. Nothing above him is the heralds' record.
George Damerie of Bishops Nympton = Margery, dau. of John Eyre of Atherington
eldest son · will 28 June, pr. 6 Nov 1598 · m. 1570 · she living 1598
John Damerie of Chapell in Bishops Nympton = Emmot, dau. & heir of John Thomas
son and heir · executor of his father's will
John Amerey of Chappell = Prudence, dau. & coheir of Richard Roberts of Combe Martin
bur. 26 March 1652 · she bur. 24 Nov 1622
November 1622 took the family apart: an infant William baptised 15 Oct and buried 1 Nov; then the little daughter Prudence and her mother buried the same day, 24 November.
John Amory
bap. 9 June 1616 · "æt. 5 annoru. 1620" · d. before 1674/5
✕ died without issue
William Amory = Cissel, dau. of John Molford
bap. 25 Jan 1626-7 · m. 7 Jan 1652 · "4 son and heir to his bro. John"
This is the man the family tradition tried to send to Cork as "William b.1652". He was born in 1627; 1652 is the year he married and the year his father was buried.
Frances Amory
b. 21 June 1654 · died young
Frances Amory = Edmund Gibbon of Exeter
b. 3 June 1656
Administered her paternal grandfather's estate, 13 March 1674-5. Sold the family's last right of presentation, to Berrynarbor, on 14 October 1709.
Prudence Amory = (1) Gabriel Barnes (2) Samuel Cudmore
b. 7 May 1657 · s.p.
Administered her paternal grandmother's estate, 22 April 1675.
✕ Chapple line ends in granddaughters
George Amory
2nd son · bap. 20 Nov 1597
Hellen, Jone, Alice, Anne, Jane
m. Partridge, Butler of Tiverton, Bond of George Nympton,, Elliott
William Damorie = dau. of - Ridge alias Leigh
had issue
Anthony Damory clericus, parson of Aisholt, Somerset
instituted 2 Oct 1577 · d. 20 July 1620
The best-evidenced individual in the whole tree. His chancel stone: "Anthony Amory, decessid July 20, 1620, parson here 42 yeeres; who gave to the poor £30 for ever, whereof 15l. to Aysholt, & 15l. to Bishop's Nymet in Devonshire where he was borne." His nephew's 1620 Visitation entry marks him simply "Anthony, 3rd son, a priest" - no wife, no children. Which is precisely why he was chosen. See the false branch below.
Alice = - Sanders · Agnes = - Morse
both named in their father's will
Robert Damorie = Prudence, relict of Sir John Pollard of Combe Martin
2nd son · she bur. 12 April 1593 at North Tawton · Vivian queries the identification
Anthonie Damorie = Frances (m2. Richard Budd)
3rd son · grant of the next presentation to Ashwater from Sir Peter Carew, 12 Oct 1551 · admon. to his widow 22 June 1561
Adult in 1551, dead by 1561 - which dates his father's generation and makes the traditional "John of South Molton d. c.1500" impossible.
The false branch · manufactured c.1760s, refuted in print 1901
Hung off Anthony the childless parson, because a childless priest cannot contradict you.
✕ "Joseph Damory or Damer of Chapel" = "Jane St Lo, dau. of William St Lo"
"m. 1570" - said to be son of Anthony, who died in 1620
A son who married fifty years before his father died, and a bride who did not exist. Sir William St Loe's two daughters, by Jane Baynton, were Mary and Margaret; no marriages are recorded for either; his will names no daughters; the 1623 visitation says he died without issue.
✕ Robert Damer of Chapel = Mary Colmer
"b. 1571" · m. 1600
Meredith, 1901: this Robert "was sixteen years of age before the marriage of his grandfather's elder brother… and at thirty years to a generation, his grandfather must have died at one hundred and nine."
✕ John Damer of Godmanston = Elizabeth Maber
b. 1602 · m. 1628
George Damer = Sarah Fowler
b. 1644, d. 1730 · 6th son
From here down the Damers are perfectly real - a Dorset family of Irish money. It is only the join above that is forged.
John Damer of Shronehill, Tipperary = Margaret Roe
b. 1674, d.s.p. 13 Aug 1768 · m. 1724
Joseph Damer of Came, Dorset = Mary Churchill
b. 1676, d. 1 March 1736-7
Joseph Damer, Lord Milton, 1st Earl of Dorchester = Caroline Sackville
b. 12 March 1717/8 · cr. Earl 1792 · d. 12 Jan 1798
George Damer, 2nd Earl of Dorchester
b. 28 March 1746 · d. unmarried 7 March 1808
✕ Earldom extinct
Who said what
Horace Walpole saw it happen, 22 October 1766: "You know my lord Milton, from nephew of the old usurer Damer of Dublin, has endeavoured to erect himself into the representative of the ancient barons Damory." Gertrude Meredith dismantled it generation by generation in The Descendants of Hugh Amory (1901), using the wills at Somerset House and the Bishops Nympton register. Burke's 1883 edition had already quietly retreated from "its founder, William D'Amory, came into England with the Conqueror" to "claimed descent from." The pedigree was taken from the Amorys of Chapple - that is, from this family.
Pedigree three · Gloucestershire · c.1400 – 1592
A completely separate pedigree, from a different manuscript, with no documented link to Oxfordshire or Devon. Seven generations, two dates, and a first ancestor whose own herald could not decide on his name.
"Robert or Roger Damory"
no father, no date, no place, no county
The pedigree opens on the herald's own hesitation. Both family typescripts reproduce that "or" - which is how we know they are copying this printed page and not each other.
Thomas Damory of Yate
"sonn and heire"
William Damory of Yate = Elizabeth, dau. of - Martin of Chawkley
The marriage belongs here, to William - not to his father Thomas. Ted had it right; Paul slipped her up a generation.
Morris Damory of Yate = Catherine, dau. of Edmond Blunt of Mangotsfield
Morrice Damory of Yate
eldest son
Children William, and Elizabeth who married John Winter of "Skadbury".
Thomas Damory of Yate = Allice, dau. of Wm. Webb of "Taterig"
the 1885 editors queried "Taterig" themselves; still unidentified
Gyles Damory of Codrington = Sibell, dau. of Nicholas Walwyn of Longford in Lugwardine, Herefordshire
granted arms 1592 by Robert Cooke, Clarenceux
The grant is independently indexed: "Amorye, or St. Amorye, Giles, Cotherington, co. Glouc., 1592, by Cooke." And the marriage is corroborated twenty-three years earlier, in a different county - Cooke's own Visitation of Herefordshire, 1569: "Sybill, maried to Giles Demery." That is the only genuinely independent corroboration anywhere in this tree.
Arms: barry nebulée of six argent and gules, a bend engrailed azure, in chief a crescent for difference - Roger d'Amory's coat, doubly differenced. So the baronial claim in Gloucestershire was asserted by a King of Arms in 1592, on evidence we cannot see. And of the two brothers it differences Roger's - the one from whom male descent is provably impossible.
Nicholas Damory of Codrington
"unmarid 1591"
Elizabeth · Allice
Break two · Tortworth
"Henry Damery of Tortworth, 1365" and his son Walter are not in this pedigree. They are not in any pedigree. They were added by someone later, and the two family typescripts can't agree whether 1365 is Henry's birth or his death - which is what happens when a source gives only a name, a place and a year.
And there is a simpler reading. Damery is a place in Tortworth parish: a hamlet on Tortworth Road, Damery Bridge in the Berkeley manuscripts, Damery Mill in the county archives, Damery Camp a scheduled monument. Atkyns lists the hamlets of Tortworth in 1712 - "Tavern, Bath, Aven's Green, Damery, Crocksey." A man called Henry Damery of Tortworth is most economically a man named after the hamlet he lived in.
Pedigree four · everyone else
Real people in real records, with no demonstrated connection to any line above - or to each other. This is where the answer probably lives, and it is the part nobody has worked.
Richard Damery of Much Dunmow & Newport Pond, ESSEX
Chancery, 1486–93 and 1493–1500
The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names localises the surname DAMERY to Essex. After this man the Damery spelling vanishes from Essex records - while an Amery family continues in the Colchester hundreds. The same loss of the D that Devon shows, in the county where the D-form is native.
The Essex Amerys - Easthorpe, Copford, Layer Marney, Little Clacton, Halstead
1560s–1690s
Richard Amery sr. of Easthorpe, children baptised 1606–20 (the register names no mothers). Richard Amery, husbandman of Layer Marney, married Margaret Wade at Colchester St Mary at the Walls, 11 March 1653/54. "Margret Amery, wife of Richard Amery", buried Little Clacton, 19 March 1665/6. And a Richard Amery of Little Clacton with a wife Anne in December 1652 - so, if one man, the sequence runs Anne then Margaret.
Richard is a house name here. It is absent from the Devon Amorys between 1593 and 1758.
The Abbotsham mariners - next to Bideford, North Devon
early 1600s
Henry Amery, mariner, with sons Henry, Gabriel and Salathiel - "of whom Gabriel died at Dublin in 1629, leaving all he had to his brother Salathiel." Confirmed independently by Vicars: "1629 - Amory, Gabriel, mariner" in the Irish Prerogative Wills. A North Devon seafaring family that had already buried a son in Ireland.
Symon Amery / Amory of Barnstaple
shipmaster 1606 · merchant 1640
Master of the Trinitie of Barnstaple in the 1606 port book; in 1640 a merchant shipping woad - the dyer's staple - to Dublin and Carrickfergus in Bideford and Barnstaple bottoms, and importing Spanish cloth wool.
The South Molton Amerys - beyond the gentry line
1524-1637
Meredith: "large groups at South Molton and Bishop's Nymet." William and John Amere assessed to the subsidy at Bishop's Nymet 1524; will of William Amorye of South Molton, husbandman, 1591. And Margaret Amory, widow of South Molton, will 1637, Archdeaconry of Barnstaple - husband unidentified, the will destroyed in 1942, and Meredith never saw it.
The Chapple line ran out of sons. These people did not.
Richorde Amrye widow, of South Molton will read 26 Aug 2026
will 24 June 1593 - TNA PROB 11/82/519
Settled from the register copy, and it corrects two centuries of citation. The opening reads "I Richorde Amrye wyddowe of the parish of Southmolton in the countie of Devon being wholl and perfecte of memorye, but sicke in bodie". She leaves her daughter-in-law "my second best gowne, and my second best kircher". The testator is a woman. Meredith and Waters read a man; TNA's catalogue ("Widow") is right.
Her family: son Robert Amrye, married Margarit; their children Thomas, Richord, Elizabeth and Thomasin Amrye; daughter Jone, wife of Edward Clatworthie of South Molton, sole executor. She left ten shillings to the poor of South Molton, with Robert Amrye and Edward Clatworthie as overseers.
Two consequences. First, Richord was a live female forename in this very family - the granddaughter carries it too - so the last apparent Richard in the Devon Amorys was never a Richard at all. The Devon negative is now total: no male Richard in that family at any date before 1758. Second, here is a Margarit Amrye of South Molton in 1593, wife of Robert. Married by 1593, she would be in her sixties by 1637 - which makes her a strong candidate for the Margaret Amory, widow of South Molton, whose will was proved that year.
Richard Ammery clothier, of Stogumber, Somerset
will 1639, proved 1646 · bur. 15 Aug 1644
Names his mother Alice, sisters Elizabeth and Alice, brothers William, Henry and Hugh - no wife, no children. The will has now been read from the register copy (TNA PROB 11/197/474, dated 24 November 1639): "Item I doe give unto my Brother Hugh Ammery fortie Pounds of lawfull money of England, if the sayd Hugh do come againe into this Countrey within seaven yeares next after my decease and demand the same of my Executors hereafter named."
The will names no place. Meredith's ellipsis concealed nothing but "of lawfull money of England". A scrivener would ordinarily write "now beyond the seas" or "now in Ireland" for a legatee who might turn up years later among strangers. He did not, which suggests Richard knew only that his brother was out of the country, not where. The 40 pounds was to fall to his nephew John, then to Henry, if Hugh never came.
Richard was buried 15 August 1644, so the seven years ran to August 1651. Probate followed on 3 October 1646, and not to the executors he named (his brother Henry and Valentine Yate): the grant went to "Willmo Amery fratri naturali", his brother William.
And their father's will of 1631 does not mention Hugh at all - it names wife Alice, daughters Elizabeth Hills and Alice Parsons, and sons Richard, Henry, John and William. Hugh was already gone, and already unaccounted for, by 1631.
Hugh Amory of Taunton candidate for the return
m. Joane Dolphin, Taunton St Mary, 2 October 1660
A son William baptised there 11 August 1661. What makes him worth a look: the surname Amory or Amery does not appear in the Taunton registers at all before October 1660, across roughly 15,000 transcribed entries, and then a Hugh arrives and founds the Taunton family. Taunton is twelve miles from Stogumber, in the same cloth district, and 1660 is when displaced men came home.
Against it: the seven-year window closed in 1651, so the 40 pounds was long forfeit; and if he is the Hugh baptised at Stogumber in February 1617/18 he was 42 at marriage. A candidate, not an identification.
Wiltshire · Lincolnshire · Gloucestershire strays
1369–1698
John Damery m. Joan Ingram, Whiteparish, Wilts, 1632; John Damerie there 1642; Henry Dammery m. Purnell Candie, Salisbury St Martin, 1593/4; Henry Damary bur. St Vedast Foster Lane, London, 1628/9; Robert Damery, Lincolnshire, 1369; Ambrose Damery in the Bucke of Lydney pedigree, Gloucestershire. Wiltshire in particular is an untouched Damery locus.
One warning
There is no surname DAMERY, DAMARY, DAMERIE or DAMMERY anywhere in the Devon probate record, at any date. The Devon "Dam-" names are DAMERELL / DAMREL - a common and entirely separate South Devon family from Stoke Damerel. Do not let those be conflated.