Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn c. 1940, (National Library of Australia), Author User Roisterer on en.wikipedia
Birth Name: Errol Leslie Flynn
Date of Birth: 20 June, 1909
Place of Birth: Battery Point, Tasmania, Australia
Date of Death: 14 October, 1959
Place of Death: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Ethnicity: Irish, Scottish, English
Errol Flynn was an Australian, and later also American, actor.
Errol was born in Battery Point, Tasmania, Australia, the son of Lily Mary (Young) and Theodore Thomson Flynn, a lecturer and professor. He became a U.S. citizen in 1942.
He was married to American actress Patrice Wymore, until his death. He had a son with his former wife, French-born actress Lili Damita, two children with his former wife, American actress and socialite Nora Eddington, and a daughter with Patricia. With Nora, his grandson is actor Sean Flynn. With Patricia, his grandson is actor Luke Flynn.
Errol’s paternal grandfather was John Thompson/Thomas Flynn (the son of Daniel Flynn and Elizabeth Craddock). John was born in Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia, to parents from Tipperary, Munster, Ireland. Elizabeth was the daughter of Thomas Craddock and Julia Bourke.
Errol’s paternal grandmother was named Jessie B. Thomson. Jessie was born in Manning River, New South Wales, Australia.
Errol’s maternal grandfather was Capt. Frederick George Young (the son of Robert George Young and Elizabeth White). Capt. Frederick was born in Sydney, City of Sydney, New South Wales. Elizabeth was born in West Haddon, Northamptonshire, England, the daughter of Robert White and Rebecca Turner.
Errol’s maternal grandmother was Annie Edith Madden (the daughter of William Edie Madden and Mary Hennessy). Annie was born in Victoria. William was born in Holborn, London, Middlesex, England.
Errol was sometimes said to have been a descendant of midshipman Edward “Ned” Young, a mutineer who participated in the HMS Bounty incident, and of Ned’s Tahitian wife Mauatua. It appears that this genealogical link is not accurate.
Sources: Genealogy of Errol Flynn – https://www.wikitree.com
Genealogy of Errol Flynn (focusing on his mother’s side) – https://www.geni.com
Death records of Errol’s maternal grandparents, Capt. Frederick George Young and Annie Edith Madden – https://www.findagrave.com
@andrew Yes but is Capt. Frederick George Richmond Young the same person as Frederick G. Young on Lily’s birth record? Errol did indeed say his maternal granddad was a captain so it could be him?
Only problem is that most online family trees only state other trees as their source not actual records, so it could just be a mistake that was multiplied.
Frederick G. Young and Annie Edith Madden married in Sydney (Lily was also born in Sydney on official records). According to online genealogies Frederick got married a second time back on Norfolk Island to Esther Quintal. Why would he move to Sydney and then back to Norfolk Island?
Here’s Annie Edith Madden’s burial: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/193894152/annie-edith-young and Frederick George Young: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/193893856/frederick-george-young (this Frederick might also have been a captain, look at the anchor on his grave. this Frederick was born in Sydney and not on Norfolk Island.) On official records it states that his parents were Robert G. Young and Elizabeth (not George F. M. Young and Mary Evans).
I think it’s highly likely that Frederick George Young and Frederick George Richmond Young got mixed up.
Errol said that his mother’s ancestors were named Frederick and Robert which coincides with Frederick G. Young’s father Robert G. Young.
Robert G. Young married Elizabeth White in 1849 at St James’ Church, Sydney.
According to this https://www.ancestry.co.uk/family-tree/tree/10232505/family?cfpid=-663528915 Elizabeth White was born in 1825 in West Haddon, Northamptonshire, England to Robert White and Rebecca Turner.
Robert Young’s grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/188072070
Genealogies: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Flynn-1577
https://worldconnect.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=46403&id=I56578
Grandfather’s: https://gw.geneanet.org/efrogier?lang=en&n=young&oc=0&p=frederick+george+richmond
According to these, Errol was part Tahitian on his grandfather’s side, 3/32 Tahitian to be exact. I don’t know where it comes from that George was the son of George Robert Young and Elizabeth White. The only source listed here agrees with the genealogies above (as does every other tree I’ve found), but just doesn’t go any further than them.
Errol’s maternal grandfather was Frederick George Richmond Young (the son of George Martin Frederick Young and Mary Evans). Frederick was born on Norfolk Island Creek, Coolah, New South Wales, Australia, to parents from the Pitcairn Islands. George was the son of George Young, whose father was born on Saint Kitts, likely of English descent, and whose mother was Tahitian, and of Hannah Adams. Mary was the daughter of John Evans, who was English, and of Rachel “Rebecca” Adams. Hannah Adams and Rachel Adams were sisters, and were the daughters of and English father, of Northern Irish descent, and a Tahitian mother.
Just saw that he actually has claimed ancestry from the HMS Bounty mutineer, which these trees confirmes. Both Wikipedia and IMDb asserts that this isn’t true. But I mean, could these genealogies be made up from nothing? If someone could in some way read the book that Wikipedia sources for this claim to see if it disputes the current genealogy in any way, that would be interesting.
“could these genealogies be made up from nothing?”
Yes, it happens often enough. Sometimes entire ancestors are invented. Sometimes, an individual is attributed the wrong parents (i.e. Camille Keaton).
I’ll have to look into this further.
We all remember the debacle when the well-known actor Zachary Laoutides got a page. Man, that guy wanted to be Jewish really bad. Keaton really surprised me. I read many articles too where it said Buster was her grandfather.
Of course we know of countless (often Native American) ancestors who are made up and still shows up in trees, often because of family legends. I don’t think this is like that, I think all these ancestors are real. If the trees aren’t correct in some way, it’s more likely that they might connect one ancestor (probably a maternal grandparent, I think) to the wrong parents. But I don’t even think that’s the case, I think this is real.
I would really like to read the book that disputes it. I think it might just say that there’s no evidence for it, but that we now have a detailed genealogy which confirms it.
This is an excerpt of the book “My Wicked, Wicked Ways” (page 33):
(I can’t copy paste the text so I’m typing this. I’m only filling in the important bits not the whole page. )
My mother’s people were seafaring folk. She had an ancestor named Midshipman Young. …Edward Young captured a sword from Captain Bligh and this sword remained in my mothers family. It was handed down and the sword landed in our house in Tasmania…
My mother could stretch a good story, and sometimes when she was in a benign mood she told me of her two ancestors, Robert and Frederick Young, who had a schooner, the Dainty Belle, which they sailed to the South Seas to trade.
(this either means it’s true or his mother was really good at telling stories. I can’t find a death or birth record for Frederick G Young, as he is stated on Lily Young’s birth record. I vote for putting “possibly 3/32 Tahitian” in the description because the story does somewhat match up. Frederick on the online family trees did have a brother named Robert so it could be true.)
@madman
Why should they invent Native American ancestors? For what reason?
@andrew
Did you miss the gajillion non-exsiting Native Americans in some of these online trees? And retconning of white/black women into Native ones?
Just yesterday I was reading a genealogy blog by some woman who is obsessed by her Native ancestry (her DNA came back 0.5% NA). She made 10 times as many articles about that Native ancestor whose name she doesn’t even know, than about her known family.
@andrew
Ever heard of a family legend? A story is told in the family that their 4th great-grandfather married a Native princess etc. But I know you believe every Native American in every tree is real, that has been clear for some time.
@comrade
The book that is sourced on Wikipedia, that apparently disputes this Tahitian ancestry is called “Young Blood: The Making of Errol Flynn” by Debra Fasano.
Yes, I absolutely believe the few Native American ancestors in American family trees are real. They are so rare and uncommon that there would not be any reason to invent them. Also DNA studies confirm that there’s no substantial non-European admxiture in White Americans genome.
About Flynn, I believe his maternal grandfather was born into a family of convicts.
Yes, I’ve see follers already has tried to reason with you on this point without success. Most of these ancestors has no evidence to back up their existence, and some sound like obvious stories, like when it’s a chief or a princess marrying a colonist. And no reason to invent them? Really? Yes, not like they would make it up right now and put it in a tree, but there’s rumours in many families that a certain ancestor of theirs married a Native American, for example. If the white ancestor in the couple really existed, do you really think people wouldn’t make trees based on the stories about the Native spouse?
According to Geni.com, Capt. Frederick George Richmond Young is presumed to carry the matrilineal DNA marker B4a1a1m1, which is Polynesian (based on test results from other relatives in the family tree).
So, some mixing evidently happened in that family.
@madman Debra Fasano’s book isn’t available online. Her website is also defunct https://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/flynn/3025/
One hot guy!