Appears in "The Ravia Herald" 17 October 1908, Ravia, Johnston County, Oklahoma

Postmaster Scott received a letter Tuesday from Boston, Mass., making inquiries concerning a family named Drake, who resided here in the seventies. They are supposed to be lineal descendants of Sir Francis Drake. An estate of several million dollars was left by him two years ago. It now develops that a family named Drake did reside here in 1877. The money is waiting in England to be divided among the heirs. Denison Gazetteer

do you have a copy of that article? drakek214@yahoo.com :)

I think you can get it from the Oklahoma Historical Society using the name and date of the paper I stated in the posting.

Good luck

hello. is that the francis drake who married mary walker?

Interesting article, but with a red flag. I say this because a lineal descendant is a child, grandchild, etc. Although Sir Francis Drake was married twice, he had no known children, therefore there can be no lineal descendants.

My family is one of those who come partially from the Drake family. One of my Coombs men married Tacy Drake in KY. This story has been around awhile. True, there is no child produced by Sir Francis Drake; however, at that time, if there was a brother (George Drake) with a male child, and the brother died, then the living brother could claim that child as his. This is what happened in the case of our Sir Francis Drake and his brother George. If the persons who put up that award could ever educate themselves on that fact, there are many of us who could inherit the money/claims/etc. My idea is that there are so many of us that we may not get more than a few cents.

Are you aware that there was a big hoax in the early 1900's abaout the estate of Sir Francis that sent a lot of people scurrying to prove their realtionship with Sir Francis that didn't pan out? There was even a book released called "The Visitations of Devon" which was said to show the family tree of Edmund Drake, the father of Sir Francis. It too has been found to be a hoax, printed to falsely help people in making their family tree match up.

Be careful of what you read!

Bill Drake