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, 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 tho 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 the first of the family in the pedigree given by the Lygons to the Heralds. George Lygon 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.

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 his near kinsman, Sir William Berkeley, Royal Governor of Virginia. In the verious records of the counties of Virginia, in reference to Colonel Thomas Ligon and his descendants, the name Ligon is spelled in many various ways including Lygon, Lyggon, Liggon, Liggan, Liggin, Ligon and Leagan. Colonel Thomas Ligon became established in Henrico County, Virginia. He married Mary Harris between 1648-1650. The sons of Colonel Ligon emigrated to the counties of Prince George, Chesterfield, Powhatan, Amelia, Goochland, Nottoway, Luneburg, Brunswich, Cumberland, Prince Edward, Charlotte, Mecklenburg and Halifax, or what is romantically called “South Side” Virginia. Owing to desctruction of the records of Henrico County prior to 1677, the tracing of the life of Colonel Thomas Ligon is limited to such compass as the existing records 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 its 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), Annanias Leagan (1820), Sousannah G. Leagan, and Tabitha C.S. Legan. We are the descendants of Ananias Leagan who was born in Surry County, North Carolina in December 21, 1820.