Family historians say Robert Edwards was descended from a Welsh songwriter who, as befits an epic, was part of the 16th-century court of Henry VIII of England. But Mr. Edwards himself was a man of the 18th century. One published account held that he was the son of a colonial shipbuilding magnate. Another said he was a farmer who had emigrated from Wales. (This persistent Welsh connection led nearly 500 Welshmen to assert in 1954 that they owned lower Manhattan.)

What is less in doubt, though still not incontrovertible, were Mr. Edwards's activities on behalf of the British monarchy. The clan's historians say Mr. Edwards was a pirate, licensed by the Crown to plunder Spanish ships in the New World.

At some point, most accounts agree, the English throne awarded him a parcel of what is now lower Manhattan. Around 1780 Mr. Edwards died, by some accounts at sea with a dagger clenched between his teeth.

As the story goes, at some point Mr. Edwards leased his tract to two brothers, John and George, for 99 years.

When the lease expired in 1877, Mrs. Foore's group says, a provision of the lease called for the property to be divided among eight heirs. But it never was. Latter-day heirs have long maintained that Mr. Edwards's immediate heirs, six brothers and a sister, were either unaware of their inheritance or unable to secure it. Either way, the lessors stole the Edwards property, the 20th-century claimants assert.

Many family members say they have documents that support, if not prove, their claim. They offer wills, maps, letters and what they assert are copies of the 99-year lease. But the original has never been found, leaving open the question of just what these copies are copies of; other documents have been found to be either not properly signed or not legally recorded.

Yet even if the original lease were to be found, it might not matter a whit.

Three times, most recently in the early 1950's, Federal and New York State courts have ruled that the 15-year statute of limitations on such property claims had long since expired. In 1950, a committee of the State Assembly rejected a bill to create a commission to investigate the Edwards claim. Deceived by Charlatans