Dear John,
I just returned from a trip to Tucson and am catching up on emails.
Comments interspersed.
John Higgins wrote:
With respect to the daughters of Elizabeth [Plumpton] Sothill, I
happened to
notice that "Plantagenet Ancestry" [2004], sub Sothill, says she had
three
daughters, not two - Elizabeth, Anne, and Joan - but gives no details on
spouses for any of them. It's not clear how RPA reaches this
conclusion,
since at least four of its cited sources give answers which are
different
than this and which conflict with one another. RPA doesn't mention the
conflicts of its sources nor does it explain how it got to its
conclusion of
three daughters.
You and I have been active on the newsgroup for enough years to know
that Douglas's "PA3" has many unsupported conclusions, and rarely makes
note of, or attempts to explain, conflicting sources. This is yet
another of many examples that have previously been pointed out.
Since Douglas is too busy blundering about in continental descendants
of Charlemagne to bother responding, I'll attempt an explanation.
Here are four alternative lists of her daughters:
1) 1583/4 and 1612 Visitation of Yorkshire (J. Foster ed.): one unnamed
daughter mar. to Killingworth.
A Visitation from 1583/4 is fairly late, by about a century, to be
relied on as an accurate accounting of the daughters of John Sothill
and Elizabeth Plumpton.
2) 1563/4 Visitation of Yorkshire (HSP 16): Susan, Elizabeth, and Anne
[no
spouses] in one pedigree, and an unnamed daughter mar. "Kyllyngworth" in
another pedigree on the same page.
This Visitation, published by the Harleian Society, is fraught with
error and is far less reliable than the series of Visitations of the
North published later by the Surtees Society. Not so much through the
fault of its editor, but rather through the manuscript used as its
source, which was a copy of various Heralds' visitations with many
additions by later hands.
3) Yorkshire Pedigrees (HSP 95): one daughter Anne [no spouse named].
This of course is not a Visitation, but the work of a 20th-century
genealogist, J.W. Walker, and has several errors in its Sothill
pedigree, including giving Henry Sothill and Joan Empson a son "Robert,
ancestor of the Soothills of North Deighton.".
4) North County Wills [quoted by Brad below]: two daughters Anne (m.
Hesilryge) and Elizabeth (unm.).
I don't presently have access to the remaining sources cited by RPA, but
it
appears that most of them relate to the Plumpton family and not the
Sothills.
The list of sources for Elizabeth Plumpton and John Sothill, provided
by PA3, is:
1) William Dugdale "Visitation of York 1665-6" (Surtees Soc. 36, 1859),
p. 191. -- This is a carryover from David Faris's PA1. It is a
Plumpton pedigree, and merely gives the marriage of Elizabeth Plumpton
and John Sothill, without ascribing any issue.
2) 'Testamenta Eboracensia' 4 (Surtees Soc. 53, 1869), pp. 168-171. --
This is also a carryover from Faris's PA1. This is the 1500 will of
John Sothill of Dewsbury, which doesn't mention any of the Sothills of
Stockerston, though the editor has a long footnote about them, quoting
the wills of John Sothill, Elizabeth Plumpton Sothill, and their son
Henry Sothill.
3) R. Glover, 'Visitation of Yorkshire 1584-5, 1612' (1875), p. 275. --
Another carryover from Faris's PA1. As you say, it is a Sothill
pedigree.
4) W. Flower, 'Visitation of Yorkshire 1563-4' (H.S.P. 16, 1881), pp.
252-254 (Plumpton pedigree), 290-291 (Sothill pedigree). Not carried
over from Faris, so a source newly compiled by Douglas. Discussed
above.
5) 'North Country Wills' 1 (Surtees Soc. 116, 1908), pp. 64-66. --
Carried over from Faris's PA1. These are the wills of John Sothill and
Dame Elizabeth Sothill.
6) W. Harvey et al., 'Visitation of the North' 3 (Surtees Soc. 144,
1930), pp. 82-84. -- Again, carried over from Faris's PA1. It is a
Plumpton pedigree, with the marriages and issue of Margaret Plumpton to
John Rocliffe and Elizabeth Plumpton to John Sothill added in later by
Glover, as stated by the editor. The children given to John and
Elizabeth are: Henry, John, Gerard, Anne, Robert, Thomas, Elizabeth,
Arthur.
7) J.W. Walker, 'Yorkshire Pedigrees' 2 (H.S.P. 95, 1943), pp. 341-345.
-- The final source carried over from Faris's PA1. It is a Sothill
pedigree, compiled by Walker, discussed above.

'VCH Leicester' 5 (1964), p. 304. This is another source newly
compiled by Douglas. It is an account of the manor of Stockerston, and
mentions John Sothill (d. 1493), and his son and heir Henry, but not
Elizabeth Plumpton Sothill. If Douglas actually read this source, it's
curious that he uses the archaic spelling of "Stoke Faston" in PA3,
rather than the modern, accepted "Stockerston".
9) Eric Acheson, "A Gentry Community: Leicestershire in the Fifteenth
Century c.1422-c.1485", pp. 250-251. This is a well-researched book
that I've used before for other families. I don't know what Acheson
has to say about the Sothills on pp. 250-251.
10) Joan Kirby, 'Plumpton Letters and Papers' (Camden Soc. 5th Series
8, 1996), pp. 338-339. Another well-researched book, but the copy of
it at the UCLA Library has gone missing, and I've only had limited
access to it through Google Books. However, I can determine that pp.
338-339 is the biography of John Sothill (the author includes in
Appendix III biographies of individuals who appear in the
correspondence). Again, if Douglas had actually read this source, it's
curious that he does not cite pp. 230-233 within it, which is the
author's transcription of the actual 1464 marriage contract pertaining
to John Sothill and Elizabeth Plumpton. One would think this a very
important piece of primary documentation regarding the couple -
certainly much more valid and important than a 1665 pedigree?
Long-time readers of the newsgroup know that the above list of sources
is redundant (why cite any Visitation pedigree other than the earliest
one - earliest taken by the herald, not earliest published - unless the
editor is providing added information), chiefly secondary (only the
published wills and the c.1480 Visitation of the North were
contemporary to the lives of John Sothill and Elizabeth Plumpton, and
the Visitation doesn't work because the marriage and issue were added
in by a later hand), and largely (6 out of 10 cited sources) carried
over from Faris's PA1.
Two possibilities in the list, however, might be worth checking
out: Dugdale's 1665/6 Visitation of Yorkshire, and Joan Kirby's
"Plumpton
Letters" which Brad cited in his first post.
From what I can tell, neither provides a full list of the children of
John Sothill and Elizabeth Plumpton.
FWIW, RPA also says that Elizabeth [Plumpton] Sothill had seven sons
(not
eight, as Brad says her memorail indicates - from a Plumpton source not
cited by RPA), but the sources above give numbers of anywhere from five
to
seven sons...not much help.
PA3 isn't much help beyond being a bibliography for the various lines
covered in it. I don't know why Douglas chose to list 7 sons and 3
daughters for John and Elizabeth, except that he probably needed to
show that he did something, as the line had long been in print (at
least since PA1). From Dame Elizabeth's will, we know the name of six
of her sons (Henry, John, Gerard, Robert, Thomas, Arthur), and this is
supported by the earliest known Herald (Robert Glover, who added into
the c.1480 Visitation pedigree). Presumably the other two sons implied
by the memorial brass to John and Elizabeth Sothill died young.
Douglas gives them a seventh son, Leonard, but his source for this had
to have been J.W. Walker's 1943 pedigree, which can't be considered too
reliable.
As for Douglas giving the couple 3 daughters - Elizabeth, Anne and Joan
- this is an error stemming from his misreading of Dame Elizabeth's
will: "I desire my doughter Johan Sotehill, for all love and kyndenes
that have been betwix hur and me, to take the disposicon of my doughter
Annes joynter." Now a trained historian - heck, even an amateur
genealogist - taking more than a cursory glance at this family, might
wonder why Dame Elizabeth would refer to her other daughters by their
first names only in her will, and refer to this one "doughter" with a
surname. Then, seeing from the various pedigrees that there was no
daughter Joan Sothill, but there was a daughter-in-law Joan Empson
Sothill, a trained historian/amateur genealogist might conclude that
Dame Elizabeth was referring to her daughter-in-law in her will, not to
a previously overlooked or 'extra' daughter.
More mysteries in the confusing Sothill family....
Yes, who are English, with documents and sources written in English. I
shudder to think what will happen to the continental Charlemagne lines.
Reading some of Peter Stewart's reponses to Douglas's posts, assures
me that Douglas's misinterpretation and wacky Richardson Rules are not
confined to his native tongue.
Cheers, -------Brad
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