A Librarian's Perspective on Medieval Genealogy

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A Librarian's Perspective on Medieval Genealogy

Legg inn av Gjest » 09 nov 2007 01:03:49

Leo Van der Pas raises a good point that medieval genealogy is geared
toward lines that lead to royalty or Magna Carta Barons. However, he
doesn't put the issue into context in the history of genealogical
research nor give any ideas on how to counteract the trend. Although
genealogical research has been conducted in all countries and cultures
at some level, such research up to the mid-19th century was generally
the province of the nobility and the well-to-do. A case can be made
that genealogical research for the common person is an U.S. idea of
the mid-19th century. No surprise there, as Americans generally are
from other places. Still most genealogical from that time, say 1850,
to the present has been to enable the average person to join a
heritage society of some sort. Most U.S. sources are geared to the
American Revolution or Mayflower lines, and the most or best
genealogical research seems to be centered on the early 13 original
colonies. Again, no surprise and if you fall into those groups, as I
do at points, it's a great boon. Other ethnicities are catching up
and Irish, French-Canadian, Scandinavian, and other genealogical
interests are picking up.

So for medieval genealogy, the focus has always been on joining
heritage societies, and therefore the research material presented
tends to focus on lines that lead to royalty and/or Magna Carta
Barons. Weis's book on Magna Carta Sureties first edition was 1955
and his Ancestral Roots was first published in 1950. This is not a
new problem. So what is the average researcher to do? What other
works are there to use that are scholarly and gives one a leg up on
research already done? These are the front line books I would suggest
as a librarian and a genealogist: [Leo has heart attack here]
Douglas Richardson's latest two books: Plantagenet Ancestry and Magna
Carta Barons. You can branch out to the Complete Peerage, but that
work is intended not for genealogy per se but the historical
provenance of a particular title. Daughters are seldom treated well
in CP and cross-connections are hard to find. Lastly, once a person
falls out of the "titled" realm, they fall out of the work. The
either type of work is the all-my-ancestor work of a modern royal
person such as Prince Charles, or the ahnentafel in the Genealogist
for King Charles II. The problem with that is you need to have your
ancestor fall into the other person's family. So one needs to consult
other works for the gentry such as Visitations, etc. There are no
great works that follow a family in genealogical terms in the medieval
times that can be called compendia. Certainly there are genealogical
works on this family or that family (which vary in quality and
scholarship), but no discreet work that does the great baronial
families, titled or not, through the medieval ages, with daughters,
cross-references, and full citations.

So, when a person finds a connection, I see nothing wrong with noting
the immediate connection to either royalty or the like. From there,
someone has a chance to find a good work on that ancestor and build
from a solid framework. As Leo has often pointed out genealogists are
either hunters or gatherers. Sadly the hunters are vastly
outnumbered. Perhaps only 10% at the most of the people who actively
pursue genealogy, conduct original research and have it published.
Everyone else sits back and waits to be spoon fed. What I find
amazing, and aggravating, are those same people who don't lift a
finger in the realm of original research are the first to criticize
others who try it. I recently published my first English origins
article, for which I was not paid, and which took three years of
work. Due to the vagaries of the U.S. mail, I was receiving emails
from total strangers telling me what I had done wrong before I had
even read my own article in the journal. Some people wonder why so
many good genealogists take so long to publish their work. No
surprise there either. The fear of getting something wrong and having
a flock of yahoos tear you down would make anyone pause. In
genealogy, it can be endless since there is always one more source to
check.

D. Spencer Hines

Re: A Librarian's Perspective on Medieval Genealogy

Legg inn av D. Spencer Hines » 09 nov 2007 02:08:55

Please do discover the invention of the paragraph...

And cultivate brevity.

DSH

Lux et Veritas et Libertas

<harv2.lawref@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1194566629.605279.155630@e9g2000prf.googlegroups.com...

[...]

These are the front line books I would suggest
as a librarian and a genealogist: [Leo has heart attack here]
Douglas Richardson's latest two books: Plantagenet Ancestry and Magna
Carta Barons. You can branch out to the Complete Peerage, but that
work is intended not for genealogy per se but the historical
provenance of a particular title. Daughters are seldom treated well
in CP and cross-connections are hard to find. Lastly, once a person
falls out of the "titled" realm, they fall out of the work.

[...]

wjhonson

Re: A Librarian's Perspective on Medieval Genealogy

Legg inn av wjhonson » 09 nov 2007 02:12:00

Subj: Re: A Librarian's Perspective on Medieval Genealogy
Date: 11/8/2007 4:30:31 PM Pacific Standard Time
From: WJhonson
To: gen-medieval@rootsweb.com

A couple of points. I believe the French-Canadians are quite far
ahead of us United States denizens.

Once I get a French Canadian line back to say 1850ish, and *into*
Quebec, I know all I have to do is keep consulting the Loiselle
Marriage Index over and over, tracing each surname back until I get to
1760 or so. Then I can look in Drouin and Jette and finish up the
lines right back to the early 17th century in France.

It's really a piece of cake since Jette published his massive work
compiling *all* families who lived in Quebec from 1605 to 1730.

And if you want to double-check the actual primaries, there is a even
more massive project, I've forgotten the name, publishing every single
instance of every single name on every single document in existence in
Quebec up to I think 1760. The public library in Montreal has this
work and I think it's over 30 volumes, each the size of an
encyclopedia volume more or less. It's really an amazing work.


My own database does not only contain the English royal lines, but
royal lines to *every* "European" throne. France, Scotland, Ireland,
Holy Roman Empire, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Kiev (Russia), Sweden,
Denmark, etc etc.

However my own main focus is on the courts of the Tutors and early
Jacobeans, so I tend to discuss those people, families and their
connections. And of course, since my primary language is English, I
tend to gravitate towards works in English.

The usefullness of filling in all the connections, to my mind, is that
when I find a document listing 15 fifteen, I can identify most of them
(hopefully) and thus, by default, sometimes find a new sister-in-law,
or brother, or uncle, who *isnt* in my database yet, but can be found
in other sources.

Will Johnson

Denis Beauregard

Re: A Librarian's Perspective on Medieval Genealogy

Legg inn av Denis Beauregard » 09 nov 2007 03:05:03

On Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:12:00 -0800, wjhonson <wjhonson@aol.com> wrote
in soc.genealogy.medieval:

And if you want to double-check the actual primaries, there is a even
more massive project, I've forgotten the name, publishing every single
instance of every single name on every single document in existence in
Quebec up to I think 1760. The public library in Montreal has this
work and I think it's over 30 volumes, each the size of an
encyclopedia volume more or less. It's really an amazing work.

The PRDH is the organism that made this database. It didn't
publish data in any document but only in catholic church records,
census and a few other papers (some, far from all marriage
contracts, some immigration lists). I think there is one
protestant record (baptism of Ernst Lippe).

The results were published in some releases.

- A first series (7 volumes) with records before 1700. Drawback:
they put the area instead of place of origin, i.e. south of
France, rural instead of Marseille.
- A second series, also printer, 47 volumes, with the complete
place of origine, 1621-1765.
- A first release on 2 CD-ROMs, covering 1621-1765 and 1766-1799.
The 2nd part had witnesses only when there was a relationship
(not sure if they had always or sometimes witnesses of the
same family name). Each part was independant.
- A second release on 1 CD-ROM, all in one. Same data but updated.
Those CD-ROMs are limited to Windows environment.
- The same thing on their web site http://www.genealogy.umontreal.ca

A sample :

Marriage 1676-01-12 Montréal
1) Andre JARED BEAUREGARD
o:roye, diocese de vienne, dauphine (origin)
r:verchere (residing)
Epoux de 2 (spouse of 2)
s:NON (didn't sign)
C P M (single, present, male)
2) Marguerite ANTIOME
o:st-nicolas-des-champs, paris
r:c.p.
Epouse de 1
s:OUI
C P F
3) Jean JARED
Pere de 1 (father of 1)
Epoux de 4
M D M (married, dead, male)
4) Pierrette SERMETTE
Mere de 1
Epouse de 3
- - F (not said if married, not said if alive)
5) Michel ANTIOME
p:exempt du grand prevot
Pere de 2
Epoux de 6
M - M (married, not said if alive)
etc. (17 persons in all)

It would be quite interesting to see the same kind of database
with all **primary** data, i.e. seeing that John was son of Charles
in a sale dated 1.2.1523 or that Charles was married to Charlotte
in a will dated 4.5.1534, not the result of merging sources.

Then, a second work was published, DGQA, which is a replacement to
the Tanguay and Jetté dictionaries. Major drawback (for us) : the
medieval data was completely ignored (while Jetté had no royal
line in his work, he had some in his treaty and when I wrote the
complement to his dictionnary, I copied some of them, all being
now available from my web site without the exact reference which
is only in my CD-ROM version). The DGQA is limited to Quebec but
had some foreign dates. It is available as a Windows CD-ROM and
on the PRDH web site.

A third work is available only on their web site, a dictionary of
married couples until 1799, linked together.

If one had to build a similar database, the question is likely
"How to handle works like Pere Anselme or D'Hozier, which are
based on original records but give very texts of these records).

Another fascinating database is available in some library (no
web version and no possibility of purchasing it). Parchemin has
a summary of all Quebec notary records from 1621 to 1784 (at this
time, but they usually add 5 years each 2 years). Parchemin is
available from Archiv-Histo which also produces the series Chronica
and Themis, which are about justice records. Again, this is
the kind of tool that could be very useful if it was covering
the medieval times.


Denis

--
0 Denis Beauregard -
/\/ Les Français d'Amérique du Nord - http://www.francogene.com/genealogie--quebec/
|\ French in North America before 1722 - http://www.francogene.com/quebec--genealogy/
/ | Maintenant sur cédérom, début à 1770 (Version 2008)
oo oo Now on CD-ROM, beginnings to 1770 (2008 Release)

Nathaniel Taylor

Re: A Librarian's Perspective on Medieval Genealogy

Legg inn av Nathaniel Taylor » 09 nov 2007 03:50:30

In article <1194566629.605279.155630@e9g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
harv2.lawref@gmail.com wrote:

Thank you, Martin, for these intresting comments.

Still most genealogical [research] from ... say 1850
to the present has been to enable the average person to join a
heritage society of some sort.

I wonder about this: did the confraternity aspect (lineage societies)
drive the interest in genealogy, or vice-versa? Or each reinforcing the
other?

Most U.S. sources are geared to the
American Revolution or Mayflower lines, and the most or best
genealogical research seems to be centered on the early 13 original
colonies. Again, no surprise and if you fall into those groups, as I
do at points, it's a great boon. Other ethnicities are catching up
and Irish, French-Canadian, Scandinavian, and other genealogical
interests are picking up.

So for medieval genealogy, the focus has always been on joining
heritage societies, and therefore the research material presented
tends to focus on lines that lead to royalty and/or Magna Carta
Barons. Weis's book on Magna Carta Sureties first edition was 1955
and his Ancestral Roots was first published in 1950. This is not a
new problem.

Browning is the granddaddy of the pre-modern genealogical lineage
societies, with books published in the 1880s (within a decade of DAR et
al.). What's ironic is that the Magna Carta idea is to celebrate both
aristocratic ancestry AND proto democratic ideals (based on a mistaken
view of the value of Magna Carta and the motivations of its
masterminds). The 'royal descent' camp was always unapologetically
elitist: unlike the idea of Magna Carta lineage societies, there have
never been any successful attempts to reconcile such interests with
democratic ideals. This is certainly partly why Magna Carta lineage
societies have always been much more successful than any similar group
like the 'Order of the Crown of Charlemagne'.

So what is the average researcher to do? What other
works are there to use that are scholarly and gives one a leg up on
research already done? These are the front line books I would suggest
as a librarian and a genealogist: [Leo has heart attack here]
Douglas Richardson's latest two books: Plantagenet Ancestry and Magna
Carta Barons.

I would add to this Gary's _RD600_ (_Royal Descents of 600..._). Like
the _PLantagenet Ancestry_ books it only focuses on single lines from
colonists to kings, but unlike PA it is more purely bibliographical in
nature. Offering only a barebones identification of names in the line
(without even any dates), Gary's book in essence treated the royal line
as a proxy or teaser for further research to be done by the user: back
in 1993 when the first edition of RD500 appeared, the book made sense in
that to learn more about these people the reader would have to actually
go to the library and crack the sources listed at the bottom of each
line (since the internet & google, maybe this has lost some of its
coercive value). The newest PA book on the other hand seeks to present
a finished product, elevating the royal descent to the status of an end
in itself, for omphaloskepsis, as it were. On the other hand, the
biographical details salted throughout Richardson's books should also
prompt readers to follow their own curiosities about particular
ancestors (non-royal as well as royal).

Nat Taylor
http://www.nltaylor.net

pj.evans

Re: A Librarian's Perspective on Medieval Genealogy

Legg inn av pj.evans » 09 nov 2007 04:13:28

It's certainly true that there are people who are only interested in
joining one of the lineage societies - it used to be primarily for the
DAR, but I don't know which society is attracting people now.

I find that the interconnections between lines are interesting to me,
even in modern times; there are enough now that I'd need three
dimensions to show them (most recently: my sister-in-law shares 17th-
and 18th-century cousins with my family without actually being related
to my brother). The gateway ancestors are more an unexpected bonus.

On Nov 8, 4:03 pm, harv2.law...@gmail.com wrote:
Leo Van der Pas raises a good point that medieval genealogy is geared
toward lines that lead to royalty or Magna Carta Barons. However, he
doesn't put the issue into context in the history of genealogical
research nor give any ideas on how to counteract the trend. Although
genealogical research has been conducted in all countries and cultures
at some level, such research up to the mid-19th century was generally
the province of the nobility and the well-to-do. A case can be made
that genealogical research for the common person is an U.S. idea of
the mid-19th century. No surprise there, as Americans generally are
from other places. Still most genealogical from that time, say 1850,
to the present has been to enable the average person to join a
heritage society of some sort. Most U.S. sources are geared to the
American Revolution or Mayflower lines, and the most or best
genealogical research seems to be centered on the early 13 original
colonies. Again, no surprise and if you fall into those groups, as I
do at points, it's a great boon. Other ethnicities are catching up
and Irish, French-Canadian, Scandinavian, and other genealogical
interests are picking up.

So for medieval genealogy, the focus has always been on joining
heritage societies, and therefore the research material presented
tends to focus on lines that lead to royalty and/or Magna Carta
Barons. Weis's book on Magna Carta Sureties first edition was 1955
and his Ancestral Roots was first published in 1950. This is not a
new problem. So what is the average researcher to do? What other
works are there to use that are scholarly and gives one a leg up on
research already done? These are the front line books I would suggest
as a librarian and a genealogist: [Leo has heart attack here]
Douglas Richardson's latest two books: Plantagenet Ancestry and Magna
Carta Barons. You can branch out to the Complete Peerage, but that
work is intended not for genealogy per se but the historical
provenance of a particular title. Daughters are seldom treated well
in CP and cross-connections are hard to find. Lastly, once a person
falls out of the "titled" realm, they fall out of the work. The
either type of work is the all-my-ancestor work of a modern royal
person such as Prince Charles, or the ahnentafel in the Genealogist
for King Charles II. The problem with that is you need to have your
ancestor fall into the other person's family. So one needs to consult
other works for the gentry such as Visitations, etc. There are no
great works that follow a family in genealogical terms in the medieval
times that can be called compendia. Certainly there are genealogical
works on this family or that family (which vary in quality and
scholarship), but no discreet work that does the great baronial
families, titled or not, through the medieval ages, with daughters,
cross-references, and full citations.

So, when a person finds a connection, I see nothing wrong with noting
the immediate connection to either royalty or the like. From there,
someone has a chance to find a good work on that ancestor and build
from a solid framework. As Leo has often pointed out genealogists are
either hunters or gatherers. Sadly the hunters are vastly
outnumbered. Perhaps only 10% at the most of the people who actively
pursue genealogy, conduct original research and have it published.
Everyone else sits back and waits to be spoon fed. What I find
amazing, and aggravating, are those same people who don't lift a
finger in the realm of original research are the first to criticize
others who try it. I recently published my first English origins
article, for which I was not paid, and which took three years of
work. Due to the vagaries of the U.S. mail, I was receiving emails
from total strangers telling me what I had done wrong before I had
even read my own article in the journal. Some people wonder why so
many good genealogists take so long to publish their work. No
surprise there either. The fear of getting something wrong and having
a flock of yahoos tear you down would make anyone pause. In
genealogy, it can be endless since there is always one more source to
check.

D. Spencer Hines

Re: A Librarian's Perspective on Medieval Genealogy

Legg inn av D. Spencer Hines » 09 nov 2007 04:26:51

"Nathaniel Taylor" <nltaylor@nltaylor.net> wrote in message
news:nltaylor-982647.21503008112007@earthlink.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net...

The newest PA book on the other hand seeks to present
a finished product, elevating the royal descent to the status of an end
in itself, for *omphaloskepsis*, [emphasis DSH] as it were.

That's the Harvardian for NAVEL-GAZING.

DSH

Lux et Veritas et Libertas

rgr

Re: A Librarian's Perspective on Medieval Genealogy

Legg inn av rgr » 09 nov 2007 18:20:23

On Nov 8, 7:03 pm, harv2.law...@gmail.com wrote:
Leo Van der Pas raises a good point that medieval genealogy is geared
toward lines that lead to royalty or Magna Carta Barons. However, he
doesn't put the issue into context in the history of genealogical
research nor give any ideas on how to counteract the trend. Although
genealogical research has been conducted in all countries and cultures
at some level, such research up to the mid-19th century was generally
the province of the nobility and the well-to-do. A case can be made
that genealogical research for the common person is an U.S. idea of
the mid-19th century. No surprise there, as Americans generally are
from other places. Still most genealogical from that time, say 1850,
to the present has been to enable the average person to join a
heritage society of some sort. Most U.S. sources are geared to the
American Revolution or Mayflower lines, and the most or best
genealogical research seems to be centered on the early 13 original
colonies. Again, no surprise and if you fall into those groups, as I
do at points, it's a great boon. Other ethnicities are catching up
and Irish, French-Canadian, Scandinavian, and other genealogical
interests are picking up.

So for medieval genealogy, the focus has always been on joining
heritage societies, and therefore the research material presented
tends to focus on lines that lead to royalty and/or Magna Carta
Barons. Weis's book on Magna Carta Sureties first edition was 1955
and his Ancestral Roots was first published in 1950. This is not a
new problem. So what is the average researcher to do? What other
works are there to use that are scholarly and gives one a leg up on
research already done? These are the front line books I would suggest
as a librarian and a genealogist: [Leo has heart attack here]
Douglas Richardson's latest two books: Plantagenet Ancestry and Magna
Carta Barons. You can branch out to the Complete Peerage, but that
work is intended not for genealogy per se but the historical
provenance of a particular title. Daughters are seldom treated well
in CP and cross-connections are hard to find. Lastly, once a person
falls out of the "titled" realm, they fall out of the work. The
either type of work is the all-my-ancestor work of a modern royal
person such as Prince Charles, or the ahnentafel in the Genealogist
for King Charles II. The problem with that is you need to have your
ancestor fall into the other person's family. So one needs to consult
other works for the gentry such as Visitations, etc. There are no
great works that follow a family in genealogical terms in the medieval
times that can be called compendia. Certainly there are genealogical
works on this family or that family (which vary in quality and
scholarship), but no discreet work that does the great baronial
families, titled or not, through the medieval ages, with daughters,
cross-references, and full citations.

So, when a person finds a connection, I see nothing wrong with noting
the immediate connection to either royalty or the like. From there,
someone has a chance to find a good work on that ancestor and build
from a solid framework. As Leo has often pointed out genealogists are
either hunters or gatherers. Sadly the hunters are vastly
outnumbered. Perhaps only 10% at the most of the people who actively
pursue genealogy, conduct original research and have it published.
Everyone else sits back and waits to be spoon fed. What I find
amazing, and aggravating, are those same people who don't lift a
finger in the realm of original research are the first to criticize
others who try it. I recently published my first English origins
article, for which I was not paid, and which took three years of
work. Due to the vagaries of the U.S. mail, I was receiving emails
from total strangers telling me what I had done wrong before I had
even read my own article in the journal. Some people wonder why so
many good genealogists take so long to publish their work. No
surprise there either. The fear of getting something wrong and having
a flock of yahoos tear you down would make anyone pause. In
genealogy, it can be endless since there is always one more source to
check.

Well put! For the last four years I have been researching an ancestral
line that traces back to early New England pioneers William Giffard
and Mark Lothrop. I found numerous genealogical web sites which traced
Giffard back to Walter Giffard the companion of William the Conqueror
but found these to only recite LDS submissions. However, in
researching the ancestry of Mark Lothrop I found many 'secondary'
sites supporting his descent from John Aston and Elizabeth Delves and
hence from the medieval families of Freville, Corbet, Mainwaring,
Brereton and Egerton.
This ancestral line is through a daughter and three generations of
'second' sons who had fallen from the "titled" realm during the Tudor
reign. They had evolved from minor nobility to early English middle
class, to immigrant American colonists who had no inheritance except
the blood in their veins from these documented ancestors and who were
of no concern to the early British genealogists. Thus, the
professional "gatherers" find such genealogies unreliable and we
unprofessional "hunters' seldom have the proper weapons at our
disposal.

Nathaniel Taylor

Re: Lathrop of Cherry Burton, Yorks (was: A Librarian's Pers

Legg inn av Nathaniel Taylor » 09 nov 2007 18:46:28

In article <1194628823.296776.100080@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,
rgr <rgr1222@yahoo.com> wrote:

Well put! For the last four years I have been researching an ancestral
line that traces back to early New England pioneers William Giffard
and Mark Lothrop. I found numerous genealogical web sites which traced
Giffard back to Walter Giffard the companion of William the Conqueror
but found these to only recite LDS submissions. However, in
researching the ancestry of Mark Lothrop I found many 'secondary'
sites supporting his descent from John Aston and Elizabeth Delves and
hence from the medieval families of Freville, Corbet, Mainwaring,
Brereton and Egerton.

This ancestral line is through a daughter and three generations of
'second' sons who had fallen from the "titled" realm during the Tudor
reign. They had evolved from minor nobility to early English middle
class, to immigrant American colonists who had no inheritance except
the blood in their veins from these documented ancestors and who were
of no concern to the early British genealogists. Thus, the
professional "gatherers" find such genealogies unreliable and we
unprofessional "hunters' seldom have the proper weapons at our
disposal.

I don't think the reason for a judgment of unreliability is any sort of
social indifference toward an alleged line of the downward social
mobility via younger sons and daughters from titled to minor gentry.

In this case the first hurdle is: what proves that Mark Lothrop of
Bridgewater is the man baptised 12 Mar 1617/8 at Cherry Burton,
Yorkshire?

If Mark Lothrop can be proved to belong to the same Cherry Burton,
Yorks. family as Rev. John (and to be a first cousin to him, sharing the
same grandparents) then the problem of the Aston identity still remains.
This message from 1999 by John Steele Gordon suggests that the
grandmother of Rev. John Lathrop cannot be proved to be an Aston at all
(let alone of the Staffordshire gentry Astons):

http://groups.google.com/group/soc.gene ... dbcf58a194
b?dmode=source

Nat Taylor
http://www.nltaylor.net

Seumas MacThómais

Re: A Librarian's Perspective on Medieval Genealogy

Legg inn av Seumas MacThómais » 10 nov 2007 03:30:28

On Nov 8, 4:03 pm, harv2.law...@gmail.com wrote:
Leo Van der Pas raises a good point that medieval genealogy is geared
toward lines that lead to royalty or Magna Carta Barons. However, he
doesn't put the issue into context in the history of genealogical
research nor give any ideas on how to counteract the trend. Although
genealogical research has been conducted in all countries and cultures
at some level, such research up to the mid-19th century was generally
the province of the nobility and the well-to-do. A case can be made
that genealogical research for the common person is an U.S. idea of
the mid-19th century. No surprise there, as Americans generally are
from other places. Still most genealogical from that time, say 1850,
to the present has been to enable the average person to join a
heritage society of some sort. Most U.S. sources are geared to the
American Revolution or Mayflower lines, and the most or best
genealogical research seems to be centered on the early 13 original
colonies. Again, no surprise and if you fall into those groups, as I
do at points, it's a great boon. Other ethnicities are catching up
and Irish, French-Canadian, Scandinavian, and other genealogical
interests are picking up.

So for medieval genealogy, the focus has always been on joining
heritage societies, and therefore the research material presented
tends to focus on lines that lead to royalty and/or Magna Carta
Barons. Weis's book on Magna Carta Sureties first edition was 1955
and his Ancestral Roots was first published in 1950. This is not a
new problem. So what is the average researcher to do? What other
works are there to use that are scholarly and gives one a leg up on
research already done? These are the front line books I would suggest
as a librarian and a genealogist: [Leo has heart attack here]
Douglas Richardson's latest two books: Plantagenet Ancestry and Magna
Carta Barons. You can branch out to the Complete Peerage, but that
work is intended not for genealogy per se but the historical
provenance of a particular title. Daughters are seldom treated well
in CP and cross-connections are hard to find. Lastly, once a person
falls out of the "titled" realm, they fall out of the work. The
either type of work is the all-my-ancestor work of a modern royal
person such as Prince Charles, or the ahnentafel in the Genealogist
for King Charles II. The problem with that is you need to have your
ancestor fall into the other person's family. So one needs to consult
other works for the gentry such as Visitations, etc. There are no
great works that follow a family in genealogical terms in the medieval
times that can be called compendia. Certainly there are genealogical
works on this family or that family (which vary in quality and
scholarship), but no discreet work that does the great baronial
families, titled or not, through the medieval ages, with daughters,
cross-references, and full citations.

So, when a person finds a connection, I see nothing wrong with noting
the immediate connection to either royalty or the like. From there,
someone has a chance to find a good work on that ancestor and build
from a solid framework. As Leo has often pointed out genealogists are
either hunters or gatherers. Sadly the hunters are vastly
outnumbered. Perhaps only 10% at the most of the people who actively
pursue genealogy, conduct original research and have it published.
Everyone else sits back and waits to be spoon fed. What I find
amazing, and aggravating, are those same people who don't lift a
finger in the realm of original research are the first to criticize
others who try it. I recently published my first English origins
article, for which I was not paid, and which took three years of
work. Due to the vagaries of the U.S. mail, I was receiving emails
from total strangers telling me what I had done wrong before I had
even read my own article in the journal. Some people wonder why so
many good genealogists take so long to publish their work. No
surprise there either. The fear of getting something wrong and having
a flock of yahoos tear you down would make anyone pause. In
genealogy, it can be endless since there is always one more source to
check.

We have to realize that genealogies often emerge as a result of larger
historical trends. For example, the early Germanic kings of the Franks
"traced" their ancestry back to the heroes of the Trojan War as a
result of contact with late Roman civilization, and wanting to feel a
part of that. The pedigrees of the kings of Wessex, Anglia, Kent,
etc., were topped off with a few generations to connect them from
Woden to Adam -- reflecting the Christianization of their cultures.

In the United States, you find a blossoming of genealogy after the
Civil War (by Browning and many, many others) that seems to me to
reflect three simultaneous trends. The first was the end of the
Revolutionary Era, as the last of the old veterans died and the nation
marked its centennial in 1876. At the same time, a great deal of
immigration was beginning to take place, causing some people already
here to "prove" their descent from the original European pioneers --
hence the interest in the Pilgrims, and so on. Finally, you had the
arrival of a whole class of newly wealthy people, many of whom felt a
cultural disadvantage compared to Europe and its aristocracy. This
last trend produced an interest in finding connections between this
new plutocracy and the old nobility/monarchy. This was reflected in
works such as Browning's books, and also a tendency of rich Americans
to seek titled son-in-laws.

My point is simply that in looking at any genealogy, we need to seek
to understand its purpose and any underlying meaning to its creator.

rgr

Re: Lathrop of Cherry Burton, Yorks (was: A Librarian's Pers

Legg inn av rgr » 11 nov 2007 14:09:40

On Nov 9, 12:46 pm, Nathaniel Taylor <nltay...@nltaylor.net> wrote:
In article <1194628823.296776.100...@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com>,





rgr <rgr1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Well put! For the last four years I have been researching an ancestral
line that traces back to early New England pioneers William Giffard
and Mark Lothrop. I found numerous genealogical web sites which traced
Giffard back to Walter Giffard the companion of William the Conqueror
but found these to only recite LDS submissions. However, in
researching the ancestry of Mark Lothrop I found many 'secondary'
sites supporting his descent from John Aston and Elizabeth Delves and
hence from the medieval families of Freville, Corbet, Mainwaring,
Brereton and Egerton.

This ancestral line is through a daughter and three generations of
'second' sons who had fallen from the "titled" realm during the Tudor
reign. They had evolved from minor nobility to early English middle
class, to immigrant American colonists who had no inheritance except
the blood in their veins from these documented ancestors and who were
of no concern to the early British genealogists. Thus, the
professional "gatherers" find such genealogies unreliable and we
unprofessional "hunters' seldom have the proper weapons at our
disposal.

I don't think the reason for a judgment of unreliability is any sort of
social indifference toward an alleged line of the downward social
mobility via younger sons and daughters from titled to minor gentry.

In this case the first hurdle is: what proves that Mark Lothrop of
Bridgewater is the man baptised 12 Mar 1617/8 at Cherry Burton,
Yorkshire?

If Mark Lothrop can be proved to belong to the same Cherry Burton,
Yorks. family as Rev. John (and to be a first cousin to him, sharing the
same grandparents) then the problem of the Aston identity still remains.
This message from 1999 by John Steele Gordon suggests that the
grandmother of Rev. John Lathrop cannot be proved to be an Aston at all
(let alone of the Staffordshire gentry Astons):

http://groups.google.com/group/soc.gene ... cadbcf58...
b?dmode=source

Nat Taylorhttp://www.nltaylor.net- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

It must be kept in mind that genealogy is not an exact science and in
the strict sense no ancestry can be said to be "proven" unless
accompanied by DNA evidence and this is, of course, except perhaps in
the instances of direct male or direct female lines impossible to
expect. The best that can be said is that ancestry 'X' is "proven" via
reference to, let us say, Burke, or 16th C. Visitations, or LDS files,
or Stirnet or Shurtleff genealogies, some considered primary, others
secondary sources but all subject, primary as well as secondary, to
the subjectivity of the recorder.
How reliable then are our 'primary' sources? I believe most of us
would consider both Burke's works and Stirnet Genealogy as reliable if
not primary souces but what then of the continuous corrections being
made to the former and one look at the Stirnet sites' ancestry of the
Freville family makes the genealogist in me quiver.
With respect to the visitations I think that the original utilitarian
purpose, i.e. to verify the ancestral titles and heraldry of noted
families, must be kept in mind. Certainly the 17th century chronicler
of, say, the 'Aston' family would have been more concerned and exact
with documenting the ancestry of Sir Walter Aston recently restored to
title by the Scottish king than with that of Walter's (possible)
cousin Marke who had no title, who had no inheritance and who lived a
world away. To think otherwise is, I believe, rather naive.
Please, do not get me wrong. I am not saying that I doubt the validity
of the primary sources, nor that our secondary sources should be
treated as as reliable as the primary. Rather that both should be
taken at their true value as sources. Certainly there are "bogus"
genealogies created out of fantasy or wishful thinking or, like that
of my ancestor William Giffard, those generated from little or no
research. Then there are those genealogies, as is the Lowthrop /
Aston, which seem to have been thoroughly researched but which can be
neither 'proved' or, in fact, disproved but which should be footnoted
as sourced from secondary referrences and to be given credence at all,
from numerous secondary sources not themselves referenced from the
same source.
For the 21st Century "hunter" genealogist such an attitude opens up a
world of possibility free from the skeptism of the gatherers' cry "but
its' not proven!"

Nathaniel Taylor

Re: Lathrop of Cherry Burton, Yorks (was: Librarian's perspe

Legg inn av Nathaniel Taylor » 11 nov 2007 14:39:16

In article <1194786580.570926.152870@v3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
rgr <rgr1222@yahoo.com> wrote:

It must be kept in mind that genealogy is not an exact science and in
the strict sense no ancestry can be said to be "proven" unless
accompanied by DNA evidence and this is, of course, except perhaps in
the instances of direct male or direct female lines impossible to
expect. The best that can be said is that ancestry 'X' is "proven" via
reference to, let us say, Burke, or 16th C. Visitations, or LDS files,
or Stirnet or Shurtleff genealogies, some considered primary, others
secondary sources but all subject, primary as well as secondary, to
the subjectivity of the recorder.
How reliable then are our 'primary' sources? I believe most of us
would consider both Burke's works and Stirnet Genealogy as reliable if
not primary souces but what then of the continuous corrections being
made to the former and one look at the Stirnet sites' ancestry of the
Freville family makes the genealogist in me quiver.
With respect to the visitations I think that the original utilitarian
purpose, i.e. to verify the ancestral titles and heraldry of noted
families, must be kept in mind. Certainly the 17th century chronicler
of, say, the 'Aston' family would have been more concerned and exact
with documenting the ancestry of Sir Walter Aston recently restored to
title by the Scottish king than with that of Walter's (possible)
cousin Marke who had no title, who had no inheritance and who lived a
world away. To think otherwise is, I believe, rather naive.
Please, do not get me wrong. I am not saying that I doubt the validity
of the primary sources, nor that our secondary sources should be
treated as as reliable as the primary. Rather that both should be
taken at their true value as sources. Certainly there are "bogus"
genealogies created out of fantasy or wishful thinking or, like that
of my ancestor William Giffard, those generated from little or no
research. Then there are those genealogies, as is the Lowthrop /
Aston, which seem to have been thoroughly researched but which can be
neither 'proved' or, in fact, disproved but which should be footnoted
as sourced from secondary referrences and to be given credence at all,
from numerous secondary sources not themselves referenced from the
same source.
For the 21st Century "hunter" genealogist such an attitude opens up a
world of possibility free from the skeptism of the gatherers' cry "but
its' not proven!"

This misuses the terms 'hunters' and 'gatherers' as Leo Van de Pas has
defined them. According to Leo, 'hunters' are those who conduct
original research in primary sources to establish a genealogy, hopefully
publishing their work in some forum in which it can be evaluated and
built on by others. 'Gatherers' are those who compile existing
genealogical scholarship into databases and tertiary works. Gatherers
may exercise critical sense (e.g. rejecting something as 'not proved')
or they may be wholly uncritical, pulling stuff off the Ancestral File
in blissful ignorance of its falsity. Or they may lie anywhere in
between. Hunters, too, can be more or less appropriately critical of
the sources they draw from.

I'm not sure what you're getting at with the discussion of Sir Walter
Aston and 'cousin Mark' (i.e. Mark Lothrop?) above. Please note that
from what I've skimmed I think that there is no documentation of Mark
Lothrop's parentage at all, and apparently there is no documentation
that the grandmother of Rev. John Lathrop of Cherry Burton, Yorks., was
an Aston at all. Therefore you can't save the line by saying "oh, well,
her important cousins would not have mentioned her in their records."
You have to ask: what was the original reason someone thought she was an
Aston in the first place? This might uncover some piece of
circumstantial or direct evidence--but it might not.

Nat Taylor
http://www.nltaylor.net

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