From: <harv2.lawref@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: soc.genealogy.medieval
To: <gen-medieval@rootsweb.com>
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2007 11:03 AM
Subject: A Librarian's Perspective on Medieval Genealogy
Leo Van der Pas raises a good point that medieval genealogy is geared
toward lines that lead to royalty or Magna Carta Barons.
=== I would phrase this differently. There are a few people who maintain a
person is only interesting if they can be traced back to a Plantagenet king
or a Magna Carta Surety. Which is a pity as there are many other interesting
people to be found in medieval and earlier, and of course, later times.
I full well understand that people research their own ancestry, whoever
those ancestors are, but sadly it seems royal and aristocratic families are
better recorded and therefor easier (?) to trace. Ralph the famous 12th
century swineheard and his wife Gertrud the local trollop hardly have left
recorded descendants behind that are traceable to the present. I would love
it if anyone today could trace back to people like that. As it is as good as
impossible, we can only trace the traceable. And so we are left with
royalty and aristocracy. I think that kind of ancestors are important for
many reasons, as biographical details are often available they give us a bit
of knowledge about the kind of life they led and what kind of people they
were. And it is fascinating if you are able to say _that_ancestor made a
difference (for good or bad) to the world.
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.
===== I was trying to counteract the one-eyed obsession from some who seem
to think that only people with Plantagenet or Magna Carta ancestors are
worth persuing. These people hardly ever (if at all) produce an ancestor
list, giving information in other directions, for them it more than suffices
if they can say _descendant of XYZ Magna Carta Baron_ Surely they are not
the Genealogical Holy Grail?
When I started with genealogy, about 1958, I found it frustrating to find
someone mentioned in one book and all those fascinating other ancestors were
in another. This was my reason to start, first, with a card collection and
then with a computer program, as those can combine information from
different sources. So often I find, as a matter of fact today, I am given or
find new information about a family only to find that one is already
recorded in my system. In the last few days Francisco Tavares de Almeida
extended for several generations the descendants of a bastard of an early
Portuguese king. I wonder whether he stopped on purpose where he did, as the
brother and sister in the last generation were already in my system. As a
result these 13th century people he displayed, in my system have descendants
till the present.
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.
======= You totally seem to ignore Burke's Peerage, they have been around a
long time and for families to be included a link to Royalty was not needed.
I understand that Burke's Peerage started around 1800 and their information
up until about 150 years before that are pretty reliable. Anything before
that should be compared with other sources-----if possible. Also I
understand that an enormous amount of work went into the 1999 edition and
many errors were amended.
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.
================ Problem? What 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.
===== I have not seen the Magna Carta Barons, but I have a copy of his
Plantagenet Ancestry. I have said before this is a most beautiful production
and the index is probably the best I have ever encountered. So what? What
does it say about the contends? Not much. When Richardson is not willing to
own up to, or just explain errors, we are faced with a poisoned banquet.
Which bite is safe? When others have to make a webpage displaying errors in
this book, it is very sad. Especially as he maintained he was going to make
such a page himself.
Too often Richardson ignores questions, so often that he has become his own
liability. When can you trust him and his work and when not?
But enough said about Douglas Richardson.
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.
======= CP, the Scots Peerage, Lodge's Peerage and such works should always
(if possible) be combined with Burke's Peerage.
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.
======== There are many other such works, don't forget Ronny Bodine. Another
work, apparently, totally ignored by most is A.C. Addington's The Royal
House of Stuart. This displays all _legitimate_ descendants of James VI-I
(and so of his mother Mary, Queen of Scots). If I had to go to a deserted
Island, this would be one book I would love to take with me.
The problem with that is you need to have your
ancestor fall into the other person's family.
===== Is that a problem? You research your own ancestors, and if you get
lucky (luck is not a problem) and you find a person who is also an ancestor
of xyz you hit the jackpot. That is why it is important that _all_ ancestors
of people like Prince William, Prince Charles and King Charles II are
researched _because_ they may produce knowledge about ancestors of other
people.
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.
==== Who does? The selective quoting is silly. Only Plantagenet or Magna
Carta deserve mentioning? With Audrey Barlow was proclaimed her meandering
line to Alfred the Great, when she has 7 more recent monarchs as ancestors.
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.
====== I agree, but a gatherer should know he is a gatherer, not pretend to
be a hunter when he is not.
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.
======== For original research a great deal of knowledge is needed, more
than just knowing medieval Latin. And there are not many people who know
that little bit. And as they say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
If your knowledge is only a little, do not get carried away with it and
pretend you know a lot.
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.
===== I know producing an article or a book is different from having a
website. I would not dream calling people who criticise my website as "a
flock of yahoos". It is _your_ approach to receiving criticism that counts.
You should be grateful that people are willing to discuss the work you have
done. Of course there are knowalls, but most of the time they are only
trying to help you. The sad part with printed work is you can't correct. You
only can correct if you re-publish. And that is the advantage of a website.
In
genealogy, it can be endless since there is always one more source to
check.
=== Thank goodness for that !! Did you want to stop?
With best wishes,
Leo van de Pas
gatherer
Canberra, Australia
-------------------------------
To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to
GEN-MEDIEVAL-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the
quotes in the subject and the body of the message