Stanley Arthur Cook and Oswald Barron

“ In proving a genealogy it must be remembered that in the descent of an estate in land must be sought the best evidence for a pedigree.
At the present time the study of genealogy grows rapidly in English estimation. It is no less popular in America, where societies and private persons have of late years published a vast number of genealogies, many of which combine the results of laborious research in American records with extravagant and unfounded claims concerning the European origin of the families dealt with. ”

“ Genealogy in modern France has, with a few honourable exceptions, fallen into the hands of the popular pedigree-makers, whose concern is to gratify the vanity of their employers. Italy likewise has not yet shaken off the influence of those venal genealogists who, three hundred years ago, sold pedigrees cheaply to all comers. But much laborious genealogical inquiry had been made in Germany since the days of Hübner, and even in Russia there has been some attempt to apply modern standards of criticism to the chronicles of the swarming descendants of the blood of Rurik. ”

“ It demands that every tribe and every clan should have been a homogeneous group which had preserved its unity from the earliest times, that family records extending back for several centuries were in existence, and that such a tribe as Simeon was able to maintain its independence in spite of the tradition that it lost its autonomy in very early times (Gen. xlix. 7) . The whole conception of the unity of the tribes cannot be referred to a date previous to the time of David, and in the older writings a David or a Jeroboam was sufficiently described as the son of Jesse or of Nebat. ”

“ Genealogical research has, however, made great advance during the last generation. The critical spirit shown in such works as Round’s Studies in Peerage and Family History (1901) has assailed with effective ridicule the methods of dishonest pedigree-makers. Much raw material of genealogy has been made available for all by the publication of parish registers, marriage-licence allegations, monumental inscriptions and the like, and above all by the mass of evidences contained in the volumes issued by the Public Record Office. ”

“ Complete Peerage shows the mighty advance of the modern critical spirit. Nevertheless, the 20th century has not yet seen the abandoning of all the genealogical fables nourished by the Elizabethan pedigree-mongers, and the ancestry of many noble houses as recorded in popular works of reference is still derived from mythical forefathers. Thus the dukes of Norfolk, who, by their office of earl marshal are patrons of the heralds, are provided with a 10th-century Hereward for an ancestor ”

“ The interpretation of ethnological or statistical genealogies may easily be pushed too far. Every case has to be judged upon its own merits, and due allowance must be made both for the ambition of the weaker to claim or to strengthen an alliance with the stronger, and for the not unnatural desire of clans or individuals to magnify the greatness of their ancestry. The first step must always be the careful comparison of related lists in order to test the consistency of the tradition. ”

“ Information relating to the subdivision of tribes, their relation to each other, the intermingling of populations and the like are thus frequently represented in the form of genealogies. The “sons” of a “father” often stand merely for the branches of a family as they existed at some one period, and since in course of time tribal relations would vary, lists which have originated at different periods will present discrepancies. ”

“ In every one of the numerous states into which ancient Greece was divided there were aristocratic families, whose genealogies as a rule went back to prehistoric times, their first ancestor being some hero of divine descent, from whom, or from some distinguished younger ancestor, they derived their names. ”

“ Deeds and evidences in private hands may have been hastily examined in some instances—indeed, a herald’s summons invites their production—and monuments were often viewed in the churches, but for the most part men’s memories and the hearsay of the country-side made the backbone of the pedigree. ”

“ A genealogy should not be allowed to stray from facts which can be supported by evidence. A man may know that his grandfather was John Stiles who died in 1850 at the age of fifty-five. It does not follow that this John is identical with the John Stiles who is found as baptized in 1795 at Blackacre, the son of William Stiles. ”

“ The genealogies, too, are often inconsistent amongst themselves and in contradiction to their object. They show, for example, that the population of southern Judah, so far from being “Israelite” was half-Edomite (see Judah) , and several of the clans in this district bear names which indicate their original affinity with Midian or Edom. Moreover, there was a free intermixture of races, and many cities had a Canaanite (i.e. pre-Israelite) population which must have been gradually absorbed by the Israelites (cf. Judg. 1.) ”

“ Modern peerages in England may be said to date from that of Arthur Collins, whose one-volume first edition was published in 1709. The fifth edition appeared in 1778, in eight volumes, to be republished in 1812 by Sir Egerton Brydges, the “Baptist Hatton” of Disraeli’s novel, who corrected many legendary pedigrees, besides inserting his own forged descent from a common ancestor with the dukes of Chandos. From this work and from the Irish peerage of Lodge (as re-edited by Archdall) most of the later peerages have quarried their material. ”

“ The further the pedigree is carried beyond the memory of living men the less trustworthy does it become. The principal visitations took place in the reigns of Elizabeth, James I. and Charles II. No commission has been issued since the accession of William and Mary, but from that time onwards large numbers of genealogies have been recorded in the registers of the College of Arms, the modern ones being compiled with a care which contrasts remarkably with the unsupported statements of the Tudor heralds. ”

“ It is obvious that many of the Biblical names are nothing more than personifications of nations, tribes, towns, &c., which are grouped together to convey some idea of the bond by which they were believed to be connected. ”

“ Lists of pedigrees in English printed works are supplied by Marshall’s Genealogist’s Guide (1903) , while pedigrees in the manuscript collections of the British Museum are indexed in the list of R. Sims (1849) . Valuable genealogical material will be found in such periodicals as the Genealogist, the Herald and Genealogist, the Topographer and Genealogist, Collectanea topographica et genealogica, Miscellanea genealogica et heraldica and the Ancestor. In Germany the Deutscher Herold is the organ of the Berlin Heraldic and Genealogical Society. ”

“ Under these imagines majorum [5] it became usual to inscribe on the wall their respective tituli, the relationship of each to each being indicated by means of connecting lines; and thus arose the stemmata gentilicia, which at a later time began to be copied into family records. In the case of plebeian families (whose stemmata in no case went farther back than 366 B.C.) these written genealogies were probably trustworthy enough; but in the case of patricians who went back to Aeneas, [6] so much cannot, it is obvious, be said ”