A Royal Descent or not?

[David80]

Hello Jayson,
a useful source is Plantagenet Roll of the Blood Royal which is on Google books and downloadable elsewhere:
https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Plantagenet_Roll_of_the_Blood_Royal.html?id=O1BmAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y
Or I understand it can be used through Ancestry if you have it.

If you can find a specific ancestor named in that book (there is more than one volume I think) then your line can be followed up to the appropriate Royal Family member. It is not exhaustive however, but is a good place to start. I would check it by searching surnames.
Best of luck.

I would add that the same caution should be used with this work as with any other. Clearly a good set of cross-checks is needed to confidently make a claim like Royal descent.

[davidft]

I hope my initial comments did not dishearten you too much. Of course it could be that your connections could be proved in due course just at the moment I think they need a little more substantiation although I have no immediate suggestion as to whence that will come. Good luck with your continued search.

[David80]

"Burke's Gentry and Peerage" the 1840's equivalent of "Ancestry Trees" or from Oscar Wilde "..it is the best thing in fiction the English have ever done!"

No don't confuse the authoritative records of the 19th century Burke's Peerage to the later compliations of the 20th century after the titles & name were sold off.
As with all records there were errors, partly due to the Heralds Visitations of earlier times containing errors and forgeries but in the main Burkes was a good source.

Cheers
Guy

I can add to this that there are uncontaminated originals of the Visitations held at the College of Arms, London. These are the only versions it is possible to be entirely sure of. It is expensive to have work done for you by a Herald, but possibly worth it when an essential key question arises that might be answered in this way.

[StanleysChesterton]

My username demonstrates that I, too, have a vague notion that "just maybe".....



Punting a wild guess, I'd guess that my line's descended from the Bishop of Ely, who allegedly had a child.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stanley_(bishop)

All too hard to even start really.  Some people need far more time/access to resources and money than others do to even start.  Not to mention understanding stuff like old writing and Latin
Then to spend decades in dusty old (private) archives pawing through pages.... that you'd most likely only get access to if you were "already a known posh person".



It'd be on my "If I won the lottery" list though....

[Guy Etchells]

I can add to this that there are uncontaminated originals of the Visitations held at the College of Arms, London. These are the only versions it is possible to be entirely sure of. It is expensive to have work done for you by a Herald, but possibly worth it when an essential key question arises that might be answered in this way.

The problem with the Heralds Visitations was the way they were compiled.
Heralds were not adverse to making a pedigree fit to enable the family comply with the requirements of the time or making a pedigree fit the family requirements.
Many visitations have been shown to contain errors and false entries.

Cheers
Guy

[Jayson]

No, davidft, your comments haven't disheartened me in the least. I really appreciate what you and others here have to say because invariably I'm learning something new, especially from Guy who's very knowledgeable on the subject generally. 

I wasn't looking for a royal link but just clicking randomly on various names to see where it would end. What I find frustrating is different answers to the same questions.

Thank David80 and Guy for your suggestions.

[David80]

I can add to this that there are uncontaminated originals of the Visitations held at the College of Arms, London. These are the only versions it is possible to be entirely sure of. It is expensive to have work done for you by a Herald, but possibly worth it when an essential key question arises that might be answered in this way.

The problem with the Heralds Visitations was the way they were compiled.
Heralds were not adverse to making a pedigree fit to enable the family comply with the requirements of the time or making a pedigree fit the family requirements.
Many visitations have been shown to contain errors and false entries.

Cheers
Guy

Thank you Guy.
You are partially mistaken however. The Royal Commissions that produced the Visitations were instituted in the 16th and 17th centuries to establish the right of Armigers to the Coat-Armour that they claimed and used. Courts were held and evidence examined. Claimants were publically held ignoble if their claim failed and they were proved to have no right where Arms had been used, monuments and exemplars were removed and destroyed. The remnants of this purge can still be seen in some churches.

You've missed my point that the Visitations held at the College of Arms are uncontaminated by editing. These were the physical manuscripts which went to the King, and still exist. The ones which were published by the Harleian Society were taken from rough notes which were provided by the Heralds and then misused by the genealogists and editors who wrote the manuscripts to which we have public access.

I assure you that the Visitations held by the Heralds contain substantial differences from the ones that you refer to. For example the Hampshire visitation published in the late 1800s features a Lambert family of Surrey as a cadet branch of the Lamberts of Hampshire (Cavan) with a note thanking the chairman of the Surrey branch of the Antiquary Society for his editorial input (sic). After the publication by J. Horace Round, historical advisor to the Crown (published in the Ancestor 1902) entitled "The Tale of a Great Forgery" (concerning Lamberts) which warns against adding a family as a cadet branch to an armigerous family in order to claim Arms or a more illustrious pedigree - it was ever thus- unsurprisingly a later version of the same Visitation produced by a different editor makes no mention of the Surrey Lambert family referred to in the earlier Harleian Society Hampshire Visitation. It is no shock either that the Pedigree for Lambart Baron Cavan written by Norrey King of Arms in 1838 which was based on the original Visitation to which he had access makes no mention at all of the Surrey family. Ergo the Lamberts of Surrey were added in in bad faith as a cadet branch in the late 1800s.

So you are quite right that the Visitations produced by the Harleian Society are suspect and downright wrong in places, but you are quite wrong to say that the visitations themselves are fundamentally flawed at source, although obviously they still need to be taken in historical context.

Addenda- I should point out that the Lambert of Surrey Arms granted 1737 stand. These were not in question, only the Cavan link etc.

[Guy Etchells]

Where have I mentioned anything about the transcripts of Heralds Visitations, you assume I was referring to them when I was not, whether they were transcripts by the Harleian society or county record societies some of whom also made transcripts of some Visitation pedigrees.

The main difference between the early visitations and the later visitations were in the early days (pre 1560s) the heralds often stayed with the armiger in his home.
By the time of the later post 1560 many of the pedigrees had already been authenticated by use and were accepted by the heralds.

With regards to the College of Arms many of the pedigrees there are transcripts of the signed originals (original draft pedigrees signed by the armiger (the person whose pedigree was recorded)).
Many of these signed originals are in private hands rather than being at the College of Arms which rather shortsightedly had no use of them after they had been transcribed.
Cheers
Guy

[David80]

Hello again Guy, thank you for your kind response.
We probably ought to make a new thread for this if you were to wish to continue here, it's getting off topic.

Where have I mentioned anything about the transcripts of Heralds Visitations, you assume I was referring to them when I was not, whether they were transcripts by the Harleian society or county record societies some of whom also made transcripts of some Visitation pedigrees.

The main difference between the early visitations and the later visitations were in the early days (pre 1560s) the heralds often stayed with the armiger in his home.
By the time of the later post 1560 many of the pedigrees had already been authenticated by use and were accepted by the heralds.

With regards to the College of Arms many of the pedigrees there are transcripts of the signed originals (original draft pedigrees signed by the armiger (the person whose pedigree was recorded)).
Many of these signed originals are in private hands rather than being at the College of Arms which rather shortsightedly had no use of them after they had been transcribed.
Cheers
Guy

The signed originals that you refer to: you've misunderstood. It was not "short sighted" as these were not needed by the College of Arms because the petitioner's submission was not necessarily taken at face value. Think of the stages between Visitation, petition, scrutiny and Grant (if you know the process- I'll assume that) and you'll see that it had to be so. What was officially recorded was the final version in a bound register, all of which were and are kept at the College and which could have been different from the original submission after scrutiny by the College.

Also you are entirely mistaken about this supposed difference between the earliest and later Visitations. The difference was not major, the Heralds still travelled, and saw the individuals in person. I don't know where you get that idea from, evidence please.

I suggest you might like to read chapter V pp.125-137 especially, of "The Right to Bear Arms" [Arthur C. Fox-Davies], (a College of Arms approved book) and in fact that whole chapter. Here it is stated, as everywhere else I've looked that all of the later visitations were at least centred on the county town of each region, and all pedigrees were amended and updated by the physical person of the Armiger fairly near their place of abode. That is why they were called "Visitations".

I realise that being contradicted may be rather irritating, and I'm sorry about that, but hopefully getting at the truth is what everyone is here for.