I am a volunteer researcher with a village history group in Barnsley, Yorkshire, and am currently researching the Dodworth/Dodsworth/Dodworthe family of Gawber Hall, Manor of Shepley, & Lascelles Hall in the 14th, 15th & 16th centuries. I have traced family members mainly through their witnessing of documents and have formed the opinion that they are legal people. Another document - an appointment of Attorney - has further convinced me that I'm on the right lines. However, as I'm still in my infancy as a medieval researcher I'd welcome the list's thoughts on this. June M Sent from my iPad

On 2016-06-18 14:39:43 +0000, Jan Wolfe said: > On Saturday, June 18, 2016 at 9:17:58 AM UTC-4, cynthia.ann...@gmail.com wrote: >> On Wednesday, June 15, 2016 at 11:08:13 AM UTC-4, >> cynthia.ann...@gmail.com wrote: >>> This came from the 2008 RD600 (if I've copied it correctly): >>> King Louis IV of France d. 954 = Gerbera dau. Of Henry I the Fowler, >>> German Emperor, their son: >>> Charles, Duke of Lower Lorraine = Adelaide; their daughter: >>> Adelaide of Lower Lorraine = Albert I Count of Namur; their son: >>> Albert II Count of Namur = Regelinde of Lower Lorraine; their son: >>> Albert III, Count of Namur = Ida of Saxony; their son: >>> Geoffrey, Count of Namur = Sybil of Chateau-Porcien: their daughter: >>> Elizabeth of Namur = Gervais, Count of Rethel; their daughter: >>> Milicent of Rethel = (2) Richard de Camville; their son: >>> William de Camville = Aubree de Marmion; their son: >>> William de Camville = Iseuda; their son: >>> Thomas = Agnes; their daughter: >>> Felicia de Camville = Phillip Durvassal; their son: >>> Thomas Durvassal= Margery; their daughter: >>> Margery Durvassal = William de la Spine; their son: >>> William de la Spine = Alice de Bruley; their son: >>> Sir Guy de la Spine/Spinney = Katherine; their daughter: >>> Eleanor Spinney = Sir John Throckmorton; their daughter: >>> Agnes Throckmorton = Thomas Winslow; their daughter: >>> Agnes Winslow = John Giffard; their son: >>> Thomas Giffard = Joan Langston; their daughter: >>> Amy Giffard = Richard Samwell; their daughter: >>> Susanna Samwell = Peter Edwards; their son: >>> Edward Edwards = Ursula Coles; their daughter: >>> Margaret Edwards = Henry Freeman; their daughter: >>> Alice Freeman (of Massachusetts and Connecticut) = (1) John Thompson; >>> (2) Robert Parke >>> >>> I keep asking why the lines back from gateway Alice Freeman are no >>> longer valid. I keep getting answers that this is everyone's >>> understanding except for back to Ethelred II they are gone. >>> So could someone tell me where this line breaks down? >>> I know some of you don't care for gateways but I haven't found another >>> newsgroup that really deals effectively going back. So here I am again. >>> Thank you scholars, researchers, historians, for all your help. >>> Cynthia Montgomery >> >> Now that I understand that the Camville line breaks down because the >> mother of William de Camville isn't Milicent de Rethel but instead >> Richard de Camville's first wife Alice, does anyone have evidence who >> this Alice is? > > What is the evidence for the identity of the wives of the two William > de la Spines in this pedigree? I'd like to know that myself. The two secondary sources I have handy which assert these marriages are Henry James Young's _The Blackmans of Knight's Creek_ and Gary Boyd Roberts' _The Royal Descent of 600 Immigrants_ etc (2008 edition), the source cited by Cynthia Ann Montgomery in starting this thread. Both are works that concatenate their citations in such a way that makes it a bit challenging to establish which source confirms which piece of information. Young's references for the Bruley family are _The Quatremains of Oxfordshire_ by William F. Carter (1936) and _Memorials of the Danvers Family_ by F. N. Macnamara (1895). For the Durvassals, he cites Dugdale's _Antiquities of Warwickshire_, page 757, and _The Genealogist_ n.s., volume 10, page 31. And for the Spinney/Spine/Spineto family, he cites only Charles Wickliffe Throckmorton's 1930 _A Genealogical and Historical Account of the Throckmorton Family in England and the United States_. I don't have immediate access to _The Quatremains of Oxfordshire_. But the other sources are easy to find online. The Bruley discussion in _Memorials of the Danvers Family_ doesn't mention an "Alice de Bruley", let alone anyone named de la Spine (or variants). _Antiquities of Warwickshire_ doesn't anywhere, as best as I can tell, mention a Margery Durvassal marrying a William de Spineto/Spine/etc. And the _Genealogist_ page referred to shows merely a brief Durvassal pedigree from a pipe roll which, again, makes no mention of a Margery. Gary Boyd Roberts' list of references on page 559 of the 2008 edition of his _Royal Descent of 600 Immigrants_, following his presentation of the pedigree under discussion, includes, for the generations in question, Young's _Blackmans of Knight's Creek_, Dugdale's _Antiquities of Warwickshire_, _The Wallop Family_ (which doesn't mention any Spinetos/Spynes/Spinneys prior to the Sir Guy Spiney of Coughton whose daughter married a Throckmorton), an ancestor table by Brice McAdoo Clagett in the _Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin 31 (1989-90): 136:53, "corrected in part in [McAdoo's] forthcoming _Seven Centuries: Ancestors for Twenty Generations of John Brice de Treville Clagett and Ann Calvert Brooke Clagett_" (neither of which I have access to), and ... Charles Wickliffe Throckmorton's book. So unless William F. Carter's 1936 _The Quatremains of Oxfordshire_, and/or the two works by Brice McAdoo Clagett (one of them unpublished, as far as I know) contain evidence for the marriages of William de Spineto (etc, d. bef. 1317) of Coughton, Warwickshire to Margary Durvassal, daughter of Thomas Durvassal (d. bef. 1329) of Spernore, Warwickshire, and of his son William Spyne (etc) to Alice de Bruley, daughter of William Bruley of Aston Bruley, Warwickshire, himself a son of Sir Henry de Bruley and Katherine Foliot ... I think we have to conclude that both Young's and Roberts's main source for these marriages was Col. Charles Wickliffe Throckmorton's 1930 _A Genealogical and Historical Account of the Throckmorton Family in England and the United States_. Which does indeed show these marriages. Let's look at what the Colonel has to say. "Alice=William de Spine" appears at the bottom of Col. Throckmorton's "Bruley Pedigree" facing page 64, and both marriages are shown on the "Spine and Durvassal Pedigree" facing page 68. In the latter pedigree, the marriage of William to Margery Durvassal is footnoted "In 26 Edw. I. (1300) he bought the de Bruley interest in Cocton from Sir Wm. Tuchet, knt., who had inherited them from the Bishop of Ely. (Coughton Records and Dugdale.) In Ireland 1291-3, and in 1294 in Wales with the king for the war. (Chancery Warrants, 1294-1326, p. 47.)" The marriage of the younger William to "Alice, dau. of William de Bruley" is footnoted "In 22 Edw. III., William de Espinge, lord of Cocton, lets farm to Wm. de Bruley, son of the former Henry le Bruley, knt., a messuage in Cocton. In 36 Edw. III., William Spine quitclaimed to Sybil, who was formerly the wife of John Durvassal, and heirs of her body all right in the manor of Spernore. He was living 44 Edw. III. Commissioner for arraying of Archers for French wars, 19 Edw. III. (Dugdale and Coughton Records.)" Regarding the first of these two footnotes, it's worth pointing out that 26 Edward I was 20 Nov 1297 to 19 Nov 1298, not "1300" as Throckmorton says. The Colonel's shaky grasp of reignal dating has been noted elsewhere. Col. Throckmorton's actual narrative of the Spine family runs from pages 64 to 66, following a discussion of the de Coctons, a daughter of whom, Throckmorton says, married the William de la Spine who was father to the elder of the two Williams being discussed in this post. Interestingly, this narrative passage doesn't mention any marriages to de Bruleys or Durvassals. Following his discussion of Guy de la Spine, knight of the shire, whose daughter Alianore married John Throckmorton, Col. Throckmorton says "I have given above nearly verbatim the account of the Cocton and Spine families from Wrottesley of Wrottesley by the Right Honorable Major General Sir George Wrottesley and from the Antiquities of Warwickshire by Sir William Dugdale". It's notable that George Wrottesley's _History of the Family of Wrottesley of Wrottesley, Co. Stafford_ (1903) doesn't mention the Spines at all, and Dugdale's _Antiquities of Warwickshire_, while it does discuss the Spines (volume 2, p. 748-49), makes (as noted previously) no mention of a marriage to a Margary Durvassal, and the name given for the wife of the younger William Spine is merely "Alicia." In other words, the evidence presented by Throckmorton for the Bruley and Durvassal marriages consists entirely of his entries on two pedigree charts, accompanied by footnotes which -- and I acknowledge that I'm merely an interested amateur; I'd be delighted to be shown wrong here -- don't seem to me to present information demonstrating that these marriages actually happened. I admit that I'm predisposed to be suspicious of Colonel Throckmorton's book, because I've read John G. Hunt and Henry J. Young's article "Ravens or Pelicans: Who was Joan de Harley?" (_The Genealogist_, even newer series, 1:27, Spring 1980), which entertainly demolished Col. Throckmorton's claim that Alexander Besford, a Worcestershire knight of the shire who died about 1400 and who was an ancestor to (among other early New England immigrants) Alice Freeman of Connecticut and John Throckmorton of Rhode Island, was son to a Joan de Harley who was herself daughter of Joan Corbet, dau. of Sir Robert Corbet, and thus descended from Louis IV of France, Henry "the Fowler", Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, the dukes of Normandy, and various other medieval eminences. In the process, Hunt and Young (the latter of whom I assume to be the same individual that compiled _The Blackmans of Knight's Creek_) make some observations about Col. Throckmorton's methods: "In the scholarly articles of [G. Andrews] Moriarty the pedigree emerges inevitably from the original documents consulted; by contrast, the Colonel uses his documents for verisimilitude and ornamentation, almost as a smoke screen, relying ultimately on his hunch. [...] Even his citations are lifted, not always accurately, without acknowledgement of the immediate source." "Using documents for verisimilitude and ornamentation, almost as a smoke screen" looks to me very much like a description of Throckmorton's two footnotes transcribed above, and it really doesn't encourage me to give much credibility to a pair of marriages for which his pedigrees appear to be the only actual source. Further destruction of the Colonel's credibility can be found in Paul C. Reed's article nine years later, again in _The Genealogist_ (10:1, Spring 1989), "Another Look at Joan de Harley: Will Her Real Descendants Please Rise?", which in the process of bouncing the rubble made a good case that the Colonel's methodological problems were not occasional or intermittent. Again, I'm merely an interested amateur; I'd be happy to learn that I'm wrong about any of this. It seems to me likely that many of the people reading this are far more familiar with this material than I am. (I certainly suspect that Jan Wolfe is.) I'm basically trying to reason as best I can from the materials available to me, and within the limitations of my knowledge. -- Patrick Nielsen Hayden pnh@panix.com about.me/patricknh http://nielsenhayden.com/genealogy-tng/

On 19/06/2016 5:37 AM, Darrel Hockley via wrote: > I originally sent the below to Dr. Williams' email address, but it "bounced back" to me, so now I have posted it to the List. > Darrel Hockley > > > ----- Forwarded Message ----- > From: Darrel Hockley <ddh_regina@yahoo.ca> > To: Dr. Kelsey Jackson Williams <kelsey@scotsgenealogist.com> > Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2016 1:32 PM > Subject: Nicholas Crispo (1392 to 1450) > > Hello Dr. Williams, > I have been reading about Caterino Zeno, Patrician of Venice and Diplomat of the Venetian Republic and am thinking there may be a connexion to the House of Komnenos in his case. > > In the Wilki article on Nicholas Crispo, Lord of Syros and Patrician of Venice (1392 to 1450), it states he married in 1413 Eudokia (Valenza) Komnena. I think that Eudokia was the daughter of the Emperor Manuel III Komnenos (1364 to 1417) and that her mother may have been Gulkhan (Eudokia) of Georgia who died in May of 1395 - maybe in childbirth? The likelihood of this is less than vanishingly small - the prohibition on giving the name of a parent to a child in the Byzantine world was, as far as we can tell, strictly observed by the Komnenoi in Trebizond. Since Gulkhan took the name Eudokia, this would not have been given to her daughter (if she ever had one). Even if you want to speculate that she did have a daughter, for whose existence there is no direct evidence, you will still be pushing a rock uphill to establish that this could have been her namesake. Peter Stewart

On 6/19/2016 8:30 AM, WJH via wrote: > N.B. There's also the question of what will happen to your knowledge > and work once you cease to be able to add to it. It would seem like an > incredible waste if it were, so to speak, to die with you. I'm not talking about keeping my finished research to myself. By "finished research" I mean not including various notes which may be easily misinterpreted. I sometimes make experimental trees from undocumented data I find just to see how well it holds up, and if the information seems plausible I will use it as a finding aid, but allowing such notes to become public will cause more problems than they solve. Many of the problems present on the Internet are caused by people copying such scratch paper. I have already shared the finished pages of the Henry Project, and other research of mine has been published. I will continue to publish my research or make it available on the Internet. I just don't want to become involved in something like wikitree where my research would be too easily mangled. > 1. Familysearch doesn't have profile managers so I don't know how they work, but intuitively I'd've thought that the answer would be to put yourself forward as one such and if there are "rivals" convince them by your arguments... To many projects, too little time ... > 2. on the use of personal knowledge as a justification, I think it depends on what it is and who's claiming it. I agree that the use of personal knowledge is appropriate in cases where the information is close to the time of the writer. However, the bare citation "personal knowledge" should only be used when the writer has that knowledge from their own personal experience. If, for example, your grandmother tells you the name of her grandmother, then using that as a source is fine, but it should not be cited simply as "personal knowledge" but something like "My grandmother told me ..." (making sure that the antecedent of "my" is clear). Documents in the writer's possession should ideally either be scanned or transcribed word-for-word, along with any known information about the identity of the writer. > 3. Novices' ability to recognise good from bad. I think you are being unfairly hard on most novices here - the difference between well-supported and hypothetical is normally obvious, if only from the volume of supporting text. However, I do agree that the current inflexibility of the merge option on Familysearch does make it too easy to lose detail at present. I agree that many novices quickly advance to the stage where they can recognize the difference between good and dreadful sources, but I have also encountered too many who still can't tell the difference after years of "experience." Also, there are too many bad genealogists who are pretty good at putting enough "window dressing" on their work to make it look better documented than it is. Many novices have difficulty distinguishing such work from good research. > 4. Tidying up a big mess - unfortunately, the reality is that there is a lot of wiki-info being uploaded which initially overwhelms the ability of good wiki genealogists to process it. However, I would argue that this is a function of where we are in the development of on-line genealogy. In ten years' time I would expect the 19th century UK censuses to be almost completely linked in on the big sites, their software to be better at dealing with uncertainty and the genealogists better at supporting their arguments. Whether I'm right or not, or rather how fast this happens will be influenced significantly by the attitudes (i.e. willingness to get involved / share knowledge) of the best genealogists around. Linking to the original source is fine if the source is actually relevant. On Ancestry.com, for example, it is quite frequent for people to link to sources mentioning different people with the same name, or to link to sources which clearly do not prove the information to which they are linked. Such "documentation" is then often copied automatically by others. Stewart Baldwin

Dear Richard You are mixing two questions a bit in my opinion. 1. In terms of software platform, wikitree uses its own, which they developed from the more standard ones, and I don't think anyone else can use it for free. There are specific things they have developed like the uncertain option, which are not standard on a wiki. There are also things they removed from the standard, such as talk pages. Wikipedia is the standard format of software available, even if not necessarily the type of editing community you are looking for. If you look at Wikipedia you'll see how the talk pages are like articles attached to articles which record any discussed needed between editors. (Wikitree have pushed all discussions to either small text boxes for comments on each article, or separate forums which are not so simply connected to individual articles.) 2. The quality of editing, and of editors, is not connected to the software. Your remark below is a bit like saying that you saw spelling mistakes in an example of a Word document, so now you are concerned about using Word? :) Basically in the end wiki software is just like Word or Google Docs or whatever: a platform for typing into. Specifically it was designed to help groups work on something which is going to be in discrete inter-linked articles, when the work will be done by multiple editors who want to be able to work online and at the same time. Here is the Wikipedia article for Wikis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki It links to a list of typical software used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wiki_software The best known software is Mediawiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki If you don't want to set-up a server yourself there are options like Wikia ("wikifarms"). I notice that these days the mass of wikis using this are connected to fan movements, like for example wikis about fictional worlds in games, movies and books. (But that is clearly not going to mean that any wiki using that software will become like a fan wiki.) Here are more wikifarms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_hosting_services Best Regards Andrew On 19/06/2016 4:26, Richard Carruthers wrote: > I wonder if I can call on listers to suggest a good platform for the creation of the List initially proposed? > > I have examined Wikitree to some extent and have some initial impressions. One is that the certain vs uncertain button for asserting > that something is sure is not helpful unless there is some control over its use. As with any statement about which one can claim > certainty there is the vexed question of opinion which some sort of table of authorities might go some way toward addressing. > > The example I noted was that of the style HRH associated with HM Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother (RIP). To that erroneous style the > valuation of certain was ascribed on no authority. This is just the sort of unsourced and erroneous I would want to guard against in any > List of Landed, Manorial, or Gentry Families. >

> As for picking a family and trying to improve the wikitree account, what > possible incentive would there be to do so? I care too much about my > research to make it a part of what I consider to be a lost cause. I'm > not against joining a group project in principle, but any such project > would have to have realistic goals and have a quality-control procedure > that I trusted. > > Stewart Baldwin Dear Stewart I suppose it partly depends on whether you see genealogy as a public or a private good. The incentive is that by contributing what you know you are improving what is out there. Given that your research is still yours and will still live on your own hard drive, there is no risk of that being tainted, but by sharing that information, posting your evidence and so on you are both improving the information in the public domain and modelling good genealogical practice for the benefit of those less skilled / experienced than you. The extent to which you are committing yourself to ongoing engagement is up to you, given the state of many of the big sites it would seem perfectly reasonable to adopt a "fire and forget" policy now, with a view to coming back in a few years to see what has happened... N.B. There's also the question of what will happen to your knowledge and work once you cease to be able to add to it. It would seem like an incredible waste if it were, so to speak, to die with you. On four specific points: 1. Familysearch doesn't have profile managers so I don't know how they work, but intuitively I'd've thought that the answer would be to put yourself forward as one such and if there are "rivals" convince them by your arguments... 2. on the use of personal knowledge as a justification, I think it depends on what it is and who's claiming it. I feel quite proprietorial about my family back to the middle of the 19th century and have various documents that aren't published (and probably won't be) plus all the anecdotal knowledge that goes with that (although I confess that the location of Cromwell's guns used for the siege of Pontefract castle that my Mother pointed out to me forty years ago, which her aunt showed her because her grandfather showed her based on his grandfather having seen them has unfortunately now been lost!) and so for me to say something like "family knowledge" seems reasonable. To try to claim the same about something medieval would be ridiculous! 3. Novices' ability to recognise good from bad. I think you are being unfairly hard on most novices here - the difference between well-supported and hypothetical is normally obvious, if only from the volume of supporting text. However, I do agree that the current inflexibility of the merge option on Familysearch does make it too easy to lose detail at present. 4. Tidying up a big mess - unfortunately, the reality is that there is a lot of wiki-info being uploaded which initially overwhelms the ability of good wiki genealogists to process it. However, I would argue that this is a function of where we are in the development of on-line genealogy. In ten years' time I would expect the 19th century UK censuses to be almost completely linked in on the big sites, their software to be better at dealing with uncertainty and the genealogists better at supporting their arguments. Whether I'm right or not, or rather how fast this happens will be influenced significantly by the attitudes (i.e. willingness to get involved / share knowledge) of the best genealogists around. Which brings me back full circle...! Regards James

Well maybe at some point some lost information will come to light on who was what. I do not know if DNA testing of any descendants of Nicholas Crispo would help or not in solving the issue - I am thinking of the "Family Finder" test that Family Tree DNA offers. Darrel Hockley From: Peter Stewart via <gen-medieval@rootsweb.com> To: gen-medieval@rootsweb.com Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2016 8:04 PM Subject: Re: Fw: Nicholas Crispo (1392 to 1450) On Sunday, June 19, 2016 at 5:37:41 AM UTC+10, Darrel Hockley via wrote: > I originally sent the below to Dr. Williams' email address, but it > "bounced back" to me, so now I have posted it to the List. > Darrel Hockley > >      > ----- Forwarded Message ----- >  From: Darrel Hockley <ddh_regina@yahoo.ca> >  To: Dr. Kelsey Jackson Williams <kelsey@scotsgenealogist.com> >  Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2016 1:32 PM >  Subject: Nicholas Crispo (1392 to 1450) >    > Hello Dr. Williams, > I have been reading about Caterino Zeno, Patrician of Venice and > Diplomat of the Venetian Republic and am thinking there may be a > connexion to the House of Komnenos in his case. > > In the Wilki article on Nicholas Crispo, Lord of Syros and Patrician > of Venice (1392 to 1450), it states he married in 1413 Eudokia > (Valenza) Komnena. This appears to be an error - according to Michel Kuršanskis we don't know if Valenza was the first wife of Niccolò, a Genoese lady who died shortly after 1418, or his second wife who may have been a Komnene from Trebizond given an Italian name, perhaps a daughter of Alexis IV or possibly of Manuel III (see 'Une alliance problématique au XVe siècle: le mariage de Valenza Comnena, fille d’un empereur de Trébizonde, à Niccolò Crispo, seigneur de Santorin', in *Archeion Pontou* 30 (1970–1971) 94-106). Peter Stewart ------------------------------- 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

Thanks for all the replies. I knew that lb was short for pound, but the rest I wasn't aware of. I'd never heard of hobelar before. Serjeanty is a term I had recently begun to come across. Hauberk is new to me too, but I have since looked it up. Peter D. A. Warwick

Dear Stewart >I decided to test this by checking out wikitree on a few of my immigrant ancestors, and saw no evidence of any convergence toward something acceptable. Well, to be scientific you should record a few pages, and come back in a few years? :) Everything you say is true, but nothing you say disagrees with anything I said. Also I never argued that you should feel obliged to work on a big wiki. They will exist and improve glacially. No one is arguing much more than that I hope. The people who do good work on Wikitree will in my opinion help genealogy though in their small way. An interesting question in practice is whether good editors can speed the glaciers up on a family they care about. Will a good editor who takes their time be reverted and unable to make improvements, even slowly? The good news, no miracle, is that the answer seems to be yes. I can point to families I have worked on which have improved and not been reverted. Other families will languish for a long time unfortunately. Any Magna Carta line is likely to be an island of sanity because there is a small core of good editors working on those for example. (If you wanted to play around you could pick a favorite family and try improving that?) The point about sourcing which says that it comes from an editor is ok in my opinion. Basically they've decided to say that you should state that this is the source. It makes it obvious work is needed. They are effectively saying "be honest". Anyway, there is absolutely no comparison in quality to the Henry project. And what's more things like the Henry project will fuel better editing on all bigger websites, and are incredibly valuable. Regards Andrew

On Saturday, June 18, 2016 at 9:02:41 PM UTC+2, peter...@yahoo.ca wrote: > A big reason why I'm into genealogy is that it makes history come alive. A case in point is the following from the Inquisitions Post Mortem of Edward II, Volume 7 done at Bedfor 14 January, 13 Edward II, which I believe is 1320. It deals with Nicholas de Meperteshal (Meppershall) an ancestor of mine. > > "Meperteshael. The manor (extent given), including rents in Feelmereshan, held of the king in chief by service of being in the king's war for forty days at his own charges with a horse, hauberk, shield, sword, lance, iron cap and knife; and 18a. arable held of Henry atte Hoo by service of 18d. yearly." > > What particularly interests me is the list of what Nicholas took into battle. This helps to bring knighthood alive for me. > > I confess to not knowing about 18a or 18d refers to or "atte Hoo", although I suspect that 18a may refer to 18 acres and 18d to a monetary fee. > > Peter D. A. Warwick 18d is 18 pence, as in £sd (pounds, shillings and pence) - d is short for denarius/denarii.The £ symbol is derived from the letter "l", short for libra ponda, originally a pound weight, but when abbreviated to £ it denotes a pound in the monetary sense. This is why pounds are often shown as a figure followed by the letter "l" in early documents. The abbreviation s. is for the Latin solidus. Thus Latin Libra - solidus - denarius = English Pound, shilling and penny (plural pence). Incidentally, the abbreviation for the old pound weight is lb., to distinguish it from a monetary pound.

From: peter1623a via [gen-medieval@rootsweb.com] Sent: 18 June 2016 20:02 > > A big reason why I'm into genealogy is that it makes history come alive. A case in point is the following from the Inquisitions Post Mortem of Edward II, Volume 7 done at Bedfor 14 January, 13 Edward II, which I believe is 1320. It deals with Nicholas de Meperteshal (Meppershall) an ancestor of mine. > > "Meperteshael. The manor (extent given), including rents in Feelmereshan, held of the king in chief by service of being in the king's war for forty days at his own charges with a horse, hauberk, shield, sword, lance, iron cap and knife; and 18a. arable held of Henry atte Hoo by service of 18d. yearly." > > What particularly interests me is the list of what Nicholas took into battle. This helps to bring knighthood alive for me. > > I confess to not knowing about 18a or 18d refers to or "atte Hoo", although I suspect that 18a may refer to 18 acres and 18d to a monetary fee. > > Peter D. A. Warwick > __________________________________________ Oddly enough, in 1320 that was not a knight's armour - it describes what was then expected of a sergeant, or even a well-equipped hobelar. In Edw II's time a knight was expected have better armour, and to have a barded (armoured) horse, though the requirement for the latter would be dropped within a generation. The very fact that the equipment is specified tells us that Meppershall was not held by knight service, as the equipment needed to satisfy that service was never spelt out when tenure was described - it was only lesser degrees of equipment which were specified. Tenures which required less heavy equipment were held by grand sergeanty. Matt Tompkins

I originally sent the below to Dr. Williams' email address, but it "bounced back" to me, so now I have posted it to the List. Darrel Hockley ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Darrel Hockley <ddh_regina@yahoo.ca> To: Dr. Kelsey Jackson Williams <kelsey@scotsgenealogist.com> Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2016 1:32 PM Subject: Nicholas Crispo (1392 to 1450) Hello Dr. Williams, I have been reading about Caterino Zeno, Patrician of Venice and Diplomat of the Venetian Republic and am thinking there may be a connexion to the House of Komnenos in his case. In the Wilki article on Nicholas Crispo, Lord of Syros and Patrician of Venice (1392 to 1450), it states he married in 1413 Eudokia (Valenza) Komnena. I think that Eudokia was the daughter of the Emperor Manuel III Komnenos (1364 to 1417) and that her mother may have been Gulkhan (Eudokia) of Georgia who died in May of 1395 - maybe in childbirth? >From what I have read, the Emperor Manuel had reasonable good relations with the Republic of Venice and the territories held by the Crispo family such as Syros were under Venice's authority. As a sign of this good relationship, the Emperor's daughter Eudokia would be given in marriage to Nicholas Crispo. Eudokia's and Nicholas' seventh child, Violante Crispo, born in 1427, married the Nobil Huomo Caterino Zeno, who was probably of similar age, which would have made him in his mid to late 40s when in 1471 he undertook his mission to Uzun Hassan, Padishah of Iran (1423 to 1478), husband of Theodora Komnena (c. 1438 to c. 1507). Due to Theodora's rank, is it possible that she would have been referred too in the literature as Zeno's aunt, rather than second cousin? Darrel Hockley

As the discussion has now reached a point where people are starting to discuss other projects and their platforms. I wonder if I can call on listers to suggest a good platform for the creation of the List initially proposed? I have examined Wikitree to some extent and have some initial impressions. One is that the certain vs uncertain button for asserting that something is sure is not helpful unless there is some control over its use. As with any statement about which one can claim certainty there is the vexed question of opinion which some sort of table of authorities might go some way toward addressing. The example I noted was that of the style HRH associated with HM Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother (RIP). To that erroneous style the valuation of certain was ascribed on no authority. This is just the sort of unsourced and erroneous I would want to guard against in any List of Landed, Manorial, or Gentry Families. Suggestions? Thank you, in advance, for any your help and interest. Richard Richard Carruthers-Zurowski

On 6/18/2016 3:41 PM, Andrew Lancaster via wrote: > Any Magna Carta line is likely to be an island of sanity because there > is a small core of good editors working on those for example. (If you > wanted to play around you could pick a favorite family and try improving > that?) I have no doubt that these "islands of sanity" exist, but how is the novice who is trying to use the website supposed to know where these are? For the most part, these "islands of sanity" tend to be places where other sources are also going to give correct information. People are most likely to consult sources where they have difficulty finding good information, but it is exactly those places where wikis tend to be at their worst. One point I have been trying to make is that there is a MASSIVE amount of wasted effort here. If some of the profile managers spent more time doing carefully documented research in original records (on a small enough number of individuals that they did a thorough job) and less time making decisions as profile managers about pages involving research that they apparently have never even read, they might even end up creating some additional "islands of sanity" and also learn enough about genealogical research to make more sensible decisions as profile managers later on. As for picking a family and trying to improve the wikitree account, what possible incentive would there be to do so? I care too much about my research to make it a part of what I consider to be a lost cause. I'm not against joining a group project in principle, but any such project would have to have realistic goals and have a quality-control procedure that I trusted. Stewart Baldwin

On Sunday, June 19, 2016 at 5:37:41 AM UTC+10, Darrel Hockley via wrote: > I originally sent the below to Dr. Williams' email address, but it > "bounced back" to me, so now I have posted it to the List. > Darrel Hockley > > > ----- Forwarded Message ----- > From: Darrel Hockley <ddh_regina@yahoo.ca> > To: Dr. Kelsey Jackson Williams <kelsey@scotsgenealogist.com> > Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2016 1:32 PM > Subject: Nicholas Crispo (1392 to 1450) > > Hello Dr. Williams, > I have been reading about Caterino Zeno, Patrician of Venice and > Diplomat of the Venetian Republic and am thinking there may be a > connexion to the House of Komnenos in his case. > > In the Wilki article on Nicholas Crispo, Lord of Syros and Patrician > of Venice (1392 to 1450), it states he married in 1413 Eudokia > (Valenza) Komnena. This appears to be an error - according to Michel Kuršanskis we don't know if Valenza was the first wife of Niccolò, a Genoese lady who died shortly after 1418, or his second wife who may have been a Komnene from Trebizond given an Italian name, perhaps a daughter of Alexis IV or possibly of Manuel III (see 'Une alliance problématique au XVe siècle: le mariage de Valenza Comnena, fille d’un empereur de Trébizonde, à Niccolò Crispo, seigneur de Santorin', in *Archeion Pontou* 30 (1970–1971) 94-106). Peter Stewart

On Saturday, 18 June 2016 20:02:41 UTC+1, peter...@yahoo.ca wrote: > A big reason why I'm into genealogy is that it makes history come alive. A case in point is the following from the Inquisitions Post Mortem of Edward II, Volume 7 done at Bedfor 14 January, 13 Edward II, which I believe is 1320. It deals with Nicholas de Meperteshal (Meppershall) an ancestor of mine. > > "Meperteshael. The manor (extent given), including rents in Feelmereshan, held of the king in chief by service of being in the king's war for forty days at his own charges with a horse, hauberk, shield, sword, lance, iron cap and knife; and 18a. arable held of Henry atte Hoo by service of 18d. yearly." > > What particularly interests me is the list of what Nicholas took into battle. This helps to bring knighthood alive for me. > > I confess to not knowing about 18a or 18d refers to or "atte Hoo", although I suspect that 18a may refer to 18 acres and 18d to a monetary fee. > > Peter D. A. Warwick Dear Peter, Those are not the things that Nicholas de Meperteshal took to war. Those were the things that his ancestor was required to wear or carry when the land was originally granted to him, probably back around the time of Henry II. Armour had become a bit more sophisticated by 1320. Regards, John

On 6/16/2016 11:10 AM, Andrew Lancaster via wrote: > On Wikitree it happens every day and I think in recent times I have seen > no pre 1700 profiles get worse. In post 1700 profiles, not so much our > topic, people still upload their gedcoms, do crazy merges living in > different countries, and so on. I decided to test this by checking out wikitree on a few of my immigrant ancestors, and saw no evidence of any convergence toward something acceptable. From what I can see, some editors seem to be paralyzed by any sign of disagreement, and given the choice between two different parentages, one in a completely worthless GEDCOM file and the other in a well-documented article in a high-quality journal, will list both as options. In another case, involving my ancestor George Maris, an immigrant from Worcestershire to Chester Co., PA, some poorly done early genealogies had made him the son of a Richard Maris. In 1997, I had an article published in The Genealogist proving that he was a son of George and Alice (Collier) Maris, giving several generations of ancestry on his mother's side. Information on George Maris apparently came to wikitree via some careless merges between someone who had used my article and the previous undocumented garbage, naming the immigrant as "George Edward Maris" and his father as "Richard George Maris." (Sloppy merges have given a number of my ancestors "middle names" which they would not have recognized when they were alive.) The only "fact" for which my article is explicitly cited is the marriage of the immigrant George Maris to Alice "Wellsmith" (or "Wilsmith"), a maiden name which my article in fact disproved. So, the person who cited my article apparently did not actually read it. Some other pages I saw had information from the 1600's "proven" by a citation which said something like "personal knowledge of compiler." Unless people like that are eliminated from the process completely, there is little hope for significant improvement. > But in the medieval profiles the initial chaos is now definitely > trending towards better. And it should be said that anyone who wants to > put better medieval genealogy somewhere on the internet, can already > work on one of the big sites, like you mention, but not all require a fee. I looked at some more pages from the early medieval period that interests me, and it still looks pretty bad to me. Many of the pages seem to have a large number of "profile managers" (too many cooks spoiling the broth?). It isn't so bad in cases where there is no major disagreement, but the minute you get to a case that is complicated, the quality drops through the floor. In many cases, there is no indication that the profile managers have even looked at the underlying evidence. The citations given indicate that for the most part, the profile managers have little idea how to distinguish good and bad scholarship, and in most cases have not bothered to do a reasonable bibliographic search. Wikitree's apparent policy of using Medieval Lands as some sort of standard does not help, for Medieval Lands is at its very worst on the more difficult cases, where the failure to consult the literature causes the most damage. > I do also respect the fact that some of best people don't want to do > that, though they do want to work in small teams. It is a win-win if > they do it as well as possible because the big sites work better when > their are better sources online such as the Henry project. But I don't think that "big" sites are ever going to have an acceptable degree of quality if they have the grandiose idea that they are going to be big right now this very minute. The idea of starting with a big mess and then trying to clean it up is bad enough, but in my opinion, trying to clean up a mess while there are more people still making a mess than there are cleaning it up is a fool's errand. Also, it is sad to see so many "newbies" who have the potential to become good genealogists spreading themselves thin on big projects when they would learn the ropes much better by first concentrating on getting more complete documentation on a smaller group of individuals. If there ever is a top quality "big" genealogical database in the future (and I hope there will be), I think that it will "start small" with strict quality control from the very beginning, and grow gradually over time. Stewart Baldwin

On Saturday, June 18, 2016 at 12:02:41 PM UTC-7, peter...@yahoo.ca wrote: > I confess to not knowing about 18a or 18d refers to or "atte Hoo", although > I suspect that 18a may refer to 18 acres and 18d to a monetary fee. I think you are right about 18a and 18d. atte Hoo is a toponyic surname, where for 'atte' just think 'at' (I have some atte Welle who became Atwell), while Hoo is a geographical feature (as in Sutton Hoo), also being preserved in surnames like Huff, Hough and Howe, although if you do a Google search for the term you will get a whole lot of contradictory origins and definitions. taf

A big reason why I'm into genealogy is that it makes history come alive. A case in point is the following from the Inquisitions Post Mortem of Edward II, Volume 7 done at Bedfor 14 January, 13 Edward II, which I believe is 1320. It deals with Nicholas de Meperteshal (Meppershall) an ancestor of mine. "Meperteshael. The manor (extent given), including rents in Feelmereshan, held of the king in chief by service of being in the king's war for forty days at his own charges with a horse, hauberk, shield, sword, lance, iron cap and knife; and 18a. arable held of Henry atte Hoo by service of 18d. yearly." What particularly interests me is the list of what Nicholas took into battle. This helps to bring knighthood alive for me. I confess to not knowing about 18a or 18d refers to or "atte Hoo", although I suspect that 18a may refer to 18 acres and 18d to a monetary fee. Peter D. A. Warwick

On 18/06/2016 7:39 AM, robert.thecomputerman via wrote: > Further to my querry, I see in the index, on page 444 the composer of the index seems to indicate this is one person, however I see on page 254 of the same record appearing as an (Ansketillus Dispensator only appears without the "Fulco")and on page 436 described as Aschetilus, or Ansketillus, fulk, the Steward (dispensator). > > It is very common for people with two given names to appear in documents with only one of these. Fulk Ascetil was presumably known as Ascetil more familiarly than with both names. Something similar still happens today, of course - there are cases where people are even surprised at the altar to hear the first name of their spouse-to-be. Peter Stewart