On 6/14/2016 5:21 PM, Andrew Lancaster via wrote: > ... Many of us respect Charles Cawley's ambitions and > effort, but wish also that he would have a way of not moving ahead > sometimes too quickly. Unfortunately, in my opinion, Charles Cawley's "Medieval Lands" is a sad example of how NOT to do a medieval genealogy database. I say "sad" for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that Mr. Cawley is apparently unwilling to admit to himself the extent to which he is in far over his head, despite his apparent original good intentions. It is also sad because it is clear that this is a "labor of love" for Mr. Cawley, who has spent an enormous amount of time producing a work whose whole is so much less than the sum of its parts. Another unfortunate point is the lack of any significant improvement in quality after ten years, despite significant increases in quantity. Although it is hard to be sure about this, Mr. Cawley appears to be very sensitive to the (sometimes severe) criticism that he has received regarding Medieval Lands, and I have seen no indication that any significant attempt has been made to address the very real problems that have been present from the very beginning. Throughout its ten year history, Medieval Lands has essentially been a (very) rough draft in a continual state of revision. There is a tremendous amount of valuable "finding aid" type of material there (mainly citations to original sources), but it is so intermingled with so many citations to unreliable sources and erroneous conclusions that it is of little practical value to those genealogists lacking the familiarity with the primary sources to separate the good from the bad. So, while the genealogists who knows what he/she is doing can sometimes use Medieval Lands to track down an original source, there are an abundance of pitfalls awaiting the unwary amateur, not the least of which is the fact that Medieval Lands contains just enough "window dressing" to look like a finished product to those who are not that familiar with the material. In some cases, Mr. Cawley's lack of familiarity with the scholarly literature is astonishing, as is his apparent lack of effort to become familiar with it. For example, the pages on early medieval Ireland are atrocious, consisting of his attempts to reconstruct material based on the annals and little else, roughly comparable to a novice genealogist who tries to compile a genealogy using only birth, death, and marriage records. Throught Medieval Lands, his mistakes involving Latin are numerous, and would often be laughable if people weren't being misled by his misinterpretations. A good deal of the blame for this should be placed on the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy, which sponsors Medieval Lands. The fact that such severe problems have persisted for so long without any reasonable improvement does not speak well for the FMG. Stewart Baldwin