On 31/05/16 15:27, Richard Carruthers via wrote: > Example of a Simple Listing > > SUSSEX > > Surname Locality Date From Date To Rank Title Contributor Source > Research Pub. Var. > ERNLE Earnley ca 1166 1632 ext.LMG Esq. RHBC-Z WSRO Yes > Var. Yes > ERNLE Sidlesham 1345/6 ibid. do do do Sx > FF Yes do do > ERNLE W. Wittering ante 1632 ext. do do do PCC > Yes do do For an index, this might be okay. But what I'm really interested in is what's behind these. What do the page(s) / entry(s) / article(s) for the family actually looks like? What sort of genealogical details do you aim to include? Is it based around a list of the heads of the family, as per The Complete Peerage? Do you aim to include daughters and younger sons? Do you include discussion on conjectured relationships as the Henry Project frequently does. To what extent do you accept secondary sources? I'm still not clear what you consider the scope of the project to be. You say elsewhere that you "cannot see that contributions of the family names and localities associated with tiny landholders or landowners will harm the list in the long run". That rather depends what you consider to be a tiny landholder. I the context of such a list, I'd have said someone holding a single manor often was tiny landholder. But if you're talking much smaller, which I infer you probably are, I think it dilutes the project too much. If you're planning to focus initially on the earliest period, I fear it'll result in a list full of franklins and yeomen whose genealogies are essentially unknowable. You'd be vastly expanding the scope of the project for no benefit. I would have thought that gentry (or equivalent) would be more appropriate threshold; even then, I'd be concerned it was too low. Richard

Dear Richard, Thank you for your response. The List or Index to the Landed, Manorial, or Gentry Families (LMGF) is the first thing I think needs to be established. Once a properly established entry for a given family were added, then it would take a volunteer or volunteers prepared to register with any website set up for the LMGF List to adopt a given name and proceed to supply additional pages providing greater depth to the Project. It is quite likely that not all families would be adopted, leaving the task of covering those left out, either to a committee of dedicated researchers, or to the future. Personally, I think the first order of business is to get cracking on the simple List for all the counties in the area of coverage. Just to succeed with that would be to make considerable headway unless I am much mistaken. I am not for a moment suggesting that more detailed pages would anything but a lot of work based on the dedication, competence, and willing contributions of their submitters. I would not want to limit submitters as to the level of their coverage of a given family. If their expertise was such that they could make a fair stab at an all-inclusive study of a given family and they were prepared to make this available in toto or in part, I would be happy to accept it providing it were properly substantiated. Similarly, if someone were only prepared to provide a short but accurate description of some aspect of the history of a qualified family that would be acceptable, provided they did not object to the very real possibility that another researcher might come along who was prepared to add a great deal more to what was already available. That is all part of the idea of collegiality in my opinion. There would have to be a set of guidelines for acceptable submissions and, if possible, a board or group of qualified people to verify that the work was up to standard. As there would be a comment page attached to each sort of page involved in the project this would serve to make each item subject to peer review and collegial discussion.This in turn should lead to evidenced-based research being the distilled result of review of available material on a given family. This could help spur people on to reach a high standard of scholarship and a good exchange of learning and ideas (incl. of course theories). There could be a system of source citation adopted allowing for primary, secondary and further levels of evidence or source material to be given, and a linked area for the discussion of these citations. This could in turn lead to a useful discussion of the source materials vis-a-vis the family in question. This could make the project one where expertise could be shared and interested parties could be helped to grow from tyro to whatever they were capable of achieving. Personally, I think I would benefit greatly from the work of those more knowledgeable than myself. It all depends on a willingness to share knowledge and ideas in a collegial spirit. Also personally, I am plumping for a one-manor rule as that was what my main family of study, ERNLE, had for much of its existence. The fact that they held one manor does not appear to have excluded them from discussions by local (and other) historians of their place among the Sussex (and later, the Wiltshire, and Dorset) gentry. To qualify for coverage by the List, I think it would be necessary to be the holder of one manor, and to be of gentle status, at least, when such descriptions still held water. There could be sub-categories for debatable families. If someone wanted to create an ancillary list of families of, say, franklins and yeomen, who didn't make the cut, I think that ought to be allowed, though it would not be the objective of the LMGF List. At this point, I would be interested to hear from listers as to what they might estimate the numbers of such families to be for Sussex (or another county) for the periods 1066-1377, 1378-1485, 1486-1603, and 1604-1688, would be? Would there be anyone who might be interested to serve as a member of a group, committee, or board of reviewers and standard-setters, and dreamers and scholars for such a project. Or if this makes folk hesitant, please suggest something else. As far as I am concerned, I would consider the project a success if the objective of drawing up a simple List on a county by county basis for even one of the periods in question were met. As to the sort of literature that would be acceptable for inclusion: I think that anything could be mentioned provided it were subject to peer review and users were thereby enlightened by reading about a given item provided it were reviewed fairly with an opportunity for an "op-ed" page if someone had a reasonable concern about a review. Thank you, Richard C-Z On 01/06/2016, Richard Smith via <gen-medieval@rootsweb.com> wrote: > On 31/05/16 15:27, Richard Carruthers via wrote: > >> Example of a Simple Listing >> >> SUSSEX >> >> Surname Locality Date From Date To Rank Title Contributor Source >> Research Pub. Var. >> ERNLE Earnley ca 1166 1632 ext.LMG Esq. RHBC-Z WSRO Yes >> Var. Yes >> ERNLE Sidlesham 1345/6 ibid. do do do Sx >> FF Yes do do >> ERNLE W. Wittering ante 1632 ext. do do do PCC >> Yes do do > > For an index, this might be okay. But what I'm really interested in is > what's behind these. What do the page(s) / entry(s) / article(s) for > the family actually looks like? What sort of genealogical details do > you aim to include? Is it based around a list of the heads of the > family, as per The Complete Peerage? Do you aim to include daughters > and younger sons? Do you include discussion on conjectured > relationships as the Henry Project frequently does. To what extent do > you accept secondary sources? > > I'm still not clear what you consider the scope of the project to be. > You say elsewhere that you "cannot see that contributions of the family > names and localities associated with tiny landholders or landowners will > harm the list in the long run". That rather depends what you consider > to be a tiny landholder. I the context of such a list, I'd have said > someone holding a single manor often was tiny landholder. But if you're > talking much smaller, which I infer you probably are, I think it dilutes > the project too much. If you're planning to focus initially on the > earliest period, I fear it'll result in a list full of franklins and > yeomen whose genealogies are essentially unknowable. You'd be vastly > expanding the scope of the project for no benefit. I would have thought > that gentry (or equivalent) would be more appropriate threshold; even > then, I'd be concerned it was too low. > > Richard > > ------------------------------- > 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 >