On 03/06/16 00:22, Richard Carruthers via wrote: > On 02/06/2016, Richard Smith via <gen-medieval@rootsweb.com> wrote: >> On 02/06/16 08:02, Richard Carruthers via wrote: >> >>> The List or Index to the Landed, Manorial, or Gentry Families (LMGF) >>> is the first thing I think needs to be established. >> >> What purpose do you see this list or index having? I am to some extent >> playing Devil's Advocate here, but it is a key point to which to have >> agreement. >> >> I see several possible purposes: >> >> 1. To provide information on the demographics of the upper levels >> of mediaeval society. >> >> 2. As an index to help researchers locate primary sources on >> particular families or individuals. >> >> 3. As the index to a large-scale collaborative genealogy (and/or >> biographical dictionary) of the mediaeval landed gentry. >> >> Probably there are other possibilities I've not considered. > > primarily 2 with a possibility of 3, but closer to > > 4. To provide a List of LMG Families to enable researchers to locate > individual families in the catchment area and discover other parties > interested in a given family to facilitate research, and, if desired, > engage in solo or collaborative research into LGM Families in a > scholarly manner, with evidence-based and peer-reviewed findings > available online through a potential series of linked pages, but at > least one Master List page for each county showing the details I > listed in my first mock-up. You give locating individual families with the catchment area as a use for the list. Is there a big requirement for this? When researching the mediaeval landed gentry, typically I either know fairly precisely where the family is from because they were referred to as of some place; or I can do no better than the vaguest of guesses as to the region of the country they may be from. I rarely have a situation where I want to know, say, where the Eayre families were in Wiltshire in the 15th century. And if I did, many (most?) areas have a 18th or 19th century county history that I would trust to answer questions on the general whereabouts of families, if not on the particulars of their genealogy. As for discovering other researchers interested in a family, assuming they wish to be discovered, I've found Google searches to be a pretty good way of finding them. Is what you're proposing going to serve that purpose better than a few carefully crafted searches? Where I think your suggestion gets more interesting is when you talk about "evidence-based and peer-reviewed findings available online through a series of linked pages". This is something I think could potentially be of genuine value, but this then is getting closer to my third purpose, above. If that's to be the main purpose, then it should be the focus from the very start. >> However I'm not sure which, if either, of the latter two suggested >> purposes you intended. I initially thought it was a collaborative >> genealogy, but now I'm not wondering whether you are more focused on the >> second. Either way, I'm not sure the list, as per your mock up, is >> doing it. > > How would you suggest its deficiencies ought to be made up? It's not that I don't think the list you propose is potentially useful; rather, my concern is that if it's to be useful, then it is as a small part of a bigger project, but I've yet to fully understand the nature of that larger project (if indeed there is to be one). I can't help but feel that this thread is becoming the equivalent of having a detailed discussion about the format of the index of a book, without first establishing what its contents are and at whom it is targeted. >> When it comes to genealogical details, I think either you need a much >> clearer policy on what you want and how, or you should drop it entirely >> until such time as you do. > > What sort of genealogical details do you think it desirable that such a > List lead to on deeper linked pages? It's not so much the details, as how they are presented. You need a consistent style from the beginning. > I think, however, that such a List and linked pages should provide facilities > for comment areas linked to all pages, That's sensible. It's the Wikipedia model: every page has a "Talk page" distinct from the page itself where the page can be discussed. > This would, for example, allow one to critique an entry that cobbled > together findings in such a way that a given entry amounted to > something erroneous. In the end, this could be a could way of > providing consistent scholarly criticism for otherwise unreviewed > information of the "Fab Pedigree" kind. I would hope that if you intend this to be a serious scholarly work, descents such as that on the "Fab Pedigree" site would be deleted pretty quickly. That's not to say you shouldn't have sections discussing incorrect aspects of the genealogy of real people when such errors are prevalent on-line, and explaining why they are erroneous. > [...] This is all part of the Verified Genealogy idea I referred to earlier. Your idea of verified genealogies is perhaps worth pursuing independently of this project. Richard