Dear Richard, Thank you for your message. > Is the MDR particularly relevant? That'll depend on the scope -- > specifically your definition of "landed, manorial or gentry", a point on > which I'm still unclear. The reason I mention the Manorial Documents Register (MDR) is because though it only shows those manors for which records survive of which its compilers are aware, it helps one to determine which manors existed at a given time, and under what name, which, in turn, may help contributors to the listing I am proposing to describe their candidate entries with some accuracy. One of the problems one encounters from time to time with Burke and other works is that while a locality may be attached to a family, it is difficult to determine precisely which locality is referred to in some cases because there may be several of the same name in England, Wales, or the Pale of Ireland, or, indeed, some confusion may have crept into the spelling of that locality as attached to a family, making a nonsense of that name as an accurate indicator of an actual locality. So, potentially, I see the MDR as giving a possible referral back to the correct place name if a contributor takes the time to check it, or a later editor of that initial contribution makes the effort to check it. This leads nicely into the second part of the question you have for me, i.e. my definition of "landed, manorial or gentry": At the earliest period of the catchment for this listing, there were landed and manorial families, but not yet one calls gentry as that term came into use at a later period in the course of the period I have suggested for coverage. I have used these three terms in an effort, perhaps rather clumsy or cumbersome, to apply a suitable all-encompassing nomenclature for the families I hope to see covered. As to whether, then, there is an attempt to list every family that every held land from 1066-1688, I remain somewhat agnostic. I cannot see that contributions of the family names and localities associated with tiny landholders or landowners will harm the list in the long run, provided a clear indicator of relative importance is made in the list. In other words, I do not think it necessary to bar such entries, but they will be subject to description of just where they fit into the scheme of the listing. Here I am thinking that while technically landed, and so Landed (L) in our listing, they would not be accorded the letter designation M for Manorial if they did not hold at least one manor as the singular or joint manor lord. Similarly, if they did not have family members associated with that locality who were styled at least, gent. or Esq. or equivalent (arm. for armiger, etc.), then they would not be accorded a letter G for Gentry (or still higher, K for Knightage, P for Peerage - or at an earlier period, N for Titled Nobility - or, later again, BART for Baronetage [as I don't want to confuse matters by according Baronets the abbreviation B, which one might normally expert to be accorded to the Baronage, if at some point that category were to be deemed useful in the listing, and BT is often used for Bishop's Transcripts, while, personally, I use bt for baptised/baptism, which I would not want to be confused with Bt which also appears sometimes for Baronet or Baronetage. Other indicators of rank or category of the quality of the family or members thereof could of course exist, incl. all the normal peerage ranks with their usual one letter abbreviations, and some rarer mediaeval divisions, of, say, the K (Knightage) with its Bannerets, Bachelors, etc., but for the moment I don't want to get too tied up with all of these while still keeping those historically relevant sub-categories available of course). > I think it would greatly help us in understanding your proposal if you > mocked up a short section of this list, and then amplified on one (or a > few) of the entries so we could see what you propose the detailed > entries to look like. I shall get to my drawing board and work up some entries for this to model my proposal for such a listing. > I would also still like to see how you define "landed, manorial and > gentry", as this will have a massive effect the scope of the project. See above. > 1377 seems a good time to break. When you said you wanted to treat the > whole period from William I to James II, my first thought was that it > was too long a period and needed dividing; my first back-of-an-envelope > attempt at dividing the period up looked this this: > > William I to John (1066-1216) > Henry III to Edward III (1216-1377) > Richard II to Richard III (1377-1485) > Henry VII to Elizabeth (1485-1603) > James I to James II (1603-1688) > > And at first I would suggest limiting yourself to one, or two > consecutive periods. If you want to work on the earliest two periods, I > suggest sticking only to them until the project is well under way. The reason I chose a rather long initial period of 1066-1377 is because I also thought there might not be enough initial contributions to the listing if the period were made to end too early. > Personally, though, I think the earlier periods will attract fewer > competent participants than the later ones, and for that reason I'd have > started with the Tudor period, possibly together with one of the > adjacent periods; but maybe you'll prove me wrong. I agree with your expectation that the Tudor period onward might prove more popular. For that reason I feel that starting with the earlier period might serve to encourage contributions to it without the distraction of a more popular period. Moreover, I think it best to begin at the beginning as it were.;) > Richard [Smith] Richard C-Z

Richard Smith wrote: >> I think it would greatly help us in understanding your proposal if you >> mocked up a short section of this list, and then amplified on one (or a >> few) of the entries so we could see what you propose the detailed >> entries to look like. > > I shall get to my drawing board and work up some entries for this > to model my proposal for such a listing. > > >> Richard [Smith] > > Richard C-Z Herewith my mock-up: List of Landed, Manorial, or Gentry Families of England, Wales, and the Pale of Ireland, arranged by county, and covering the period from the Conquest to the Glorious Revolution (A.D. 1066-1688). Compiled by sundry contributors. Project examples prepared 28 May 2016, by Richard Carruthers-Żurowski, B.A. (Hons), Modern History, & M.A. (Oxon.). All collegial suggestions welcomed. 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 Source Detail (i.e. each entry’s justification), viz.: (could be made a clickable hyperlink) Line 1: WSRO Money-Kyrle ref. 1720/44 for Lucas de Erneleia fl. ca 1166 Line 2: Sussex Fines: 16-20 Edward III, An abstract of Feet of Fines for the County of Sussex, vol. 3: 1308-1509 (1916), no. 2003 for John de Ernelee the elder/Margaret wife, fl. 1345/6 Explanation of the categories included in the simple listing. Surname: Main spelling chosen for the family for which there was an entry. Locality: Could be a manor, or parish, estate, city, etc. Date from: date of record, either precise or approximate, as based on source citation. Date to: date of conclusion of study based on some sourced record. This could be hyperlinked to an explanation (in this instance, “Abstracts of probate acts in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, vol. 1, 1630-1634, p. 146 [Anno 1632] ERNLE, Richard, of Cackham (Cakeham, p. West Wittering), Sussex, Esq. Will [66 Audley] pr. June 16 by rel. Susan. P. r. Eliz RISTON” To this the word ext. could be included indicating that the line is apparently extinct in that locality at least at the date indicated, based on research justified by the source citation associated with that listing. If this were not the case, some other explanation could be provided on the date source page. N.B. if no date is yet included for the beginning of the period, the word ante indicating that some period prior to the date included as the terminus would be inserted. Rank: L for Landed, M for Manorial, G for Gentry. One or more would have to be chosen as justified by the source(s) cited. Research: Example of instance where a name in the simple listing is marked Yes (as being researched). The Yes would be highlighted and hyperlinked to another page showing the contributor’s name and contact information if so desired. This opens the possibility of monetising the project and charging a small fee for access to this information by non-contributors. Just how this might be made to work is something on which one would have to take advice, and, of course, need the agreement of contributors. There could be a sort of blind email address for contributors who did not want their personal email address or other particulars given out before they had had a chance to read any message sent and decide on its bona fides. This is done by the Guild of One-Name Studies (GOONS) for example. Pub. (for Publications): an indication that one or more items about the family listed have been published. The precise publications could be listed elsewhere and access to that list (which may or may not necessarily be exhaustive, of course, given human frailties, and the fact that the list of publications may grow with new discoveries of missing items, or indeed the inclusion of new publications. Var. (for Variants): all names are variants as they derive from possible representations of sounds indicative of a particular family. Here, however, the word Yes in this category would indicate that there are known and specific variants of which this entry may be deemed to be a primary, but not necessarily a sole, entry. The primary entry or entries (say, for example, ERNLE, ERNLEY, and ERNELEY) would be allowed to appear in the Listing based on the use of that spelling or spellings of the name indicated either by some justifying reason such as that that spelling is found extensively in the literature, citing where and when, or because it is the spelling associated with a modern family using that variant whose pedigree can be corroborated as linked to the name in the entry. This would obviously involve some work to provide reasonable justification, and could lead to legitimate differences of opinion, which could be made explicit elsewhere in the project’s hyperlinked pages. So elsewhere in the Listing for the county in question there could be subsidiary variant spellings given, with the date, and justification for that entry, e.g. Ernele (de) Ernelee (de) Erneleia The preposition de would appear in parentheses where the family found under that spelling was later found without it as having dropped its use. Ditto series of prefixed words such as (or series of prefixed words as in (de la) Estcourt, Where the preposition or prefixed words appeared in the name over time and were generally retained there would be no parentheses. Names would, however, be sorted by their substantive part, as in Ernle and Estcourt. One could include as many variants as were justified by citing at least one source. There could also be deviant spellings included, such as Early for Ernle where the ‘n’-less form can be clearly shown to be a case of usage for a person belonging to a family normally referred to under another a true variant. Var. could also be used to denote cases where a family, for example, Arundel or FitzAlan is referred to by more than one surname over time, and is nonetheless recognisably the same family. Of course, this could give rise to further debate, but that would be allowed for via other hyperlinked pages associated with the project as it develops. The development of more complex pages derived from the simple listing entries for surnames associated with a locality, by county, is something that can be considered later when the need arises. Indeed, someone else may want to jump in here with their suggestions. I should note that I limited the number of categories in the simple listing based in part on the page margins I am currently dealing with. Still, unless someone points out an obvious lacuna in my example, I think it is a fair representation of what may deemed a useful sort of listing which could serve as a sort of mediaeval and early modern genealogical research directory for families of these levels of society. Your thoughts are welcome, but please be collegially gentle with me!;) Thank you, Richard C-Z:)

The silence following my mock-up has been deafening. How should I interpret this? Richard On 28/05/2016, Richard Carruthers <leliwite@gmail.com> wrote: > Richard Smith wrote: >>> I think it would greatly help us in understanding your proposal if you >>> mocked up a short section of this list, and then amplified on one (or a >>> few) of the entries so we could see what you propose the detailed >>> entries to look like. >> >> I shall get to my drawing board and work up some entries for this >> to model my proposal for such a listing. >> >> >>> Richard [Smith] >> >> Richard C-Z > > Herewith my mock-up: > > List of Landed, Manorial, or Gentry Families of England, Wales, and > the Pale of Ireland, arranged by county, and covering the period from > the Conquest to the Glorious Revolution (A.D. 1066-1688). Compiled by > sundry contributors. Project examples prepared 28 May 2016, by > Richard Carruthers-Żurowski, B.A. (Hons), Modern History, & M.A. > (Oxon.). All collegial suggestions welcomed. > > 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 > > Source Detail (i.e. each entry’s justification), viz.: (could be made > a clickable hyperlink) > Line 1: WSRO Money-Kyrle ref. 1720/44 for Lucas de Erneleia fl. ca 1166 > Line 2: Sussex Fines: 16-20 Edward III, An abstract of Feet of Fines > for the County of Sussex, vol. 3: 1308-1509 (1916), no. 2003 for John > de Ernelee the elder/Margaret wife, fl. 1345/6 > > Explanation of the categories included in the simple listing. > > Surname: Main spelling chosen for the family for which there was an entry. > > Locality: Could be a manor, or parish, estate, city, etc. > > Date from: date of record, either precise or approximate, as based on > source citation. > > Date to: date of conclusion of study based on some sourced record. > This could be hyperlinked to an explanation (in this instance, > “Abstracts of probate acts in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, > vol. 1, 1630-1634, p. 146 [Anno 1632] ERNLE, Richard, of Cackham > (Cakeham, p. West Wittering), Sussex, Esq. Will [66 Audley] pr. June > 16 by rel. Susan. P. r. Eliz RISTON” > > To this the word ext. could be included indicating that the line is > apparently extinct in that locality at least at the date indicated, > based on research justified by the source citation associated with > that listing. If this were not the case, some other explanation could > be provided on the date source page. > > N.B. if no date is yet included for the beginning of the period, the > word ante indicating that some period prior to the date included as > the terminus would be inserted. > > Rank: L for Landed, M for Manorial, G for Gentry. One or more would > have to be chosen as justified by the source(s) cited. > > Research: Example of instance where a name in the simple listing is > marked Yes (as being researched). > > The Yes would be highlighted and hyperlinked to another page showing > the contributor’s name and contact information if so desired. This > opens the possibility of monetising the project and charging a small > fee for access to this information by non-contributors. Just > how this might be made to work is something on which one would have to > take advice, and, > of course, need the agreement of contributors. There could be a sort > of blind email address for contributors who did not want their > personal email address or other particulars given out before they had > had a chance to read any message sent and decide on its bona fides. > This is done by the Guild of One-Name Studies (GOONS) for example. > > Pub. (for Publications): an indication that one or more items about > the family listed have been published. The precise publications could > be listed elsewhere and access to that list (which may or may not > necessarily be exhaustive, of course, given human frailties, and the > fact that the list of publications may grow with new discoveries of > missing items, or indeed the inclusion of new publications. > > Var. (for Variants): all names are variants as they derive from > possible representations of sounds indicative of a particular family. > Here, however, the word Yes in this category would > indicate that there are known and specific variants of which this > entry may be deemed to be a > primary, but not necessarily a sole, entry. The primary entry or > entries (say, for example, ERNLE, ERNLEY, and ERNELEY) would be > allowed to appear in the Listing based on the use of that spelling or > spellings of the name indicated either by some justifying reason such > as that that spelling is found extensively in the literature, citing > where and when, or because it is the spelling associated with a modern > family using that variant whose pedigree can be corroborated as linked > to the name in the entry. This would obviously involve some work to > provide reasonable justification, and could lead to legitimate > differences of opinion, which could be made explicit elsewhere in the > project’s hyperlinked pages. > > So elsewhere in the Listing for the county in question there could be > subsidiary variant spellings given, with the date, and justification > for that entry, e.g. > > Ernele > > (de) Ernelee > > (de) Erneleia > > The preposition de would appear in parentheses where the family found > under that spelling > was later found without it as having dropped its use. Ditto series of > prefixed words such as (or series of prefixed words as in (de la) > Estcourt, Where the preposition or prefixed words appeared in the name > over time and were generally retained there would be no parentheses. > Names would, however, be sorted by their substantive part, as in Ernle > and Estcourt. > > One could include as many variants as were justified by citing at > least one source. > > There could also be deviant spellings included, such as Early for > Ernle where the ‘n’-less form can be clearly shown to be a case of > usage for a person belonging to a family normally referred to under > another a true variant. > > Var. could also be used to denote cases where a family, for example, > Arundel or FitzAlan is referred to by more than one surname over time, > and is nonetheless recognisably the same family. Of course, this could > give rise to further debate, but that would be allowed for via other > hyperlinked pages associated with the project as it develops. > > The development of more complex pages derived from the simple listing > entries for surnames associated with a locality, by county, is > something that can be considered later when the need arises. Indeed, > someone else may want to jump in here with their suggestions. > > I should note that I limited the number of categories in the simple > listing based in part on the page margins I am currently dealing with. > Still, unless someone points out an obvious lacuna in my example, I > think it is a fair representation of what may deemed a useful sort of > listing which could serve as a sort of mediaeval and early modern > genealogical research directory for families of these levels of > society. > > Your thoughts are welcome, but please be collegially gentle with me!;) > > Thank you, > > Richard C-Z:) >