Hello, Cyril; Yes, but I have FREEMAN and DUNCAN. With full knowledge of what I was doing, I bought the DUNCAN book and my husband, sensitive to my genealogical leanings, bought me the FREEMAN book at a flea-market for $10.00. (No FREEMAN in our lines <G>). They one and the same. For some who are knowledgeable, if you purchase this book on a credit card, you have the right to return it within 30 days. This was discussed on one other mailing list that I was subscribed to and the company (HALBERTS I believe) changed their marketing to reflect that this was not a book on "YOUR" specific genealogy. But, they did so because someone with some clout, began to pressure them for their shoddy advertising tactics. However, when the ad for DUNCAN crossed my desk, I could see why "Jane and John American Public" might believe that they were going to get their family tree in a book for $40.00. After all, if your BLOUNT book is anything like my FREEMAN & DUNCAN book, you do have one heck-of-an address book devoted to BLOUNTs of the world. So sorry you were taken in. Let the buyer beware!!! Sandra in Sacramento ******************** At 02:31 PM 4/9/98 EDT, CyBLOUNT wrote: >Dear Fellow Blounts, > >Last November I bought THE BURKE'S PEERAGE WORLD BOOK OF BLOUNTS. I was > extremely disappointed by it and wrote to Burke's to express my reservations > about their publication. They have never answered my letter so I thought the > time had come to persuade them to do better. These were the points I made - > >"1. The proportions devoted to Blount information and general genealogical > information which can be obtained anywhere is wrong. There are 60 pages > devoted to Blount, and 116 devoted to useless stuff. For this price it > should be at least 70% about the Blount family. > >"2. The "history" section at the front of the book is written as if we are all > children - well - twelve year olds. There are so many half truths - "The > Roman walls of York stood throughout the Middle Ages and still stands today". > True fragments do still exist and all the foundations still exist, but much of > what you see today was built to repair the Roman wall in the Middle Ages. > There is no mention of the importance of Ireland as the repository of culture > and learning between 400-900 AD. >Your little illustrations which often look nothing like the people concerned > (e.g. Julius Caesar) again look as if they are taken from a cheap children's > story-book. > >"3. When you talk about William 1 you make no mention of the tradition that > Robert le Blount got together the ships which formed the invasion fleet. When > you talk about the discovery and colonisation of the Americas you do not > mention that virtually all of the earliest Blount settlers are descended from > James Blount and how he relates to the Blount families in England. > >"4. When you talk about the origin of the name Blount you make no connection > with the sons of the Count of Guisnes in Picardy. Or the problems associated > with this derivation. The name is not "old-English" as you call it, but > Norman French. > >"5. Your general piece on spelling variation can be summarised much more > succinctly in the case of Blount. Everyone, however the name was spelt, > pronounced it BLUNT before 1900. After 1900 slowly the family divided into > three groups (a) those who wrote the name BLOUNT and pronounced it BLUNT (b) > those who wrote the name BLUNT and pronounced it BLUNT (c) those who wrote the > name BLOUNT and pronounced it BLOWNT. This is not mentioned in the book and > it ought to have been if it was truly to reflect the distribution of the name. > >"6. The Blount Coat of Arms. In a book like this there ought to have been > reference to the other Blount Coats of Arms beside the one belonging to the > Blounts of Rock and Sodington. The others are: >a) quarterly argent and gules on a bend sable three eaglets displayed or. >b) gules, a fess between six martlets argent. >c) gules, a fess between six spur-rowells three and three argent. >d) azure, a saltire engrailed or. >e) azure, three leopards' faces jessant-de-lys or, a bendlet ermine. >f) checquy argent and gules, a baston sable. > >These are the ones I know about and I am not very knowledgeable heraldically. > Even in the arms you displayed the nebulée looks more like wavey. > >"7. The biggest mistake in the book - Chapter 3. Page 3.3 you say "Although > you may or may not be related by blood to this early namesake, you may wish to > adopt this crest for you own use today." I am amazed that the firm whose > name you bought - "Burke's" - has let you get away with this. IT IS ILLEGAL > TO USE ANYONE ELSE'S ARMS. And you should have said so. You should have > pointed out that Arms can only be issued by a Herald of the College of Arms - > and only to an individual - never to a family. On page 3.9 you give the > address of the college of Arms but you only point out that they will validate > Arms, you do not point out their role in the issuing of Arms. You even point > out that the "authority which enforces the proper use of Arms is the Lyon King > of Arms", but still you do not say that it is illegal to use Arms to which you > are not entitled. > >"8. The statistics on page 5.2. There are so many things wrong with this > table that what I say today must only be tentative: > a) The table is not dated. Obviously the number of families with the > surname Blount will vary on a day by day basis, we need to know when these > figures were true. > b) "Estimates" are given to the nearest digit. If it is an estimate you > cannot be accurate to the nearest digit, it is a contradiction in terms. > c) You do not say what the error is likely to be in your figures. Most > statistics given without the error being stated are assumed to be accurate > within 5%. But the kind of figures you give here cannot be much better than > 25%. Even if you use the UK telephone directories and look up all the Blount > and Blunt families you will get something of the order of 3,000 names and I > doubt if more than 50% of the Blounts and Blunts in this country are on the > phone, and that makes about 6,000 Blount/Blunt families. So your estimate of > the Blount/Blunt families in the UK is 300% out. > >"9. You give no "Further Reading" list - you do not point the readers to > sources where they can find out specific information about Blounts. You given > no list of published biographies. You do not mention Croke. He is really the > only place to start when researching the Blounts. > >"10. You give a nod towards alternative spellings and then you fail to > acknowledge that Blount and Blunt are the same name. Anyone researching > Blount needs to look at Blunt and vice versa, so this book only contains half > of what might be useful to any researcher." > >My first reaction was, "Anything is better than nothing." But now I am not > so sure. This is a bad book. I think I have wasted my money. In January > I wrote again - > >"I wrote to all the addresses in Shropshire and Staffordshire given in the > book as a start. Two of those to whom I wrote are dead, two have "gone away" > and the letters could not be delivered by the post office. Those just show > how out of date the list of Blounts was when you published it. But one - I > think this is the one that annoys me most - it shows how little checking you > did on these addresses before you published them - one I sent to an autistic > child. Think how the parents must have reacted to that ! It was very > unkind. Where, on earth, did you get that address from ?" I asked them > why they had not answered my first letter. They did not answer my second > letter either. > >Today they write to say they are re-printing the book. When they sold it the > first time they insisted that we had to order it before publication because > there would be no further copies available. Now they are re-printing. So > that was a commercial lie - to persade us to buy. I do not like that. It > smacks of sharp practice. > >Did you buy ? How did you react to the book ? > >Do you think we should warn folk about what they are buying ? > >Yours > >Cyril > >[The Rev Cyril D. Blount - Huddersfield, England U.K.] > > > >==== BLOUNT Mailing List ==== >LISTS NOW AVAILABLE--------http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3577 >These lists are FREE! If you are asked for donations or a questionaire by >any Rootsweb list, please contact me, Sandra, E-mail address is: purplevw@sl.net >To see how to donate to Rootsweb DIRECTLY, please go to http://www.rootsweb.com > > Sandra [T.YLER] D.UNCAN purplevw@sl.net <ôçô> SURNAMES may or may not be documented (ô¿ô) SEEN AT: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/3577 PROUD SPONSOR OF ROOTSWEB AS OF 11 SEP 1997 & 5 JAN 1998 Support RootsWeb! Go "NOW" to: http://www.rootsweb.com