PROBLEMS FOR PRESENT DAY GENEALOGISTSS

from news:soc.genealogy.britain

> From: jeremytfox@yahoo.com (Jeremy Fox)

> My father has finished revisions to our Vaux/Fox Lineage. He has
> traced our family from our current home in Texas back all the way to
> pre-conquest Normandy. He claims that there are very few people in the
> New World who can trace their ancestry back so far.
>
> Each spot on the family tree is backed by three pieces of information.
> It actually got easy before a certain period of time because the
> Vaux/Fox's were in Burke's Peerage. An interesting storyline is the
> joint movement of related families (West, Harris, Fox, Lewis) from
> England to Virginia and on. Many of these families are also descended
> from the Norman conquerors, so this is a very Norman family tree. I
> guess my patrilineal ancestors were Danish vikings a long time ago!>

Is your father - or you, for that matter - aware that some earlier
editions of Burke's Peerage were notorious for their inaccuracies and
bogus pedigrees? These have been well exposed and written about by
eminent genealogists.

The problem was that some nouveau riche industrialists in the
19th century fancied a family tree to go with their newly elevated
social status, rather than admit they had come from humble
backgrounds. Thus, they hired unscrupulous "genealogists" to provide
them with a handsome pedigree back to the Conqueror etc. The
so-called researchers were only too happy to take their money in
return.

Many of these entirely fictitious pedigrees were removed in the early
20th century. I wonder which editions your father looked at?

Roy Stockdill

Web page of the Guild of One-Name Studies:- www.one-name.org
Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History:- www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html

One would be in less danger
From the wiles of the stranger
If one's own kin and kith
Were more fun to be with

Ogden Nash