On Friday, January 20, 2023 at 11:09:11 AM UTC-8, James Nathan wrote:
> On Sunday, February 26, 2017 at 9:13:02 AM UTC-7, taf wrote:
> > On Sunday, February 26, 2017 at 7:34:12 AM UTC-8, ravinma...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > > I'm confused about where you found the Allen Epps pedigree since you say
> > > it's never been published and _also_ that it's in the 1619 Kent visitation.
> > A letter from Thomas Duke, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, of the College of Arms, to a descendant of Francis Epes of Virginia can be seen here and explicitly sources the material to the 1619 Kent Visitation:
> >
> > https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=94174438&PIpi=115259658
> >
> > I have no explanation as to why this pedigree is not included in either of the published editions of the Visitation. One of them was a serialized compilation that consisted of a mix of visitation, probate and parish register data, is a bit of a muddle and appears never to have seen completion. The other, though, is a standard format Harleian Society issue based on a copy of the Visitation in the possession of Francis Burke, Somerset Herald, and confirmed against the copy that is BL Harleian MS 1106, while they also include variations from BL Stowe 618 and BL Harleian 6138. The Epes pedigree simply isn't there. It is unclear if the copies are not independent of each other and that once the Epes pedigree was skipped in the first copy this error was replicated in the others, if this pedigree was only added to the copy in the college of Arms after the surviving copies were made, whether the Burke copy is missing this pedigree and the editors in confirming it against other copies failed to notice the presence of the pedigree missing from Burke, if this was a mistake made at the stage of editing the book. (I suppose someone could have forged the letter, but that seems unlikely to me.)
> >
> > taf
> I am not sure if this will answer your question, but I also have a letter for this pedigree from Adam Tuck, Rouge Dragon Pursiovant, College of Arms.. He states:
>
> "Between 1530 and 1687, the heralds visited each county roughly once every generation, to oversee
> the use of arms, and to record the pedigrees of the gentry. The results were recorded in a series of
> manuscript volumes, many of which are now retained by the College of Arms as a significant series
> within its official records.
>
> Other contemporary or near-contemporary manuscripts resulting from the visitations are now held
> externally by institutions such as the British Library. It is from these manuscripts that most printed
> editions of the visitation pedigrees are taken. It is not uncommon to find differences between the
> College records and these external manuscripts. The latter have often been amended or extended,
> often much later than the visitation itself, and with varying degrees of genealogical accuracy."
>
> So I think he is saying the published visitations are not from the more reliable versions at the College of Arms, and thus there can be differences and omissions.

Yes, that is exactly what he is saying. For those unfamiliar with the process, there were several layers of manuscripts that developed from individual visitations, and that ended up in different hands, and the published visitations can derive from any of these.

First, the herald carried out the actual visitation, and compiled notes from this visitation and from any ancillary research he might have conducted. He then used these compiled notes to prepare the formal submission to teh College of Arms, but the original notes remained his personal property.

The formal submission to the College of Arms might then be copied, either for a secondary-related manuscript in the College, or by College heralds or their acquaitances for their own private collections. The latter again were the personal property of the person who copied it. Such copies were often selective, and likewise often had errors, omissions, or additions, and in particular additions of subsequent generations, of younger branches, or of entire pedigrees compiled outside of the structure of a formal visitation addressing families not included. These in turn could be copied by acquaintances, with subsequent modification. These external copies eventually entered into the private antiquarian manuscript trade, and over time, most ended up in the British Library (in particular, but not exclusively, in the Harleian Collection) or the University libraries.

The various Harleian Society publications have drawn from all of these, but mostly from the last category - private copies, one or more steps removed from the original. The early editions were copiled without access to the originals in the College of Arms, and were often taken from a single manuscript, but the details of their provenance were often left unstated. As they became more sophisticated, the editors would consult multiple independent copies in private hands to come up with the 'best' copy. They also might consult (but without permission to copy and republish) the original visitation in the College of Arms, or at least obtain from a herald a listing of the pedigrees appearing, so that they could identify and exclude or shunt out of the main section those pedigrees that had been added later. In annoying cases they often combined pedigrees of the same family from multiple visitations into unified trees, thus obscuring the provenance of the information, or like in the case of Vivian's volumes, simply used the visitations as a starting point for more elaborate pedigrees going well beyond the original, often with no additional sourcing indicated.

It was only within the past few decades that the College of Arms has begun to allow direct access to allow publication of highly-accurate editions, but the pace of work is so slow that none of us will live long enough to see quality editions of most original visitations. There is one significant exception to the general pattern of the older volumes coming from copies several steps removed. One of the published Cornwall volumes used as its source the original notes of the herald, from which he prepared the copy to be submitted to the College. As such, this volume must be considered of the highest quality among those not based on manuscripts held by the College itself..

taf