re: Ispania in English records

Why do you keep saying where's the source when he gives complete
footnoted sources? Are you just not reading the posts or not
understanding them? You can see the sources can't you?

"Owen, Cat. of Mss. Rel. Wales 3 (Cymmrodorion Recs. 4) (1908):
"522-524. C.C.R. 1302-1307 (1908)"

This does not tell me or others where this is located. Is Douglas the
only privy to the location of these sources that *no one else* can see?
Why can't Douglas tell us where this source is located in?

Suggest you get "Evidence!" by Elizabeth Shown Mills to understand the
importance of listing of repositories where such records are located.

W. David Samuelsen
That is rubbing a lot of us wrong way.

Nathaniel Taylor...

This is interesting. While this complaint is that these citations are
too arcane, some of critics of Mr. Richardson know perfectly well how to
get hold of the sources he cites; they allege inadequate attachment of
sources to specific genealogical claims, or imperfect understanding of
sources leading to genealogical conclusions which are erroneous or whose
degree of certainty is misstated. There have also sometimes been
accusations that Mr. Richardson may be citing sources he himself has not
seen or used, and has only used by its reference in another text. In
the case above, for example, perhaps the first citation is used as it
appears in, say, a footnote in the Complete Peerage. In the Complete
Peerage one would probably turn to a list of abbreviations somewhere
giving the full publication details of the thing elsewhere abbreviated
for brevity's sake. But in this post the abbreviations have not been

Chris Phillips...

Unfortunately, I don't think there is such a list in CP, which occasionally
does give rise to problems.

A few years ago I came across a reference to "L.F.C. Charters" in the CP
article on FitzBernard, which appeared to be totally unexplained. I've just
had another scan for it using Google, and I see it's something at the
British Library, which is cited in a lot of the VCH (Victoria County
History) volumes on religious houses. But wonderful as the online texts at
British History Online are, they don't seem to include the lists of
abbreviations, so one still has to go to the library to track down the
sources.

Chris Phillips

spelled out, though it is fruitless to speculate why: everyone cuts
corners in Usenet postings.

In the case above there are two printed sources, available in most large
research libraries (so it is not necessary to indicate what repositories
they are held in: one need only give an unambiguous citation, which
anyone can then follow up in a big library catalogue like the FHL or
WorldCat). One, the 'Cat of MSS rel. Wales', uses common abbreviations
for words in an uncommon title (this is certainly a reasonably obscure
item). The second is a much more widely-used source, but cited with
only the barest abbreviation: "C.C.R." is the 'Calendar of Close Rolls',
the many volume set of royal private letters for the later middle ages,
which is one of the first places to go trolling for references to
prominent individuals in whom one is interested.

Full citations would be:

1. _A Catalogue of the Manuscripts relating to Wales in the British
Museum_, ed. Edward Owen, 4 vols. [or 1 vol. in 4 parts] (Cymmrodorion
record series, no. 4: London: Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion,
1900-22), part 3 (1908), pp. 522-24.

2. _Calendar of the Close Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office:
Edward I, 1272-1307_, 5 vols. (London: Her [/His] Majesty's Stationery
Office, 1900-1908), vol. 5 (1302-1307)... [the quoted passage leaves out
a precise page or document reference for this latter item, but this
volume is cited here]

Nat Taylor

a genealogist's sketchbook:
http://home.earthlink.net/~nathanieltaylor/leaves/