From Newsgroup: soc.genealogy.medieval

I have been researching a number of medieval families in Worcestershire (Brace, Doverdale, Blund/Blount, Poer/Power, Clodeshale, and others),
with much of my research consisting of doing page-by-page searches in
largely unindexed records at the fantastic AALT website. Naturally, I
have also done much of my research in the available published sources,
which means that, among other sources, I have used the Victoria County
History (VCH) of Worcestershire quite a bit (4 volumes, 1901, 1906,
1913, 1924, plus a separate index volume, 1926). As usual for the VCH
county histories, the accounts of individual parishes generally include manorial descents, information which is often difficult to find
elsewhere for some counties (for example, Worcestershire, where older histories tend to be sadly incomplete with regard to manorial descents).
The first two volumes (general history, natural history,
ecclesiastical history) are generally well done. However, once you get
to the manorial descents in volumes 3 and 4 (and in the last part of
volume 2 for Blackenhurst hundred), it is an entirely different
situation. The accounts of the individual parishes (including the
descents of the known manors in each parish) were assigned by the
editors to various authors, with results that look reasonable on the
surface, but with genealogical accounts that are too often
extraordinarily bad when checked in detail. It is not just one or two
of the authors that are at fault here, but several of them, and I am
curious about how many others have had the same reaction as me. Also,
since I have examined VCH volumes for other counties in much less detail
than I have for Worcestershire, I wonder if the situation has improved
for any of the more recent volumes for other counties. (I have found
gripes about a few of these too, but I haven't looked at a high enough percentage of the accounts for other counties to be confident about a
general trend.) Clearly, such criticism demands at least a few examples.

First, I think any such criticism should take into account how
extraordinarily difficult it is to research these manorial descents.
Because my searches have found quite a few records which were clearly
unknown to the authors of these accounts, it would not be fair to
criticise them for being unaware of this new information, especially new information for which the earlier authors had no good finding aids. My criticism is based on information which was available to the authors in question, and how they used (or misused) it. The kinds of blunders I am talking about are more serious, and include:
1. Misinterpretation of original documents.
2. Citations which do not prove the claim for which the source was cited.
3. Careless identifications of individuals.
4. Obvious chronological problems and other "red flags" which should
have been noticed.
5. Often indiscriminant use of unreliable sources.
6. Mutually inconsistent statements about the same family.

Such criticisms clearly demand examples, of which I will give

One family whose genealogy is butchered in VCH Worcs. is the Blounts.
The account of the manor of Sodington in the parish of Mamble (VCH
Worcs. 4: 286-7) gets the Blount part of the descent basically correct, starting with Walter Blount (d. ca. 1323) and his wife Joan, one of the Sodington coheirs, Walter's second son John (d. 1358), John's son
Richard (d. bef. 1384), and Richard's brother John (d. 1425). [Walter's
elder son William (d. ca. 1337 without surviving issue) should perhaps
also be included in the list, but it is not entirely clear how the
various manors held by the family were being shared, so leaving him out
is perhaps a bit questionable, but certainly not a serious mistake.] On
the other hand, the account of the manor of Hampton Lovett starts off OK
with William Blount (fl. 1280, m. Isabel, widow of Henry Lovett), his
son Peter (died without issue) and Peter's brother Sir Walter Blount
(same as the Walter Blount above). From here, the account simply goes
off the rails, having Walter succeeded by his son William by his
"second" wife Joan de Sodington, then to William's brother John Blount.
[I have found no good evidence that Walter ever had a wife other than
Joan de Sodington. The claim of an earlier wife can be traced back to
various visitation and other Blount pedigrees, which were a complete inconsistent mess by the 1500's.] Then John Blount is supposedly
succeded by his daughter Alice (d. 1415), m. (1) Richard Stafford, m.
(2) Richard Stury. At this point, it should have been obvious that
something was wrong, but the idea of checking to see if accounts of the
same family in different parishes agreed with each other apparently
didn't occur to anyone. But the problem here doesn't start with Alice
Stury, who in fact did (at least eventually) succeed her father John
Blount, who was a different man than John son of Walter, and a first
cousin of the man with whom he was confused. In fact, the Blounts were sharing there possessions in ways that are not alway completely clear,
but at some point Sir Walter Blount ceded the manor of Hampton Lovett in
co. Worcester and the manor of Belton in co. Rutland (along with other possessions) to his BROTHER, another William Blount (youngest known son
of William and Isabel) who has been confused with his nephew William
(son of Walter), and this William was succeeded by his SON John, the
father of Alice. The account of the manor of Belton in VCH Rutland
simply copies the blundered account for Hampton Lovett. If I recall correctly, this mess of confusion regarding the two William Blounts and
the two John Blounts has been discussed before in some detail on soc.genealogy.medieval.
By the way, while the author of the account of Sodington manor gave the
Blount succession correctly, the previous paragraph makes some serious blunders regarding the Sodingtons. Ralph de Sodington, coroner for Worcestershire, died in or before 1258 [Close Rolls 1256-9: 201], not
about 1274, as given in the Sodington account, completely
misinterpreting the coroner's report in the cited Worcestershire Eyre
record, which indicates that the former coroner Ralph de Sodington had
died sometime between the last Eyre in 1255 and the current Eyre in
1275, and that his (eventual) heir in 1275 was Ralph de Sodington, under
age and in the guardianship of Roger de Mortimer, who is not called a
son of the older Ralph by this or any other known record. In fact, the younger Ralph is shown by a couple of other records found by me [e.g.,
Patent Rolls, TNA, C 66/99, m. 1d (67) [AALT image 0243, 20 lines from
the bottom], abstracted in The Forty-Ninth Annual Report of the Deputy
Keeper of the Public Records, Appendix I, 158.] to be a son of Richard
de Sodington (most likely either a son or younger brother of Ralph the coroner). The author apparently completely misunderstood the cited
record, which listed heirs (or eventual heirs) of previous coroners
because they or their representatives were required to bring thier
coroner's rolls to the Eyre.

Another ridiculous account is that of the Poer/Power family of
Wichenford, where the author apparently took the 1569 visitation and
filled things in a bit, completely ignoring the chronological silliness.
So, after earlier possession by the Turre family, the account mentions William Poer toward the end of the twelfth century, then Richard Poer,
"still alive in 1220" (true enough, but the source cited for this was
probably a different Richard [le] Poer), followed by his son John (fl.
1244), citing the visitation for the relationship. After mentioning
James Poer (fl. 1299), the account continues with
"Roger son of John Poer died about 1342, leaving John his son and heir a minor."
The "source" cited for this is the same 1569 visitation, apparently
making Roger the son of the same John who was active ca. 1244. Chronologically, this is not COMPLETELY impossible, but it should have
raised enough alarms that a bit more careful checking was necessary.
But it gets worse, because the Roger le Poer who died in 1342 was a Herefordshire man who was either only a distant relative or (less
likely) not related at all, son of a certain Hugh le Poer of Broxwood,
co. Hereford (further ancestry uncertain), and was apparently picked by
the author as a part of this family because both families had a John son
of Roger born within a couple of decades of each other. The was in fact
a John Power/le Poer of Wichenford active in the second half of the
1300's, son of an obscure Roger Power by his wife Maud (whose I.p.m.
proves the relationship). An earlier John le Poer of Wichenford, son of
James le Poer, appears in numerous records from the early 1300's through
the late 1340's. I suspect that Roger was a son of this John le Poer,
but so far proof is lacking. James le Poer (ca. 1299) was the son of
another James le Poer (appearing with wife Isabel in the Pipe Rolls in
1259), who would make a chronologically convenient candidate for a son
of the earlier John le Poer, but again I have no evidence for this
obvious guess. Based on items abstracted at A2A (the National Archives
index) which I have not yet checked, John Power (son of Roger and Maud) appears to have died in or before the 1390's, succeeded by another John
Power. One of these John Powers was the father of Margaret Power, wife
of John Washbourne and mother of Norman Washbourne, who seems to have inherited the bulk of the Power inheritance. Margery Power, second wife
of John Brace, M.P. (and my main reason for interest in the Power
family) was clearly a relative of Margery, and possiblyn even her
sister, but her exact connection remains elusive. The supposed marriage
of a James Habington marriage to another Power daughter (given by the visitations) seems to me to be completely fictional. I have found no
evidence that this "James Habington" ever existed.

I could go on. For example, in the parish of Bromsgrove, the account of
the Clodeshales of Wodecote is a chronological mess, identifying two
Elizabeth Clodeshales who were great-aunt and great-niece, among other silliness. (And of course, they have been equal opportunity
genealogical butchers, making a mess of my own Brace family as well as
the Doverdales from whom the Braces might descend.)

Has anyone else had similar experiences in trying to follow up such
accounts in VCH?

Stewart Baldwin
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From Newsgroup: soc.genealogy.medieval

On 1/10/2025 7:05 AM, Stewart Baldwin wrote:

Has anyone else had similar experiences in trying to follow up such
accounts in VCH?

In short, yes. I can't give specifics as it has been too long, but I
have similarly seen inconsistent accounts, accounts inconsistent with
the documents cited, citation of dubious sources, etc. VCH is probably
better than the average antiquarian works of the period, but still falls
short in several ways of modern scholarly expectations.
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