Genealogy resource online & an armigerous ancesto

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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03 June 2013 20:44
 

For those interested in genealogy who haven’t found it yet, the LDS Family History Center in Salt Lake City has put images of many of its microfilm collections online at https://familysearch.org/search.  I’m finding it a treasure.  I’ve been able to document with original records things that I’d only seen rumored in the usual unattributed research online, and have even been able to prove a couple of connections that I haven’t seen documented anywhere before.

Including being able to prove my descent from Captain Charles Barham, who came from East Sutton, Kent, to what is now Surry County, Va, circa 1650, and served as a vestryman, county justice, high sheriff, and captain of militia.  More importantly for our purposes here, he is registered in the NEHGS COH Roll of Arms as having borne these arms:

 

http://www.americanheraldry.org/pages/uploads/Roll/barham

 
David Pope
 
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David Pope
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03 June 2013 21:45
 

Joseph,

Thanks.  I hadn’t yet seen the site’s updated images.  Very nice.  Please let me know if you find anything interesting on our William Pope…

 

David

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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03 June 2013 21:52
 

David Pope;99141 wrote:

Joseph,

Thanks. I hadn’t yet seen the site’s updated images. Very nice. Please let me know if you find anything interesting on our William Pope…

 

David


I haven’t turned to William. I did document my line back to his grandson, Maj. John Pope, however.

 

William seems to be documented about as well as he can be, anyway. There was an article or two in a Virginia genealogical magazine back around the turn of the last century that covered the first several generations of American Popes, Exums, and Mackinne/Mackinnie/Macquinneys pretty thoroughly.  Here’s the short version from my notes:

 

William Pope – b. 1634; granted 190 acres, Nansemond Co, VA, 8 Oct 1656, additional 200 acres, 30 Oct 1662, additional 550 acres, 25 Jul 1665; member of Pagan Creek Friends Meeting, mentioned in letter from George Fox as leading member of Quaker community; traveled to England, abt 1707; d. Nansemond Co, VA, 1707-08.

 

In any case, what’s online on familysearch.org from Virginia (where William lived) is fairly paltry compared to the NC, GA, and AL collections.

 
Kenneth Mansfield
 
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Kenneth Mansfield
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03 June 2013 23:35
 

Very cool.

 
 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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08 August 2013 18:32
 

So I should know better.

Having gone to primary sources (on the LDS site I mentioned at the top of the thread) and gotten to an armigerous ancestor, I just naturally took the word of the NEHGS Committee on Heraldry as to his arms.  There it is, in black and white, entry #457, Captain Charles Barham, Argent a fess Gules between three bears passant Sable muzzled Gold.

 

Well, not so fast.  I went looking in the Harleian Society’s published edition of the 1619 visitation of Kent, and found that it was a differenced version of these arms that was confirmed to Charles’s grandfather Robert Barham of Boughton Monchelsea:  Argent on a fess Gules between three bears passant Sable muzzled Or a fleur-de-lis between two martlets Or.

 

http://www.americanheraldry.org/pages/uploads/Roll/barham2.gif

 

So lesson learned:  check the sources!  Now I have to have a lingering fear that the published edition is wrong and to be really sure I have to go to the original manuscript at the College of Arms.

 

"For a price, Ugarte, for a price."—Rick Blaine

 
Kenneth Mansfield
 
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Kenneth Mansfield
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08 August 2013 20:12
 

Or as my printer friend says: anything for a friend for a fee.

And if you really care, unfortunately, you DO have to check the original ms because even the best sources sometimes disagree. :(