Hungerford Family - establishing correct information (1)

Sorry, thought I had found all about him, posted here and then on re reading, found I had his descendent by mistake, so deleted! Off on a week's holiday tomorrow morning. Have no fear! I am taking my laptop with me but it is not so up to date with the tree programme but I am sure I will manage.

Online trees all seem to have the following information with at least 3 World tree submissions as source. I have sent messages to see if there is a source for information - chasing rainbows!

Walter DE HUNGERFORD
born - England - Heytesbury, Wiltshire 1140
died - England -
married -
unknown
born - England -
died - England -
Children
1. Everard DE HUNGERFORD

RootsWeb's WorldConnect Project: Casali,Fairchild & Etc:
Updated: 2008-10-03 21:45:23 UTC (Fri) Contact: Sharon Parker
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=:3127...
Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Chased the sources on Ancestry and found the following original source -

American Genealogical-Biographical Index (AGBI)
Name: Walter Dehungerford
Volume: 42
Page Number: 48
Biographical Info: Sir
Reference: Families directly des. from all the royal fams. in Europe (495 to 1932). By Mrs. Eliz. M. Leach Rixford. Burlington, Vt. 1932. (175p.):35

Source Information:
Godfrey Memorial Library, comp.. American Genealogical-Biographical Index (AGBI) [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 1999.
Original data: Godfrey Memorial Library. American Genealogical-Biographical Index. Middletown, CT, USA: Godfrey Memorial Library.

Description:
This database contains millions of records of people whose names have appeared in printed genealogical records and family histories. With data from sources largely from the last century, each entry contains the person's complete name, the year of the biography's publication, the person's state of birth (if known), abbreviated biographical data, and the book and page number of the original reference.

We need someone with membership at http://www.godfrey.org/index.html to see the full entry!

Private User I wonder whether as the person who added his profile to Geni way back in 2007 you can offer any assistance here?

I have this book on order -

"The Hungerford Cartulary - A Calendar Of The Earl Of Radnor'S Cartulary Of The Hungerford Family" Kirby, J L

which may offer some help with this project!

Dates on this tree are sometime really strange! Children born after the death dates given of the parents in some cases! I suspect information has just been copied from other trees without proper consideration - perpetrating the errors/impossible! All the more reason to get down to the best possible information available.

June the AGBI is not a very good source. You are on the right track by seeking out source data as close to original time as possible. Also be aware if you aren't already - the Hungerford family was a prime target for outright fraudulent genealogies. It's very hard to stamp them out on the Internet because they DID originate in books. We have a "spurious pedigree" project if we uncover any more to serve as an alert.

I'm a direct descendant (if I have my line correctly) of the first Hungerford in America. No one knows *which* Hungerford of several possibles he comes from (or perhaps there's another story altogether!). But as a result of trying to find this out, I found the fake genealogies - and learned a bit about the famililes in the period 1450-1650 or so.

So I can be of more assistance "down tree" from where you are right now, I believe. They are an entertaining family and you're also right again - they are, in my opinion, a "backbone" to this tree.

Just raise me up when need be,

Thank you Erica Howton - there was an extra generation on Geni it seems around 1200/1300 - but I think that working down will be the best way to go. Quite a tangled web and your assistance will be invaluable! You have curated some good MP's - there are a few where notes are a bit of a mess and duplicated but will all get sorted in a tidy up!

I have this tree in my family via Bennett/Hitchcock. I am hoping the Kirby book will be of more use.

One Family Search member submission suggests that Walter was married to Emmeline Fitzwarin in 1167

Husband - Walter I de Hungerford
Pedigree

Birth: About 1140 Of, Hungerford, Berkshire, England
Marriage: About 1167 Of, Whittington Castle, Shropshire, England

Wife

Emmeline Fitzwarin

Birth: About 1145 Of, Whittington Castle, Shropshire, England
Death: After 1200
Father: Fulke I Fitzwarin
Mother: Mrs Fulke Fitzwarin

June you might be able to find info in http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ on the Fitzwarin marriage. In fact for this period (1000-12000) Medlands is "first stop" I'd say.

Thanks Erica - Fantastic! Good to know where to go! Having difficulty with quite a muddles Hussey family on Genis associated with the Hungerfords!

I did see your note about it but I havent worked on Hussey that I can recall. But always start with Medlands I think.

I'm working on Cumberland /Westmorland families and having good luck with a regional history approach. There's a lot on line at http://www.british-history.ac.uk/

Walter de Hungerford I is my 21st great grand father through the Hastings and Meane lines.
If my pedigree can help, please let me know. (If you need to; I don't know how much of my tree you have access to.) : )

Welcome Linda - I have sent you a separate message - I welcome any help you can offer in establishing the correct tree with sourced, accurate information!

Walter I de Hungerford is my 21st great grandfather. :)

June, I do not think we will ever be able to swear that all is verified. One can quote what one reads on wikipedia or what one finds on a fairly reliable website or what one reads in various books, but we have to take it "on trust". Going back in time to such an extent, we must accept that facts are as close to accuracy as one can ascertain. Not all vicars kept records prior to mid 1500s then some records get burned or damaged or even the vicar's writing is pretty unreadable especially when he was sparing with the parchment or over generous with the ink.

What I am after is a source for information - all information will have been added to a tree based on a source - not just sucked out of the air. So no - there won't be verifiable sources for everything, but there will be reasons why the information that has been added WAS added.

Take this for example
From Burke's Peerage
"WALTER (I) de HUNGERFORD; married Maude de Heytesbury and had: WALTER (II) de HUNGERFORD; fl 1308; had: ..." suggesting that the son Walter II was alive in 1308. My question is why is his birth date given as 1260 - 48 years earlier - there must have been a reason for this! Is it based on when he got married - when his parents were married etc. etc. So far 1308 is the only real date found. I have seen it quoted as his birthdate!

I am just after the reasoning behind the information given - and this reasoning seems to have been lost somewhere along the line when trees have been copied, loaded etc.

I have noticed that Walter as a father of Everard is wrong. "Walter Hungerford" and Emmeline FitzWarin are actually Higfords of Shropshire. The first of that line is Berner de Higford. They were tenants of the Lacys and other principal land holders on the Welsh Marches. They likely had nothing to do with the Hungerfords of Berkshire or Somerset, but these Higfords are definitely where the idea of "hanging wood ford" comes from. The manor was called Huchefor in Domesday. High + ford = high place over or beside a ford. All of the confusion likely comes from a book called Antiquities of Shropshire, Volume 3. The author uses Higford, Hugford, Huggeford, and Hungerford interchangeably for the descendants of Berner.

June, here are some more Internet links for the Hungerford Family project page:

* http://www.stirnet.com/genie/data/british/hh4bz/hungerford01.php (membership required to view without interruption)
* http://www.stirnet.com/genie/data/british/hh4bz/hungerford02.php (membership required to view without interruption)
* http://www.stirnet.com/genie/data/british/hh4bz/hungerford03.php (membership required to view without interruption)

The aforementioned are listed at http://www.stirnet.com/genie/support/indices/bindhh.php#hul, which can be used as a convenient "launchpad".