I have made several attempts to use the pedigrees from this source, and have invariably been driven to hair-pulling frustration. The Visitations, in general, are only as reliable as the information they received, and this one is among the *least* reliable. To put it bluntly, before about 1450-1500 it is GIGO.
I discovered this in the first place by trying to backtrack the Benthall family of Shropshire - public records NOT in the Visitations clearly show that there was a criss-cross with the Burnell family in the 14th century (one of those situations where the last female heir married into another family and her husband took *her* name). Neither the Benthall nor the Burnell pedigrees in the Visitations show this. Moreover, the pedigrees are grossly inconsistent with surviving public records (charters, land records, lawsuits, etc.) in many other ways.
Charltons - same thing, although the Charlton-Knightley criss-cross *was* caught. The Powys and Apley branches prior to that point are hopelessly entangled, and it is better to ignore the Visitations and go with other available records. (Charleton of Tern, which follows, is recent enough that it may be more accurate, and it is signed off on - which the earlier "Charleton of Apley" pedigree was not.)
There is a blatant inconsistency between the last two lines of "Charleton of Apley" and the Corbet pedigree. "Charleton of Apley" states that Robert Charleton of Apley, son of Thomas Knightley alias Charleton, married Anne daughter of William Manwaring, and *their* son, Richard Charleton of Apley, married Alice, daughter to Robert Corbet of Moreton. But the Corbet pedigree has no Alice, and [mis]states that Robert Corbet married "Margaret, daughter of Sir William Mallory" and "their" daughter Mary married Robert - not Richard - Charlton of Apley. This *does not work* in several different ways. To begin with, Margaret was *not* a Mallory by birth - she *married* Sir William Mallory of Papworth after her first husband, Sir Robert Corbet, died in 1420. It is difficult to get the birth dates of Robert Charleton and Mary Corbet to mesh in any sensible fashion unless you back his up at least ten years (c. 1420 rather than c. 1430). And then there are the children, with birth dates from 1450 to 1460 - we are expected to believe that she waited until she was over 30 to marry and have children? In the 15th century?
I haven't studied the Corbet pedigree in any great detail, but expect to find it full of similar headaches.
Caveat lector (Reader beware).
