For the Heralds’ Office, London, and the College of Arms, Dublin, no literary dockets are issued; neither is the Registry House, Edinburgh, free to all comers. Half a crown a day is charged at the Registry of Deeds, Dublin, but this half-crown can cover a great amount of searching.
Where parochial registries have to be consulted at the parishes themselves, fixed moderate fees are charged. In some cases these charges may be modified, or even abolished altogether, in favour of a literary investigator; but this is a special favour, granted for special reasons by the rector or curate in charge.
Literary free permits are, however, as we have seen, issued in connection with most of the great offices where genealogical information can be gleaned, and by the help of these far the greater part of the pedigree-hunter’s work can be carried on almost free of expense.
In certain other instances, where official fees are charged, literary searchers are often most leniently considered, for in genealogical matters a good deal depends on the pedigree-hunter himself, and a system of red tapeism is not everywhere carried out.
For university and school details and entries the registers can often be consulted absolutely free of cost, so the searcher with the narrow purse has really little to fear financially when embarking on the delightful task of pedigree-hunting.
CHAPTER XIII
LAST WORDS
At the beginning of this work it was laid down as a golden rule that pedigree-hunters should always, where practicable, verify their information.
This is so important that it may be well to reiterate it at the close. It is often easy to get information second-hand; but to make it his own the searcher may have to exercise a good deal of patience and research, and he must sometimes be prepared for disappointment.
Still, the result will more than repay him, for thus only can his work be sound and satisfactory, and he has a wide field in which to search for the verification of traditional details.
Most of the probably most helpful MSS. and publications have been mentioned in this little book; but if the pedigree-hunter is roaming among the documents in the Record Office or the British Museum, or among the contents of a great library, let him look through the various indexes and try to find out something new for himself. There is a joy in discovery, even if it is only that of an unknown document, and it is impossible to enumerate every work which might help all cases, while new ones, of course, are constantly being added.