No time should be considered wasted which is spent on verifying information.
The searchers should not even take it for granted that all Peerages or similar works are always correct; as a matter of fact, this is far from being the case.
Even in the mystic circle of the Baronetage it is said that some sixty claimants have appeared, whose titles, though received for long unchallenged, cannot be fully verified.
Our late king recently ordered an official roll of the Baronetage to be registered and kept.
This does not preclude, however, the pedigree-hunter from consulting Peerages and works of Family History at libraries; indeed, this might well be the next stage in his search. Let him look through his Library Index, under the heading “Genealogy,” and consult works in it which he thinks might bear on the matter in hand.
There are many such in all good libraries, a list of which will be given later on; but, while the search is in its infancy and does not go farther back than two or three generations, probably the Peerages (if the family is of social position), with perhaps certain other printed pedigrees and works on family history, such as Burke’s Commoners and Landed Gentry, should suffice for the present.
But the golden rule in genealogy should always be remembered; and, though the information thus derived may possibly be fairly correct, many details may call for verification later in the search.
CHAPTER II
WILL-SEARCHING
Having proceeded thus far, the great subject of Wills, which form one of the strongest features in pedigree-hunting, should be now approached.
The searcher will presumably now have new ancestors to note; so, before he starts will-hunting, he should have some idea as to how to record them on a family “tree.”