Weston Pedigree Reconsidered

A Review of Documentation Provided by the College of Arms

By: Shawn Henry Potter, Lois Carol Potter

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Are pedigrees that are produced by the College of Arms in England dependable resources for the study of medieval families? If not, why? If so, what are the limits of their value? These are often repeated questions posed by novice and professional genealogists alike.

In 1633, the College of Arms published a pedigree for the Weston family of co. Stafford, England, containing a genealogical tree and over ninety pages of supporting documentation. Two and a half centuries later, in 1878, Barrister and Genealogist, Robert Edmond Chester Waters, declared that the pedigree was a fabrication produced for the benefit of Richard Weston, Knt., 1st Earl of Portland. Waters listed five objections that formed the basis of his conclusion. For the past century and a half, historians have relied on the reputation of Waters as a careful scholar as they repeat his assessment that the Weston pedigree is a fiction. But was Waters correct?

The authors take a fresh look at the credibility of the Weston pedigree, focusing especially on the merits of Waters’ objections, the reliability and implications of the pedigree’s supporting documentation, and the existence and significance of independent evidence. Can such an ancient controversy be resolved so many years later? Should descendants of the Weston family place any confidence in the Weston pedigree for information about their forebears? Is this work by the College of Arms truly fabricated? Find answers to these, and other, fascinating questions in this valuable study.

This work is of special interest to the estimated five million Americans who trace their ancestries to Weston family immigrants Jeremy Clarke and Frances Latham of Newport, Rhode Island; Elizabeth Cooke and Rev. William Walton of Marblehead, Massachusetts; and Stephen Terry and Jane Hardey of Dorchester, Massachusetts. Yet, it also offers practical insight into the potential value of any pedigree produced by the College of Arms as a resource for genealogical research.