The tree was deposited by Ivo in 1939/40 and took a few months to be checked and verified
The submission was on very large (A2?) blue sheets, typewritten in blocks in "tree" format, with several amendments (about 10% of entries) in blue ink in a large clear hand, "open copperplate" style.
The emblazoned tree owned by WTTP is NOT certified by the College and therefore cannot be considered authentic on its own. Obtaining a certified copy would incur a charge (the Heralds have no public funding and cover their costs through their original work and these certified copies), which clearly Ivo and the
other subscribers in the family didn't want to pay.
The pedigree of Pakenham of Pakenham, Co Suffolk ...
Compiled by W L and I R R L Pakenham with the help of J H Bloom MA, proved and registered at the College of Arms by A T Butler, Windsor Herald October 1939. The pedigree complete to the creation of the first Baron Longford, but after that date showing his male line and that of the subscribers only. [The original family tree] Written and emblazoned by Claire Evans.
Notes by my father in 1994 on the back of the original tree include: The work probably started in the early 1930s ... The research was chiefly centred on the church records in the village of Pakenham, Suffolk, for the earlier entries but must have been drawn much wider for the later ones. It was carried out with the help of the Herald's Office; one result was that the earliest date and name that could be put on the chart was determined by the fact that to take it any earlier would have meant including an illegitimacy ... which the Herald's Office did not allow. My understanding is that were this rule not to have applied, the tree could have been taken back a good deal further, since the records existed. [KP: I think there is a slight misunderstanding here - there were no further generations recorded at the College of Arms, and the illegitimacy of Anselm fil Peter in generation 3 is duly recorded in both trees]
Most of the information is from WLP's daughter-in-law, with some from other family members of the same generation, and corroborated by Ivo.
The documentation behind the tree would have been presented to the college as evidence when submitting it, and then returned to Ivo. We no longer have these records. How accurate the emblazoned version is, splits into two questions: how good was the version accepted by the College of Arms, and how accurately was that version transcribed into the copy that the family has. Each of these is covered below in turn.
The heralds at the College of Arms are, and always have been, the authoritative experts in the field. They don't accept any earlier generations than grandparents (up to there, accepted on assertion) without being convinced by the evidence presented to them. They may be convinced by a cumulative weight of evidence if specific documents/statements don't exist, however, which means that contradictory better evidence might emerge later. Any later modifications/corrections wouldn't be recorded on their original records, but would be indexed against the family. In the case of the Pakenham tree, this has not occurred (as of late 2008) apart from events since 1940.
WLP's Pakenham tree is still one of the oldest lines that my contact in the
College, at least, had seen, so the 1930s heralds may have been outside their
core expertise on the very early material, which is probably too sparse for
anyone to form an accurate account at this level of society. From about 1400 onward, they would have a deep body of expertise and their own records to check any evidence presented to them.
We can conclude therefore that the transcript at the College of Arms was the best evidence available in 1940, and items after 1400 or so would be unlikely to be challenged later, because of the depth of existing knowledge for family lines after this date. Research submitted in the future might alter the accepted picture for earlier generations, however.
Ivo's tree would have been based on WLP's evidence and presumably a copy of the transcript
submitted to the College of Arms. Of itself, its validity is based on its own assertion to be the tree that was accepted by the College. Unless it was a complete fraud, however, its divergences are likely to be minor, eg items that have been miscopied or perhaps some later evidence. In theory it's possible that some information might have been held dear by the submitters, yet not accepted by the College, and kept on
Ivo's tree; but as the baton had been handed on to Ivo from WLP's early death, the risk of emotional attachment would be less than it might be, if William himself had been commissioning the transcribed tree.
On my visit in March, we spent some time cross-checking some contentious entries in the main line that didn't tally with Pakenham genealogies on the Web (originally from Burke's Peerage?). Of a total of
91 entries where the name was checked, we found just one copying error - the single name of a spouse was substituted by someone in the next generation. Some of the detailed supporting information didn't tally completely in
29 records we checked in their entirety, perhaps because later information was found on one side or the other. However, the main line in the Heralds' records was certainly according to the emblazoned
tree in all but some biographical details, and not the Maitland genealogy on the Web.
The later generations have been considerably winnowed, as noted on the emblazoned tree itself. I also checked these generations against Web material, which was largely correct, and included further laterals in my own line, children of Admiral Sir Thomas P, of his son John, and also two unmarried children of Montagu who had died young and had had no opportunity to subscribe to the research - these were WLP's own sister and brother! Ivo's own line has also been weeded to the bare minimum to get him onto the tree.
Anyone wanting the ultimate authoritative version will have to pay the College
several thousand pounds for a certified copy.
The emblazoned tree certainly compares well against the material on the Web for anything prior to 1600 (according, of course, to my own assertion of having checked it against the 1940 College records) until/unless another website quotes a more authoritative source than this, eg one with more recently obtained original material.
Katherine Pakenham
December 2008