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Royalty for Commoners: The Complete Known Lineage of John of Gaunt, Son of Edward III, King Of England and Queen Philippa

The cited information was published by Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1998
2d edition. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992 The author/originator was Stuart, Rodrick.
Royalty for Commoners. 
  • Source Notes
      Source: Bibliography for Research in British and Continental Royal and Noble Lineages and Heraldry <http://book-smith.tripod.com/book-4.html>
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      This source is flawed in several areas. The book can be helpful, but can not be relied on without additional research.

      Information provided on relationships seems semi-trustworthy until you come across a linkage you know is wrong, and then you begin to wonder about the others. Stuart's sloppiest point is dates, about which he seems to have a casual disregard. Use this with great caution, and only as a starting point.

      It appears I wasn't the only critic. In the preface to this new edition, the author comments that he corresponded with about fifty "generally supportive" readers and that "their concerns have been noted and incorporated into the fabric of the Second Edition. . . ." Moreover, "rather than try to revise the imperfect First Edition," he went back to his original manuscript and started over, spending three summers in Salt Lake City studying the IGI and analyzing discrepancies. All citations and references were rechecked and the final draft was compared to Schwennicke. The result is a 400-page volume that I went out and spent my own money for.

      Readers familiar with Weis's Ancestral Roots will recognize the format, but Stuart follows the possibly unsettling practice of numbering generations backward into the past (the opposite of Weis). Weis also includes about 300 ancestors of John of Gaunt, compared to about 5,000 entries in Stuart. And where Moriarty's Plantagenet Ancestry compiles the forebears of Edward III, Stuart begins one crucial generation later, allowing the inclusion of many more minor French, German, and Balkan lines. The scholarly apparatus allows the reader to follow Stuart's rangings and practically demands pencil notes in the margins; this is now a work which also encourages not a search for egregious errors but suggestions for corrections (which is not at all the same thing). Finally, the very extensive bibliography, with more than 550 entries (most unannotated), is an excellent starting point for the student of royal and noble medieval genealogy. I'm pleased to recommend this edition without qualification.

      For a very detailed and scholarly critical review, see: David H. Kelley, "A Medieval Miscellany: Commentaries on Roderick W. Stuart's Royalty for Commoners." The American Genealogist 69 (April 1994):110-18.