PEDIGREE. A pedigree is a tabular view of the members of any particular family, with the relations in which they stand to each other ; together, usually, with some slight notice of the principal events of the life of each, as the time and place of birth, marriage, death, and burial, the residence, the profession, or rank of the principal person named in it, and public offices held by him. Sometimes these are accompanied by reference to evidence of the facts stated, as to inqui sitions, parish-registers, monumental inscriptions, marriage-settlements, and deeds of all kinds. But when there is much of this kind of infor mation and evidence introduced, the writing is rather called a genealogy, or genealogical history, than a pedigree ; and many pedigrees, especially those of early date, are wholly deficient of reference to evidence for proof of the things stated in them, and contain rarely dates or any thing more than the mere names of the parties who occur in them. They appear to be the summaries, or things established by certain evidences which may or may not now accompany them, in respect of descents and relationships. , Some fanciful explanations have been given of the word. But perhaps the true etymology may be that which refers it to the Latin pedes graduum, the word pee, or pedes, being much used in the law Latin of the middle ages to denote summaries, or the ultimate result in any transactidn, as in pedes finiura and pedes compoti. So that a pedigree is, as it were, a total of information or evidence respecting descents and kindredships.
The Scripture genealogies, as they are called, are so many pedigrees, but with this difference from the proper idea of a pedigree, that they are not tabular, but narrative.
Tabular genealogies, or pedigrees properly so called, are not of very frequent occurrence in the writings of the middle ages. But they are sometimes found in public records, and in the evidences of private families, or entered in the of the monastic foundations. They aro generally short, containing for the most part only such matter as was wanted for the exhibition of some particular claim of right. But at about the beginning of the 16th century, when the College of Heralds began to pay more attention to the genealogy of the English families in reference to their claims to dignities and to the distinction which the right to armorial insignia gives, many pedigrees were compiled, and in the course of that century the heralds obtained copies of all such accounts of the English families of any distinction as could he supplied to them, and made such accounts matter of public record by entering them in the books which contain the record of their official proceedings. To obtain information of this kind, it was the practice of the heralds of that century, and it continued to be their practice till about the year 1680, to visit the various counties of England from time to time in turn, and to collect from the mouths of the principal persons of each county what they knew of the changes which had taken place in the family since the time of the preceding visitation, or what account could be given of themselves by families who had recently stepped into the rank of gentry, or who had become recently settled in the county. The pedigrees thus collected are in
the visitation books at the College of Arms, and form a vast body of this species of information highly important to those who are study ing critically the biography of the distinguished persons of the English nation.
Besides this grand collection of pedigrees, there are many similar collections made by private persons, or by the heralds themselves in their private capacity. Many such collections are in the library of the Heralds' College; others are in the British Museum ; others in the hands of private persons. Copies of the visitation books are also often to be found. The largest collection of copies is in the British Museum, though copies of some of the best visitation books are not in any of the collections in that depository. There are many copies in the libraries of Queen's College, Oxford, and Cans College, Cambridge.
Since the visitations were discontinued, there has been no official and regular collection of pedigrees. But there has been a continual addition made to the pedigrees which are on record in the visitation books by the entry in the books of the Heralds' College of their pedigree by particular families. In some cases, as of peers, this is compulsory. When arms are granted or dignities conferred, it has been usual for families to record in the college what they know of their descents and alliances. But the books are open to any private family, who may, at a moderate expense, enter a pedigree showing the existing state of the family, and whatever is within the recollection of the older members of it, or can be proved by sufficient evidence. The entries thus officially made are matter of record, and contain information which is often very interesting to the posterity of the persons who occur in them, and may be of importance in protecting rights which belong to them.
The authors of the books of topography have done something to supply the loss of information of this kind which has been sustained by the disuse of visitations, such works usually containing notices of the families who have possessed the more important interests in the district to which the work relates.