The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-04-21
PURSUIT OF A PEDIGREE.
METHODS FOLLOWED ny AMBI-
TIOUS ENGLISHMEN.


schoolmaster for n ColOneI-six-
teenth Century Wills and Records
That Deceived Experts.
Correspondence of the Boston Transcript
When a retired colonel of English militia,
past middle age. of comfortable income,
small shrewdness and considerable self
importance fancies that he needs a pedi-
gree. he usually employs a patient and
laborious dryasdust, of more or less skin
in the tracing of geuealogies, to drudge
through the parish and the probate records
in the quarter of England where he be-
heves his ancestors fiourished Sometimes
the seaTcher finds enough evidence of the
antiquity of the family and of the coloners
descent from 1t to crafty his pride and
even TO permit him TO set up coat-of-
arms. Oftener, ihe inquiry is so fruitless
or the result so meager and unpromising
that the officer weares of its tedlum and
cost and soothes the vanity that prompted
it with the prudence that bids him re
nounce 1t. In the desire of Englshmen
that have made their way In the world to
establish their connection with some old
family a branch of which they have
caused to flourish anew, the dryasdust has
not to wait long for fresh employment
Usually he is among the most methodical,
accurate and honest of men, well aware
that the results of his researches Will be
carefully verified and sifted before they
persuade the herald's Office to grant Ii
cense to bear arms. Sometimes, in the
past he did justify the saying that
pedigree-maker will do anything" and
risked distortion, faisehood and even forg-
cry to crafty his patrons wish High
ly respectable county families have IN
their time been thus founded" If he
now attempts such deception, he general
ly proves to be not a real dryasdust, put
an adventurer that has applied his talents
to genealogy and that repents his enter
prise in penal servitude.
or such was Herbert Davies, who has
spent the last two years in the west OF
England in pursuit of a pedigree for one
Col Shipway retired; who found 1t, down
to the last detail necessary 10 coat-of-
arms and whose frauds and forgeries
hoodwinked his employer, the custodlahs
Of records and even experts In them, I'M
til a chance inquiry set an investigation
afoot that has ended in the exemplary
sentence of the forger. Col Shipway be-
lieved himself the descendant OF an old
Worcestershire family, and he hoped TO
establish his connection with Ii and then
his right to arms. Davies was a suburban
schoolmaster. with ambitions and an IN
ate skill in deceit that had already been
applied an forged diplomas and testimo-
malls that might increase his salary and
better his social Ctandlng Shipway en-
gagged him for S1.50 a day and his trav-
cling expenses to make the necessary re-
searches-a compensate that the mild
est and most unworthy of dryasdusts
would have disdalned, and that would
have kindled suspicion in man more
versed in the cost of genealogical inquir-
les than was the retired officer. If the
price was low, the investigation was long,
and In the two years in which Davies ex-
amned the parish and the probate records
of Gloucestershire the colonel paid him
nearly $500
The result. however, seems to justify
double the cost. Above all, Col. Shipway
desired a coat-of-arms, and Davies had
scarcely begun his researches before he
discovered an ancient seal which he al
legged bore the Shipway crest and motto
Soon afterward he found the latter re-
peated OH a watch of the last century,
bearing the name of a mysterious, not to
say mythical. William Shipway. He next
turned to parish churches and registers.
The parsons and the clerks In whose Gus
tody there were, believed him as trust
worthy as the other dryasdusts, and left
him to himself. Forthwith Davies began
to accumulate references to the Shipways
for three centuries past as a family of
ancient repute and estate in Gloucester
shire long entitled to bear arms. The
baptism of one, the death of another, the
marriage of third, duly appeared in the
rac rtet.f x.F-
ed in unexpected places-upon the hasps
of an ancient chest, on the beam OF an
old bc.fry upon a statue that had stood
in a church from time immemoral, on the
very collins in two graves which Davies
obtained permission to Open Better still.
the coat-of-arms often appeared beside It.
Wears, clerks and registrars of probate
readily certified the copies of the entries
and attested all the occurrences of the
Shipway name and the Shipway arms.
The Heralds College had now to be con-
WINGED and, while ii accepted the extracts
from parish records, 1t desired further ey-
idence from Wills as to the pedigree ami
the arms that Col. Shipway craved. Davies
returned anew to Worcestershire and soon
emerged triumphant--not with a single will
or a single deed, but with three, and one
of the testaments of the very Shipway
whose ancestral seal he had discovered
eighteen months before An expert In
manuscripts Of the sixteenth and of the
seventeenth centuries from the British
Museum itself bore witness to the genu-
ineness of the documents Col Shipway's
cup was trimming. He had the seal \
watch, and a chest of his ancestors.
Parish records confirmed their high POSI-
ton in the West Country. their consldera-
BILE estates. above all, their right to bear
arms under grant of Richard the Lion,
Heart himself. There was only 20 lay the
evidence before the Heralds College, ana
il would forthwith make the retired
colonel into a country gentleman.
Unfortunately, a barrister with a taste
for ancient records, leisure to cultivate IL
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