Update on our quest for verification of the Trevosper/Giffard/deClareline

From: Info Seeker
Sent: Tuesday, 1 March 2016 5:20 AM
To:
Subject: Update on our quest for verification of the Trevosper/Giffard/deClareline

Hi Vosper Cousins!  I've made several exciting discoveries to share with you, but first I want to update you on where we are in regard to verifying our lineage.

I've found a few sources to verify the work of David Hillman and others, as shown on the attached document.  This is tracing just one line, of course, and veers off the Trevosper line, to the Giffard line, then veers off again to follow the line of Richard the Fearless, first cousin to William the Conqueror, who invaded and took over England in 1066. 

I've spent a lot of time adding all the citations and pictures documenting this on my tree, so it should be easy to follow.

There are two VERY BASIC and important pieces of information remaining to be verified. 

1.     That Johanes Vosper is the son, or a descendant of, William Trevosper.  THIS IS CRUCIAL!

2.     RE: The original legal document labelled "1" on the attached source document.  I have ordered this, and today I was notified it was ready for me, only to find out that the National Archives server for this function is down for maintenance!  It would really be a bummer if the court held that the lineage was bogus!

Now for some of the exciting and very interesting things I've discovered:

1.     Before we were English, we came from Normandy, France, and before that we were Norsemen!

2.     I had heard about the "Domesday Book" a number of times, and in my reading and documenting of Richard the Fearless I discovered he was mentioned.  For the heck of it I checked Ebay and discovered I could get a copy of the translated version for $4.99.  DEAL!  I got it earlier this week, and found to my chagrin that it's 2.5 inches thick with the teeniest tiniest printing you've ever seen, and not indexed by the person's name, but by location.  Through my research I've learned that Richard the Fearless is also known as Richard fitzGilbert and Richard de Clare, having been granted to lands at Clare, so I looked up "Clare" in the Domesday Book, and there he was, listed as "Richard son of Count Gilbert".   I have attached copies of the Sussex entries to his profile.  Besides terms I just don't understand, what was most shocking to me were the common notations of the numbers of slaves, and the fact that I couldn't understand WHERE the places were.

3.     Then I came across a website called Open Domesday, that has a names index, plus so much more!  Here is an example of one of the pages for Richard fitzGilbert, of his Essex holdings:

The listing on the left goes on for quite a while.  If you click on one of the blue place names, you get a detailed account of what was in the Domesday Book.  Here is one for Blendysh Hall:

To use this site, go to http://opendomesday.org/name/?indexChar=R  then, using the names index, look under the FIRST NAME – surnames were not in common usage.  So, Richard is listed under "R" as "Richard son of Count Gilbert" (with parentheses in different places).  There is also a number of listings for Eudo Daliper under "Eudo the Steward", and one entry under "Giffard".  I am just starting to use this site, and feel sure there is still much to learn.   I have added many of the graphics to Richard's profile (and Eudo's).

4.     It is positively SHOCKING to see how much land he was granted by William the Conquerer.  SHOCKING, I tell you!

I have not had time to delve into the Giffard book I sent you info on last week.  If any of you have been documenting our lines from that book, I'd appreciate it if you'd sent me copies of your work, or a link to the profile you've done the work on, so I'm not duplicating effort.