Family Historian User Group

I have looked on the forum/lnowledge base but can't seem to find anything directly relevant about how to show how a title (such as "Lord of the Manor" or "Baronet") or ownership of a property (such as a house or farm) passes through inheritence across several generations or even between unconnected individuals.

An example of this:-

"WT inherited a property at location SM from his distant relative JH. When WT died the property to passed to his sister JT and then his younger sister AT when JT died"

This was never an issue in my own family tree as they were definately not of this strata of society but i have been doing some work for a friend whose family tree is full of these situations. Before getting in a mess I thought I would seek advice.

I have looked at wills and can see how a person can be a benificiary of a will and can see how you might repeat this. It is how you might track the property ownership across several inheritances that I am interested in.

Grateful for help

To maintain a continuous narrative about the property you could create a Note Record (sometimes known as a Shared Note) for the property itself, and use this to hold information about the history of the property and the various changes of ownership. You can cite the various wills and any other deeds you have as Sources for the Note Record. If you have any pictures of the property you can link these to one of the Sources, although unfortunately you can't link pictures directly to a Note Record. Each individual who owns/inherits the property could have a (custom) fact called 'Property inheritance' to indicate the date they acquired it, and they can each have a link to the share Note Record.

If someone had a title you can add this either via a title "fact" or through the "more ..." indicator alongside the name in the property box. The later takes you to a dialogue with an Add button - which then prompts you to add another name or a title. Personally I find adding a fact more straight forward (same end result) and it allows you to add the dates the title was inherited/discarded and notes etc.

If you look in the All tab and find the Title fact you can right click and add a "descriptor". I have used this to add things like "3rd Baron of the 2nd creation". This does help in tracing the succession (or not). In the note you can also add details of associated property and succession.

I have experimented with predecessor and successor as witness roles. This is complex (you may want to hold off - my first attempts got me in a right twist when it came to sentence templates etc. - and I am not yet confident enough to describe how I eventually did it) but does mean that when in the property box you can by clicking on the relevant predecessor/successor witness fact follow the line of succession up and down and across the generations. (I have a European Royal Families FT and find it useful during history TV programs to be able to follow through the convoluted explanations of some of the TV historians).

That covers succession of titles. If there is property that is not connected to the title, you probably want to create an "Property Ownership" fact (as described by Lorna) which you can operate in a similar way to that described above.

There are several different questions here. Tracing property ownership is quite complex. If the ownership is copyhold, then all transfers will have been recorded in the Court Roll of the relevant manor. If they still exist they will probably be at the local county record office. I once traced the ownership of every property in a village (Tarring in West Sussex) between 1600 and 1900 using this method, but it was very laborious, as properties are often described quite vaguely. Directories may give you changes of occupier over time, but occupiers are not necessarily owners. The land tax, enfranchisement and tithe apportionment records also give owners and occupiers at given points in time but you need to do some work to trace them and many are not on line. As to how to record ownership, I have no real suggestions, perhaps others have ideas. I too would welcome ideas on how to have titles shown automatically at the top of the Property Box and in other windows

Where did you obtain "WT inherited a property at location SM from his distant relative JH. When WT died the property passed to his sister JT and then his younger sister AT when JT died"?
Is the quoted text drawn from some source document?

If so, then create a Source record for that document with the quoted text as Text From Source.
If there is an image of that document then add it to the Media tab.

The property can be considered a possession so use the standard Possessions attribute for each person.
The property will be the Value of the attribute and its Date period will cover the ownership.
Cite the Source record. The Source & Citations track the property.
Alternatively, create a custom Beneficiary fact to use instead of Possessions.

@Roger, you can display almost anything you like in the Caption at the top of the Property Box.
See Tools > Preferences > Property Box > Captions button and customise the Individual expression.

Thanks for all the prompt replies. As I said my own family tree, while extensive, is pretty simple and I have never had the need to use anything other than the default options.

My friend's tree is actually pretty complex - it looks like there may well be several different ways to do this - so i will take baby steps first and work on a single shortlived baronetcy and how this is related to a longer lived lordship of a manor.

The first baronet acquired the manorial lordship from his wife. The baronetcy became extinct when the third baronet died unmarried and childless at which point the lordship passed to a nephew and stayed in his direct family for several generations.

I have baronets without lord of the manor, baronets who were also lord of the manor and lords of the manor who were not baronets.

The wider family in and around this is a complex web of inheritances & family relationships.

NB in response to tatewise the text is based on several source documents (3 different wills in fact)

I will let you know how I get on.

g444eneva wrote: ↑

01 Jun 2020 12:05

...
I have baronets without lord of the manor, baronets who were also lord of the manor and lords of the manor who were not baronets.
...

I have always assumed that Baron X of Y and Lord of the Manor of Y are different titles - even if they are usually held by the same person. Different titles can be inherited and passed on at different times so it is useful to record them as different title facts.

For instance:
Name: Charles Philip Arthur George /of York/ (Name at Birth)
Title: Prince of Wales
Title: Duke of Cornwall
Title: Earl of Chester
Title: Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland.

Keeps changing names and titles! I think all the titles get inherited by his eldest son when he becomes Title: King of UK of GB&NI (or whatever we are by then!). The last set (The Scottish ones) I think may work together - I have not yet had the motivation to work back through the history of those titles - but I may be wrong. I think in recent times the first three titles have been closely coupled, but again ...