Kudos for this statement, Jim!
I knew Mrs. Dale M. (Dorothy) Thompson, and she was a diligent and
honest researcher. What you say is certainly true. If something CAN
be said for the Tyrrell chart, it is that it was my first
introduction to genealogy.
When I was about 10 or 12, my mother opened a Chinese chest, similar
to a trunk but more decorative, that she kept in a corner of the
master bedroom in our home. She pulled out a typescript copy of this
chart to show me how I was, she alleged, something on the order of
32nd or 33rd in direct descent from William the Conquerer. But it
didn't stop there; it proceeded to trace back to someone living on
the shores of the Black Sea (or some such) roughly a couple of
thousand years ago. It was all very "sketchy" and there were no
sources cited, but the seed of genealogy was planted then and there.
When my maternal grandmother died in 1975 -- and I was given some
news clippings relating to my great-grandfather Rev. Robt. C. Cave,
of Orange County and St. Louis -- I started researching and have done
so ever since.
But there was something else in that trunk that I still have: a 400-
year-old English parchment deed, with seals, that was peddled to my
grandfather, Edward Powell Cave, by a dealer in documents from
Cleveland. I mentioned this in my post to CAVE-L on 3 June 2006.
Here is a portion of that information:
"J. C. Pearson of Cleveland, OH, was a dealer in documents in 1937.
He had in his possession a parchment deed which he described as follows:
"'It is a deed in Latin dated the last day of December 1602 by which
HENRY CAVE of Ingersbie in the County of Leicester, Armiger, (having
coat armor) and BRIANUS CAVE of Ingersbie his son and heir apparent
conveyed to William Clarke of Hungerton, laborer, a cottage in
Hungerton where the said Wm. Clarke and Margery Beamont now dwell and
a croft adjacent, for ten pounds and ten shillings. All the
boundaries are given.
"'Henry Cave and his son Brian are shown in the Visitations of
Leicestershire published by the Harleian Society. Brian married
Francisca, daughter of Sir Erasmus Driden, and in 1619 had seven
children, the oldest 16 years of age. There are fine signatures of
Henry and Brian, the surname in Henry's autograph being written as a
monogram.'"
The William Cave md. to Ann Stonehouse (to whom the Tyrrell
genealogist tried to tie Benjamin the Burgess) was, from my CAVE of
Ingarsby information, a second cousin three times removed of this
Brian Cave, son of Henry, mentioned in the paragraph above. The
father in the deed is Henry of Ingarsby (1552-aft 1602), who is the
son of Brian of Ingarsby (~1509-1592), who is in turn the son of
Richard Cave of Stanford.
I wish that Dorothy Thompson might have found the documentation of
the Orange County CAVEs for which she searched, but perhaps something
may yet be found in British archives that will shed light on the
matter. Meanwhile, I'm appreciative of those CAVE genealogists who
are honest about what we don't know!
Gordon Seyffert in Kansas City, MO