Expert’s Choice
Anthony Adolph, author of Tracing Your Aristocratic Ancestors (2013) and In Search of Our Ancient Ancestors (2015)
The Foundation for Medieval Genealogy (FMG) was established in 2001 to promote the study of genealogy for the period before 1500, and to publish the results. And via the group’s smart and simple website ( fmg.ac) you can explore FMG publications, projects and databases.
Clicking through back issues of the journal Foundations, for example, shows the breadth of interests and specialisms of its members. The first three features from the latest volume are ‘Genealogical records among the medieval deeds and evidences in the Court of Wards and Liveries’, ‘Durham Cathedral’s medieval archive’ and ‘The medieval origins of the Quarles family of Norfolk’.
You can read abstracts of each, although you will need to be a member to view an article in full – membership starts at £6.50 per year.
Elsewhere there’s lots here you can explore for free. Via the ‘Resources’ tab you can search the FMG library database and view various scanned sources (many of these are available via the Internet Archive at archive.org). Meanwhile the ‘Projects’ page leads to abstracts of medieval feet of fines that have not otherwise been published (by Chris Phillips, the creator of medievalgenealogy. org.uk and a member of the FMG); the expanding Medieval Lands project – a prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families by Charles Cawley; and there’s an ongoing list of corrections and additions to Domesday People and Domesday Descendants – two books published by the Unit for Prosopographical Research at Linacre College, Oxford. The FMG’s own library of books, journals and offprints is housed at the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Oxford, which is open to foundation members by appointment ( www.cmrs.org.uk/contact-us).