England and Wales Visitation, Volume I, III-XIV

This database contains genealogies of some of the citizens of England and Wales. Heralds (those in charge of controlling the use of coats of arms under the direction of the Crown) conducted visitations to record the use of arms. Part of this included recording the pedigrees of the families using coats of arms. Pedigrees were recorded because families had to prove their right to bear the arms by showing their connections back to the original bearers. Because coats of arms were passed down through the generations, armory, or heraldry, has much genealogical value. These visitations, therefore, are significant because they provide over 600 pedigree charts of English and Welsh families.

While these visitations are similar in nature to those conducted during the 16th and 17th centuries, the families represented in these pedigrees were living during the 1700s and 1800s.

To learn a little bit more about these visitations read Sherry Irvine's article titled Heralds' Visitations of England published in the Ancestry Daily News on 29 October 2002.

Some information taken from: Herber, Mark D. Ancestral Trails. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing, 1998, 492-494.