APG-L Archives

From: Mary Douglass <>
Subject: NGSQ Kansas article addenda
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 2004 08:17:14 -0500

For those of you with the June issue of the NGSQ, you may want to include
this new [to me] information on the English Historical Documents collection
at the Kenneth Spencer Library, University of Kansas.
My thanks to Sandra Hewlett for bringing it to my attention and
allowing me to share her message with you. In an e-mail message Sandi
wrote, On page 126 of the "Q", I was pleased to see a mention of George
Redmonds' research at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, but am
wondering if you are aware that he spent a summer there abstracting these
records, then gave his research notes to NEHGS. This manuscript, including
a name and place index, is now available at their library in Boston.
<www.newenglandacestors.org <http://www.newenglandacestors.org/>; >

KENNETH SPENCER RESEARCH LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS LIBRARIES
DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
MANUSCRIPT HOLDINGS: GENERAL OVERVIEW
THE SPENCER LIBRARY is the rare books, manuscripts, and archives
library of the University. It contains three independent departments, each
of which holds both MS and printed material: the University Archives,
devoted to the University and its people; the Kansas Collections,
responsible for the history and culture of Kansas and the Great Plains; and
the Department of Special Collections, described below.
THE DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS is a broad-based rare books
and MSS library of international reputation, collecting primarily in
humanities and in natural history. The manuscripts division contains ca.
300,000 items (some in named collections, some independent) from the 11th
century to the present. The major regions covered are Britain, Europe,
Latin America (to a lesser degree) and the US (primarily for some minor
literary genres). A few items fall outside these subject/time/locality
boundaries.

THE YORKSHIRE DEED-BOX COLLECTION and HUDDERSFIELD AREA DEEDS.
BRIEF EXPLANATION:
In 1969 the Department bought two groups of British deeds and
estate papers, from the bookdealers Hofmann-Freeman. One group (H-F)
contained about 5000 unsorted deeds of miscellaneous origin; the other
(North) contained about 4000 roughly sorted items, mostly deeds, from
Kirtling Tower (one of the seats of the notable North family of Cambridge,
Oxfordshire, etc.).
H-F arrived as parcels 1 - 31 of a shipment of which North was
parcels 32 -50. A student gave temporary numbers to the entire shipment
(H-For Northfollowed by parcel number followed by running number within
parcel) and made scratch cards for all items. The cards contained the
temporary number; names of parties; name of land; date. The H-F cards were
photocopied in unpacking order, and then rearranged by county; the items
themselves were boxed essentially in unpacking order. The North cards
were not rearranged; the bookdealers packing list served as a
subject-conspectus for North. (It sometimes seemed that some North
material had been packed in H-F and vice versa.)
In 1982 - 1985 an English archivist (WC) was hired to handle the
North and H-F: neither project was completed. She rearranged the North
cards, and re-boxed some North items, adding some H-F items. It may be
difficult to find items which she handled.
H-F 31 contained some loose deeds and two leather boxes crammed
with 67 folded deeds. In 1991 I named the boxes MS Q21 (Yorkshire deed-box
collection), of which I made a draft description. Half of the items
concerned Lepton and Rowley, east of Huddersfield; others were close by; a
few pertained to the Kaye family; some were Yorkshire, but otherwise not
obviously connected with the rest. The next step was to see if there was
relevant material in the rest of H-F and North.
There was a good deal of other Yorkshire material in H-F, some of
it connected to the Kaye family. There was also some Yorkshire material in
North, mostly connected with the Kayes. I am not sure yet whether the
Norths themselves had Yorkshire properties. When Arthur Kaye, 3rd bart.,
died, in 1726, his only child was Elizabeth, who m. Francis North (1704 -
1790, later 1st Earl of Guilford). The title (and estates?) went to a
cousin, Arthur Lister-Kaye of Denby Grange. I havent found any obvious
Huddersfield-area material in North after the 17th century.
There are five North boxes labelled Yorks Uncatby WC (ca 300
items); but in no obvious order and without corresponding lists; perhaps
they are arranged in card order. WC also removed most of the H-F Yorks.
cards to the end of the North cards for Deeds: Yorks, and appears to have
discarded some
cards.
Ann Hyde Curator of Manuscripts

EDITORIAL NOTE
This calendar has been compiled from notes taken in August 1999,
during a four-week visit to the Spencer Research Library in Lawrence,
Kansas. The items listed are those extracted for me by Ann Hyde, the
Curator of Manuscripts, from the large and important collection of British
documents held by the University. It was Ann Hyde who first informed me
about the collection as long ago as 1991, and who first saw that a
significant number of Yorkshire deeds related to parishes in the
neighbourhood of Huddersfield. We now know that many of these once formed
part of the muniments of the Kayes of Woodsome, complementing what has
survived in English record offices and at the Estate Office in Slaithwaite.
The work could not have been done without Ann Hydes help and co-operation
but, as the British deeds have not yet been finally catalogued, it is still
only a provisional document. It is important, therefore, for those who
wish to make the best use of the calendar, to read the foregoing account of
the collections history, which is based almost word for word on Ann Hyde's
own description of it.
The individual entries in this calendar are usually extracts from
the documents, made in as full a form as the content warranted and as was
possible in the time available. Such entries usually contain a direct
translation or transcription of parts of the original text and where it was
thought desirable to preserve the exact words of the document italics have
been used. Surnames and place-names do not usually translate, so it was
decided in these cases to keep the original spellings and not to
modernisethem. Most place-names may have a conventional modern form but
early variants can be essential to those involved in place-name research,
so here too the italic script indicates an original spelling. On the other
hand italics have not been used for the surnames, which cannot be said to
have one conventional form, but original spellings have been preserved in
the transcripts, even though that might at times hinder identification. It
is hoped that the full indexes of place-names and surnames will help in
that identification, and with such problems in mind additional research
aids are referred to in the preliminary note to that
section.

It has already been said that there is still no definitive
catalogue of the Spencer Librarys collection of British documents and
indeed it may be a long time before one can be made available. As Ann Hyde
has made clear, the original integrity of the collection had been
compromised even before it arrived in the United States, and as a result
deeds which essentially belong together have been dispersed and placed out
of sequence; others have not yet been identified. It may never be possible
to restore the material to its original state, even that limited section
which has to do with Yorkshire, but it is hoped that in this particular
case the indexes will make it easier to produce an accurate chronological
sequence and to identify where each document really belongs.
Interspersed here and there in the calendar are what might be
called editorial comments, notes which I felt might make the content clear,
and it is hoped that these do not intrude between the researcher and the
primary material.
Although this is therefore only a provisional introduction to the
Yorkshire deeds in the Librarys collection, with all the limitations
referred to, it nevertheless provides some indication of the richness of
the source for genealogists, linguists and historians. At this stage I
have not attempted to draw attention to rare and unusual items of
vocabulary, nor to provide information about such regionally significant
personal names as Amer, Ottiwell, Anker, Hammond and Thurston, and yet
these are matters of considerable interest to scholars both in England and
the United States. The full collection, of which the Yorkshire deeds form
only a small part, must surely throw new light on the North familys estate
in particular and more generally on many aspects of English history.
George
Redmonds
Lepton,
1999

Mary Clement Douglass, CGRS
www.historical-matters.com
CGRS and Certified Genealogical Records Specialist are service marks of the
Board for
Certification of Genealogists, used under license by those who have passed
BCG's rigorous examination process.

This thread:

• NGSQ Kansas article addenda by Mary Douglass <>