Sources and Research Methodology

Summary

The genealogy of the House of LeClaire presented in this archive is documented and evidenced, built from parish registers, civil registration, notarial acts, land transactions, letters patent, heraldic records and published genealogies. Every assertion on the site is graded by the strength of the surviving evidence that supports it, drawn together on the History page and reflected in every biography in People. This page sets out the classes of evidence used, the grading scheme applied to each fact, and how corrections to the record are received and handled.

Classes of Evidence

• Parish records. Baptismal, marriage and burial registers kept by parish churches are used to establish dates and family relationships in the centuries before civil registration.
• Civil registration. State records of birth, marriage and death, introduced across France, Germany and Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are used to confirm and extend the parish record.
• Marriage records. Marriage contracts, banns and registers are used both to fix dates and to establish the alliances between families described throughout the archive.
• Land transactions. Deeds, seigneurial acts and property records are used to place individuals in a given place at a given time and to trace the descent of family holdings.
• Noble patents and letters patent. Grants of nobility, letters patent and confirmations of title are used to establish noble status and its transmission down the line.
• Heraldic records and armorials. Rolls of arms, armorials and grants of arms are used to establish the blazons described on the Heraldry pages and their association with a given family.
• Court and notarial documents. Acts drawn up before notaries and records of court proceedings are used to corroborate identity, office and relationship where parish and civil records are silent.
• Published genealogies. Existing scholarly and family genealogical publications are used as a secondary source, checked wherever possible against the primary record.
• Archival catalogues. Catalogue entries from national and regional archives are used to locate and cite the documents underlying each fact.
• Family papers. Correspondence, private records and papers retained by family members are used to document the modern generations of the House, including those described in Family Members.

The Evidence-Grading Scheme

Every factual assertion on this archive that depends on identification, dating or filiation is graded against one of five levels, applied consistently across every page:

• Primary Source. Directly attested by an original document, charter, or artefact of the period.
• Contemporary Record. Attested by a record made in or near the lifetime of the subject.
• Published Scholarly Research. Established in peer-reviewed or professional scholarly research.
• Published Genealogy. Recorded in a published genealogical work of record.
• Under Active Research. A specific, individually identified point within the documented lineage that remains under active research, pending further corroborating evidence.

A fact marked Under Active Research identifies a single, clearly named point that current work is still testing against primary sources; it is not applied to the documented lineage as a whole, which rests on the higher grades of evidence set out above.

Documented Fact and Interpretative Context

The archive distinguishes throughout between documented fact, an assertion supported by a primary or contemporary record, and interpretative historical context, the surrounding narrative that explains the world in which a documented person or family lived. Interpretative context is clearly identified as such wherever it appears, most fully on the History page, and is never presented as though it carried the same evidential weight as a documented fact.

How Corrections Are Received

The archive is maintained as a living record. Corrections, additional documents and requests for review are welcomed from family members, archivists and researchers, and are assessed against the classes of evidence described above before any change is made. Where a correction is accepted, the affected page is amended and, where the change bears on the documented lineage, the History page is updated first so that every dependent page remains consistent with it.

Precedence When Records Conflict

Where two sources conflict, the archive gives precedence in the following order: a primary source over a contemporary record made after the fact; a contemporary record over a later published genealogy; and a published genealogy over an identification still under active research. A later source is preferred over an earlier one only where it is demonstrably better evidenced, not merely more recent.

A Documented Lineage

The line of the House of LeClaire set out in this archive, from Mengin Le Clerc of Lorraine to the present day, is documented and evidenced, not a hypothesis. Readers wishing to see the record itself should consult the History of the House of LeClaire, the individual biographies in People, and the family's arms recorded on the Heraldry page, and may raise questions of evidence via the Frequently Asked Questions.