John le Scot, of Brabourne - No Balliol descent

In the creative imagination of a Victorian genealogist, the father of John le Scot -- William Scot, of Brabourn -- was misidentified with William Balliol.

The profile of John Scot's supposed father is on Geni currently as William de Balliol, Clerk to the Chancery, but he should not be "of Cavers". Rather, that William was an ecclesiastic, and brother of Alexander Balliol of Cavers.

The source of the fake is James Renat Scott, Scott of Scot's Hall (1876).
https://archive.org/stream/memorialsoffamil00scot#page/n5/mode/2up

Thanks for taking a look. Why is he not "of Cavers" ? Because he was a cleric?

Hmmm. I'm making an assumption there. His father, older brother, and nephew held Cavers. I'm thinking he did not ever inherit it, particularly since he was a cleric.

Allan, I can understand your disappointment at losing a line you liked. However, your outburst here is out of line.

One of the rough patches new genealogists often go through is learning that genealogies published in Victorian times are often full of fantasies. In fact, it comes as a surprise to many that the field of genealogy itself was not always very reputable because it was so full of fantasy and propaganda.

Edward Walford, the man whose article you think is junk, was a noted British academic who was part of a corps of people who worked to turn the tide and make genealogy respectable by insisting on genuine sources instead of myths.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Walford,_Edward_(DNB00)

In contrast, the sources you are using -- Memorials of the family of Scott, of Scot's-hall, and Antiquity by the Name of Scott -- are just Victorian junk. They aren't any worse than other products of the period, but they are exactly the kind of drivel men like Walford were fighting against.

I like working on the trees of genealogists. Here are biographical notes for Martin-Bowen Scott:

https://books.google.com/books?id=2bs-AAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA428&ot...

The New England Historical & Genealogical Register and ..., Volume 27 page 428

Think I'll see what we can on geni for him in honor of his work.

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I don't think we need to use the word "place" in a geni name. I tend to use it in a suffix position as a location - an additional means of identifying a person. "Erica Howton, of New York."

But that's not how it's used in medieval society, it's tied very much to property ownership, so younger sons who didn't inherit wouldn't carry the toponym.

I'd like to keep "this" William Baliol easily distinguished from others, and Cavers is a long way from Brabourn, so it helps to think about whether they are in line with each other to see those location identifications. For me, anyway.

This William Balliol needs more work. If he was truly an ecclesiastic it's unlikely he was "Sir William". This is far too late for the period when priests were addressed as Sir. I have no more information at hand, but it seems possible he might have held a church office. If so, that would be a better disambiguation than Cavers. However, all of that might need to wait for a major cleanup and overhaul of his profile.

I found this article that gives some of the evidence:

John A. C. Vincent, "Sir Alexander Balliol of Cavers and the barony of Valoynes" in The Genealogist, Vol 6 (1882), pp. 1-7.
https://books.google.com/books?id=l3Y4AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA3&lpg=P...

The article centers around correcting Alexander's parents based on argument about the descent of the Valoynes barony.

However, it also mentions in passing that Alexander Balliol of "of Cavers" and later "of Chilham", then in one document he was called Alexander de Cavers.

It mentions the pedigree in Memorials of Scott of Scots-hall as being "utterly delusive" but also helpfully shows that it came from "conjectures and random assertions" by Philipott, which were "adopted with easy credulity" by Halsted.

(What a familiar complaint that is!)

Finally it also cites the record that proves William Balliol was a brother of Alexander of Cavers. It's a document dated 1292 in which Robert Heron, rector of Forde and adjunct to the Chamberlain of Scotland (Alexander Balliol) acknowledges receipt of money "de domino Alexo. de Ball[iolo] Cameraro scocie per manus domini Will'i de Ball[iolo] fratris sui, clericus ...

(from Alexander de Balliol, Chamberlain of Scotland, by the hand of William de Balliol, his brother, a clerk)

I was happy to find this piece. I had been wondering whether William Balliol might also have been an invention of the Scott genealogists. I was looking to see if I could find any contemporary reference to him, and I did.

This piece also gives us some information to shape his name on Geni. He cannot have been Sir William. He was a priest. And we don't need to fake up his name with "of Cavers".

I *thought* that "Scott of Scot's Hall" beeswax rang a bell! My pet peeve Emma Siggins White picked it up and ran with it - she never met a piece of junk genealogy that she didn't absolutely love, and what she didn't collect like a magpie, she made up herself.
:-P'''''

The dratted woman was my initiation into the world of genealogical fraud, and a right proper shock it was too.

Ah, I knew there was evidence he was the brother of Alexander of Cavers, but to have the exact citation is excellent, partly because it was previously cited as "clerk to his brother the Chamberlain" (which doesn't sound very priestly). Thank you.

Help tidying up the profile would be much appreciated.

1) another pair of eyes

2) I've been working "down tree" to see what we can more pull together on the Rhode Island to New York Scotts, and just fell into a Mormon group, which might mean a very large family to check on.

Maven, my intro to genealogical fraud was Scott of Scot's Hall itself. Back in the early 1980s. Dreadful mess around the Lewknors and their supposed royal ancestry.

As it turned out later, I'm also a Scott descendant so it was a good investment of time on that front as well. As soon as Allan said enough about his ancestry to show he's one of the Scot's Hall folks, I recognized the line and the fraud instantly.

> clerk to his brother the Chamberlain

That would be an easy mistake to make because of the wording and nature of the source.

He's both acting as an agent for his brother, and he called clerici right after being called brother.

When you want to commit genealogical fraud this is the way to start ;)

Back then "clerk" and "cleric" were virtually synonymous, because the clergy were the only people who were routinely taught to read and write. (Somebody of a scholarly bent but with no interest in taking Holy Orders *might* also learn, but it was by no means guaranteed, or even common,)

So anybody, no matter how important they were, who wanted to get something in writing had to get a cleric to do it for them. If they were lucky, they had one in their household or family they could rely on (like Alexander of Cavers and his brother William). Otherwise it was contact the nearest religious establishment and take pot luck as to whom, or what, you got.

I wonder what evidence he was actually Clerk to the Chancery?

Is this it? Or is there more?

Copy / pasting exact wording from text of

"Memorials of the family of Scott, of Scot's-hall, in the county of Kent. With an appendix of illustrative documents."

Page 11-12

"The family of Baliol eventually merged in that of Scot, through William Baliol le Scot, youngest, and last surviving brother of John Baliol, King of Scotland, and of Alexander Baliol, Lord of the honour of Chilham Castle, Kent ; and also the uncle of
Edward Baliol, who for seven years was king of that distracted country. ..."

Page 15 - 16

"Sir Alexander Baliol (brother to the king, and to William Baliol le Scot), together with Sir Michael Scot, Sir David Scot, and others of eminent degree, were despatched a.d. 1290 by Edward I., to bring from Norway, Margaret, daughter of Eric, King of Norway, and Margaret, his wife, daughter of Alexander, King of Scotland, ...."

Here we go for a reference.

The biography of Alexander Baliol, of Chilham, Kent, is so exhaustively set out in Nicolas' " Roll of Carlaverock"

This Roll of Caervaverock?

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Roll_of_Caerlaverock/Preface

https://archive.org/stream/lesecossaisenfr00michgoog#page/n509/mode... I don't see the brother to Alexander Baliol mentioned

This Roll of Caverlock!

https://archive.org/stream/rollofarmsofprin00wrigrich#page/20/mode/...

The 1864 editor has added footnotes to explain the people who appear, but he makes the same old mistake about Alexander's ancestry that so distressed later scholars.

Here's where "clerk to his brother" comes from (page 84)

In the Scottish Records lately published by the Rev. Joseph Stevenson, William Baliol appears to have acted as Clerk to the Chancery to Alexander, Chamberlain of Scotland, styled " his brother."

He does not appear to have been a soldier, and this may account for his freedom from exile and the restitution by Edward I ...

I don't see Baliol on this list

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamberlain_of_Scotland

Never mind, he's there

1287-1294: Alexander de Baliol

Also dropping off this link which has references

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=tibar...

Good references, but my question is a bit different.

We have a reference where William is called brother of Alexander and a cleric.

Then we have some later narrative that explains William was clerk to his brother the Chamberlain. And our reference does indeed have him acting on behalf of his brother.

It seems to me there is a disconnect. Am I missing something? Wasn't the Chancellor in charge of the Scottish chancery? If William was a clerk to his brother then he was a clerk to the Chamberlain, not the chancery.

So my question is this -- is there something else where William is clearly a clerk of the chancery? Or is this the only reference we have and it's been interpreted oddly?

Justin I must have anticipated your question, because I was sleepily haunting around "Chancery" definitions. As far as I could tell late last night, they are indeed two different offices with different persons and different scopes of office.

I believe the reference is the one we have (I don't know that there aren't others though). Alexander of Cavers was Chamberlain, a position held by others in his family (mother's family, correct?) and not anything to do with Chancery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Chancellor_of_Scotland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamberlain_of_Scotland

Exactly.

I didn't need to hunt, though. I'm a medievalist. I knew on first reading that Chancellor and Chamberlain are two different offices, so this has bothered me from the beginning ;)

And, I'm haunted by the fear that I might be missing something vital. Is it somehow possible that at one point in Scottish history the chamberlain had control of the chancery and everyone knows it but me? Or, is it going to turn out that chancery clerks were regularly assigned to work for the chamberlain's office? Or were all clerks considered chancery clerks?

Otherwise this seems far too obvious an error. It can't have been missed by so many people.

Allan, I understand what you are saying but there are some things here that you and some others are misinterpreting.

I have Scott (and Moses) ancestry. I've been doing genealogy since 1968. I have an undergraduate degree and did graduate work in Medieval History. I was one of the earliest people to have my DNA tested for genealogy, so I've grown with the field and I'm currently an Admin for two very large FTDNA projects.

That doesn't mean I'm always right, but it does mean I have a head start when it comes to thinking about and sorting out some of the stuff you're dealing with.

You know best about your American line. No doubt about that. I'm not questioning it.

And you have a very respectable line going way back to the Scotts who were minor gentry. Many genealogists would kill to have such a beautiful line. You don't need to tart it up.

I can promise you that there is no way whatsoever the old line from the Scotts to the Balliols is correct. None whatsoever. Completely fake. Someone a long time ago had the idea that a family with the surname Scott must be descended from someone who came from Scotland. Makes sense, doesn't it? So what they did was look around. They found a William Balliol about whom almost nothing is known, and made a wild guess he was the same person as William Scott. Such a wonderful story. It captured the imagination and got repeated all over the place until it seemed like it absolutely, positively had to be true.

But really, it was a "mistake" (let's call it a mistake). The fact it was a mistake has been known for 150 years. Absolutely, positively known. And it's quite a famous example of this kind of mistake. Rejected by scholars. Scorned by researchers. Mocked by genealogists.

There is no evidence from that period that anything like this happened. It is all just someone much later saying that William Scott from Kent could have been the same person as this William Balliol because if William Balliol had moved to England he might have been called William le Scot instead of William Balliol. And never mind that he was a priest, so he couldn't get married or have legitimate children.

Then along comes DNA testing, and there are Scott descendants who have what looks like matches to the Scottish Wallace family. And suddenly everyone goes crazy with speculation, because that makes it look like the old, discredited Balliol theory could be true -- if the Balliols were somehow related to the Wallaces. And never mind that most scholars believe the Wallaces were probably Celts and the Balliols were Anglo-Normans, so they couldn't be related.

But the probably with this DNA theory is that it doesn't really take into account the details. On the surface, it seems reasonable to think that R-M269 might show a relationship -- except that something like 80 percent of the men in western Europe are R-M269. All that really means is they all have a common ancestor back in the Stone Age. It doesn't tell us anything about their relationships 1000 years ago.

Then, some people try to look at STR markers. Look how many matches there are between these men! Surely that means something??

Well, no. It really doesn't. Not in R-M269. As a group it's so old and there are so many people who have it that there is plenty of room for "convergence". That's just a fancy way of saying that if you have a bunch of random mutations happening all over the place sometimes they are going to be the same because of chance rather than because of inheritance.

In one of the families I"m working on people have a difference of 3 out of 111 STR markers. That looks like they must be very closely related but they are separated by 3000 years or so. We know that because they actually belong to different subgroups of M-269 defined by different SNPs. It's just a coincidence that the values of their STR markers are so similar.

The short version of all this is that your Wallace "matches" are just an interesting side show, but probably don't mean anything -- even though it's DNA so it looks like it's science.

On the other hand, if you have a Big Y test, and one of the Wallace men has a Big Y test, and you both submit the results to YFull for analysis, and they come back with a report that dates your connection about 1000 years ago, then you will really have something. And it will be big news, I'm sure.

And, if that happens we will all start wondering if William Scott, of Scot's Hall, might have been a Wallace from Scotland -- but we won't go back to thinking he might have been a Balliol. That ship has already sunk ;)

Allan, have you thought about what this passage means?

>> SNP L596 can be traced back thousands of years, a long time before the surname Wallace was adopted

It means the common ancestor lived thousands of years ago. Long before the surname Wallace (or the surname Scott) was adopted. So long ago that it tells you nothing about a possible relationship except that you might, because you match someone who matches someone who has L596), belong to the same branch of the human family tree.

Then think about this passage:

>> There are some 90 in the project who project to be have the PF6328 SNP. By Y-DNA, PF6328 Wallaces match into the paper trail of the a classic Wallace lineage of Scotland. You and this Wallace share a match to a 3rd individual not in the project.

In other words, it looks like you might be PF6328 yourself but it isn't certain. And no mention how long ago your common ancestor might have lived.

This is one of the dangers of DNA testing. It's too easy to leave out all the maybes and triangulations and vague dates, and jump straight to assuming there's a proven connection.

Whenever you hear the word "match" used in connection with DNA a little alarm should go off in your head. Who matches whom? On what kind of test? How closely?

The conclusions you can reasonably draw from the so-called "match" are heavily dependent on knowing exactly what each part of the match is telling you.

When you get your SNP backbone results you'll be in a much better position to start thinking about what your results and matches might mean. Until then, you're racing ahead of the actual evidence.

>> So who do you suggest for a common ancestor for my Scott's

That's the thing. I don't think there is enough evidence to make any guesses yet. From what I can see about your results I think there might be some good guesses someday. Just not yet. And that's much more than most people can say about their results, so you're definitely out in front of the game ;)