e say, then, of those family trees which
have their ambitious roots in the dark centuries which no ray of
genealogical light can possibly pierce? Take, for instance, that amazing
pedigree of the Lyte family of Lytes Cary, at the head of which is
"Leitus (one of the five captains of Beotia that went to Troye)," whose
ancestors came to England first with Brute, "the most noble founder of
the Britons." (It is only fair to say that the present representative of
this really ancient family, Sir H. Maxwell-Lyte, an expert genealogist,
turns his back resolutely on the Beotian captain, and even on Brute
himself, and generally lops his family tree in a merciless but most
salutary fashion.)

The College of Arms, among many amazing pedigrees, treasures one of a
family "whose present representative is sixty-seventh in descent in an
unbroken male line from Belinus the Great (Beli Mawr), King of Britain,"
which actually exhibits the arms of Beli, who, poor man, died long
centuries before heraldry was even cradled.

Of families who derive descent from Charlemagne the name is legion; but
even such elongated pedigrees are quite contemptible in their brevity
compared with others which have at their head no other progenitor than
Adam, the father of us all. At Mostyn Hall, we learn, there is a vellum
roll, twenty-one feet long, of pedigrees, some of which "are traced back
to 'Adam, Son of God,' without any conscious sense of the incongruous";
and these records, we must remember, are in the hand of "a man
thoroughly trustworthy as to the matters of his own time." There is in
the College of Arms a similar family tree which commences boldly with
Adam and the Garden of Eden; and an authority on Welsh pedigrees
declares,

"A Welshman whose family was in any position in the
sixteenth century can, as a rule, without much trouble
find a pedigree thence to Adam; an Englishman who is
unable to do the same has a natural tendency to regard
all Welsh pedigrees with distrust, not to say contempt."

Mr Horace Round gives some startling examples of flagrant dishonesty,
where forgery is only one of the implements used. Take, for example,
that shameful story of the "Shipway frauds," which is thus referred to
by a clergyman of the parish.

"In the fall of 1896, by an elaborate system of impudent
frauds, an unscrupulous attempt was made to claim these
monuments for one who was an entire stranger to the
parish