Robert Furse

In 1593, Robert Furse realized he was dying. Because his then-9-year-old son "was too young to be taught all the background to his inheritance, Furse wrote it down for him in a book. Although sometimes referred to as his memorandum book it is much more systematic than the jottings which that might suggest. It introduces each known line of ancestry, and then details the lands which that family had and passed on to their heirs. He used 'evidences,' which must have been a considerable collection of deeds, no longer extant, as well as reports of older men and his own experience, particularly in courts of law, and he refers to documents of the Courtenays, to which he appears to have had access"--P. ix.