Talk:Savage family

several remarks on the article
Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:15, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * We should not be using the Armstrong book. That is clearly not a reliable source.
 * The article currently treats all English Savages as one family descended from Thomas. There is no reason to think they are one family. The French surname was descriptive and not uncommon. The Kent family in particular is quite a distinct one, and they are heading up the list.
 * The list of famous Savages includes people who are simply descended from Savages. That is clearly not going to be sustainable.
 * I have made some major changes to structure and source the article more in line with Wikipedia norms but the article is not yet how it should be. There appear to be a mass of overlapping articles about different Savage families, which are poorly sourced and structured. They treat different families as one families, and use poor sources.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:34, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Andrew Lancaster You have utterly butchered this article and it is now a total mess. Much of what you present as fact is anything but, if you are to take it upon yourself to make wholesale changes then you should at the very least look into the subject you are editing. Grosseteste (talk) 16:17, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
 * honestly I think that it is debatable whether this article should exist at all, and I think we need to establish what rationale it has for existing. It covers three different families, and two of them already have their own article. As you don't explain your remark about me not looking at the subject before editing I can't really answer. Mostly I have heavily trimmed and restructured the article. It still contains material which I have not checked, and which may need removing. Much of what I removed was unsourced, clashes with reliable sources, and seems to come from the Armstrong book which is not a reliable source. The main new material I have introduced was sourced from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography which is a reliable source according to Wikipedia norms. Note that the ODNB has articles about this subject, but it treats these 3 families as 3 families.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:38, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

Andrew Lancaster They are not three separate families, nor do any of the sources you have utilised state this. Cast a glance towards the arms of these supposedly unrelated families. Besides that, you have poorly reformatted the article for example some words are now repeated Sir Sir John Savage ("V") (1444–1492) Grosseteste (talk) 22:53, 30 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Almost Happy New Year ! If you see a typo then I hope you'll fix it. That should not be an issue? Concerning the question of whether the three families are one please don't think of me as having a specific aim. The problem is that we have no good source (WP:RS) for this. If you can find one, then this could give a better direction for the future of this article. I don't really see what you mean about the heraldry, because the Rocksavage family had completely different arms to the Kent family, but in any case as Wikipedians we are not supposed to be drawing our own original conclusions. See WP:NOR and WP:SYNTH. Wikipedia is about finding the best sources, and summarizing what they say. FWIW I am a genealogist, but I don't publish research on Wikipedia.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 23:41, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

That was an example rather than an exhaustive list. I could correct the errors that I have noticed but I am not sure that there is any real point in doing so at the moment with the actual content of the article the more pressing concern. The arms Argent, six lions rampant sable were used by all of these now supposedly distinct families (for example these can be seen on the tomb of the 3rd Earl Rivers of the Cheshire branch but were used by Sir Arnold Savage of the Kent branch). Noble and gentry families often made use of several coats of arms as individual members were awarded their own arms (some making reference to previous arms awarded by antecedents). This should not be taken as me having drawn my own conclusions but rather as a demonstrative. Forgive me if I have been blunt but it can be somewhat irksome when wholesale changes which effect the entire nature of an article are made without prior discussion. Grosseteste (talk) 00:03, 31 December 2023 (UTC)


 * I understand. There is no rush but we do need better sources. Whatever we do (making this article bigger, splitting it etc) we need to match it to the Wikipedia policies. I also think the articles will be better, and easier to work on, if it is clearer which article is the main article for each sub-topic. I think from what you say that you already understand that heraldry is not simple to interpret. So I don't need to say it, but we can't treat it as something obvious and not needing a source. For one thing, families often misunderstood their connections with each other. (The surname Lancaster gives lots of good examples.) Many of the "rules" which get taught about heraldry are post-medieval or late medieval. BTW I am thinking 6 lions were only used by the Bobbing branch in Kent, descended from Roger, so not even the whole Kent family. The senior branch in Milstead seem to have used ermine, with 3 lions upon a blue "chief". Maybe interesting to you: https://books.google.be/books?id=IfMPEAAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&lpg=PA569&dq=ralph%20AND%20savage&pg=PA569 . Volume 4 of Charles Moor's Knights of Edward I also describes some different Savage arms, but it is not online. (Some volumes are.) It is of course possible that later families felt inspired to link themselves to the line of Roger because of the famous Arnolds.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 00:39, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

The thing that confuses me most is you previously stated that the Kent family headed up the list and were quite clearly a distinct family. The only members of the Kentish Savages listed were the two Sir Arnolds. The article was almost entirely related (info box, lead paragraph etc which were all removed) to the Cheshire branch of the family as this was the most notable branch (eventually ascended to the peerage) and who are quite clearly all related. The easiest thing would surely have been to delink the article related to the Ulster branch (although they originated in Cheshire/County Palatine). This article did seek to claim that all people with the surname Savage are related (note that the footballer Robbie Savage does not appear) but to link those who are related (John Boscawen Savage was a member of the Ulster Savages of Rock Savage - the rock Savage in Ulster not the one in Cheshire)Grosseteste (talk) 01:09, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The Cheshire and Ulster families have their own main articles. So it is unclear what this article is for. The name of this article does not indicate that it is about the Cheshire family. Also, the two Sir Arnolds seemed quite prominent in the old version, and I think the ODNB approach shows that they deserve to be prominent in any attempt to write about Savages more generally (if that is the aim of this article).
 * Concerning connections between the 3 notable families according to ODNB I have only found uncertain suggestions that the Ulster and Cheshire families might share a connection to the older Derbyshire family. Those can I think be linked further to the earlier Sussex family. I have not seen any good sources which link the Kent family to any other. Sussex was not the only place with early Savages. There are also notable Savages from other counties in the 12th and 13th century. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:20, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Could you direct me to this article about the Cheshire branch please? I'm only aware of an article about the title "Viscount Savage" which only covers those who held that particular title (not even those who held the later title of Earl Rivers (of which there is an article mentioning all families who held this title) and certainly not the centuries of history prior to that). The Cheshire branch was formed by the inheritance of the D'Anyers holdings in Cheshire (including Clifton where Rocksavage was built). Numerous sources note this inheritance.Grosseteste (talk) 13:00, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes that is the one I meant. You seem to be suggesting there should be seperate overlapping articles encompassing different combinations of generations? I had not thought of that. Normally on Wikipedia we try to avoid highly overlapping articles, and so we handle highly overlapping topics together. Chosing the best ways of splitting topics up is definitely worth reviezing reaonably often. It helps editors and users. In any case according to your approach then there is indeed currently no article which is clearly about that family. It seems you felt that this article here was mainly about part of that family, with a few more things mixed in. There are different ways to approach all these families, but then I suggest we should reconsider which articles we need and what their titles will be. That will in turn depend on what sources exist, and hot they link or distinguish these families.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:26, 31 December 2023 (UTC)