Will the Editor be kind enough to insert the accompanying letter, for _if
true_ it is worthy of a place in the heraldic portion of "N. & Q.," and _if
not true_, its imposture should stand recorded? On receiving it I sent a
copy to my brother, Mr. J. H. Dixon, an able antiquary, and late of the
council of the Percy Society, who, somewhat too hastily I think, and
without sufficient proof, rejected the information offered. That the family
which my brother represents is a "good old" one, is sufficiently attested
by the pedigree furnished by Thoresby in the _Ducatus Leodiensis_, and
thence copied by Mr. Burke in his _Landed Gentry_; but of its earlier
history there is no reliable account, unless that by Mr. Spence can be
considered such.
I shall feel very much obliged if any of your correspondents learned in the
genealogies of Yorkshire and Cheshire could either corroborate the
genuineness of the information tendered by Mr. Spence, or prove the
reverse; and it is only fair to that gentleman to add that he is entitled
to credibility on the written testimony of the Rev. Mr. Knox, Incumbent of
Birkenhead.