With few exceptions, almost all the families of importance in feudal days have passed away. The great House of Neville,[27] that once threatened to overshadow the Lords Palatine themselves, survives only in several southern branches, and their name is almost forgotten in their native land. The baronial houses of Eure,[28] Conyers, Hylton, and FitzMarmaduke have all passed away. So, too, have nearly all the names recorded in the Heralds’ Visitations at intervals from 1530 to 1666. Of the latter, eight only retain their patrimonial acres. These are the Chaytors, Edens, Lambtons, Liddells, Lumleys, Salvins, Vanes, and Whartons. To these may be added the Williamsons, who came from Nottinghamshire, and the Shaftos from Northumberland. The Visitations of Durham[29] are, like those of the sister county of Northumberland, notoriously incomplete. Of the latter, Surtees wrote: "The Northumbrian gentry, many of whom probably never heard of the Visitation, would scarcely leave their business or amusements to attend an Officer of Arms for a purpose of which few then saw the utility, and which, it is plain, in many instances was considered an extreme nuisance." In the adjoining county to the south there was a similar state of affairs. Of Dugdale’s _Visitation of York_, Mr. Davies wrote: "Nearly one-third of the whole number of gentry whom the herald called upon to appear before him with proofs of their arms and pedigrees treated his summonses with neglect." In this county both a long and a strong list of families of gentle blood can easily be enumerated who, for one reason or another, make no appearance in the Heralds’ books. No one familiar with the history of the county can have helped remarking the absence of families formerly so well known, and in many cases still well known, as the Allgoods of Bradley, Blacketts of Hoppyland, Bromleys of Nesbitt, Dales of Dalton, Douthwaites of Westholme, Emersons of Westgate, Goodchilds of Pallion, Greenwells of Greenwell and Stobilee, Holmeses of Wearmouth, Hunters of Medomsley, Ironsides of Houghton, Meaburns of Pontop, and others whose names spin out too long a list to give in full. Now, most of these families had intermarried with families who registered and had written themselves as "gentlemen" for several generations; and, as an interesting sidelight upon the Visitations, we believe it could be shown that more than one family who registered was in debt pretty heavily to others who didn’t register. So it does not appear to have been altogether a matter of means. It may perhaps be as well, before proceeding farther, to notice the principal material we have, in addition to the Visitations, for proving the succession to estate in this county.