Brian/Richie
You seem to be doing fine without any help! You have access to Roud and many of the American collections give lists of other sources in their headnotes. Your thread moves along at such a pace it's hard to keep up, but I'll drop in from time to time.

Personally I find including Bold Soldier/Dragoon in with Earl Brand or Erlinton unnecessary. All they have in common is a single motif and a rough plot. If we counted all songs with such similarities as the same ballad just about every ballad would be related. I know I'm disagreeing with the great Bronson here, but that's just my opinion.

An excellent project, though I haven't had time to visit the website yet. The problem is we're all heavily weighed down with similar projects.

One of the projects I started was a critique of each Child ballad regarding authenticity which can be found on the Folkopedia website hidden behind the Child Ballad texts. But I haven't contributed anything for a while. My pet subject includes the forgers and fabricators like Scott, Buchan, Baring Gould etc. But you have your fair share of these in the States.

Regarding the Motherwell Mss, they were copied out by Macmath for Child and are in the Hornel Library at Kirkudbright. Ronnie Clark I think it is is in there at the moment (Lucky sod!) and he might be contacted via the Ballad List. Harvard of course has copies in Child's Library there.

Brian,
Have you read Mary Ellen Brown yet? Awesome!!!!