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Originally Posted by Inziladun
Oh, I don't know. The Hobbits seem so fond of their genealogical knowledge I can't see them entrusting it to an outside party. Besides, so many families were related in some way, with each keeping track of its own relations, I would think solid evidence of who was kin to whom would have been that much more reliable.
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It is pure speculation on my part of course. Though I'd like to think there was some authoritative volume of 'correct' research which any others were based on - and that's probably rooted in my own annoyance at coming across bad family research online where other people have members of my family noted down with totally incorrect facts!
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The Shire is an obvious enigma in relation to the rest of ME. I think the idea that it's the most "modern", while at the same time pretty darned near to an idyllic way of life from my point of view, is fascinating.
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I couldn't cope in any other part of Middle-earth.
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It certainly seems more important than the Mayor's position, though the Thainship by the Third age was, as you note, more of an honorary title like the noble titles still used in Europe today. The Thainship would seem to be a fairly easy succession to track, though one wonders what would happen if the Thain died or went off into the wild (like them crazy Tooks sometimes did  ) before he had produced an heir.
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It would be, and is, an easy line to trace, but there seems to have been quite a big remove between Pippin and the next male in line, had he not made it back from his adventures. If
all female descendants were bypassed (as under Salic Law), I think they'd have had to look for descendants of his great-grandfather's brothers, though I can only see evidence of the usual kind of primogeniture, as no female lines were in the running to have ever been discounted.