382 



The Journal of Heredity 



You may well ask what facilities we 

 have for receiving and using pedigrees 

 such as I have been outlining, if they 

 were made up. You are all, of 

 course, familiar with the repositories 

 which the different patriotic societies, 

 the National Genealogical Society, and 

 similar organizations maintain, as well 

 as the collections of the Library of 

 Congress and other great public insti- 

 tutions. Anything deposited in such a 

 place can be "found by the investigators, 

 mostly attached to colleges and universi- 

 ties, who arc actively engaged in eugenic 

 research. 



In addition to this, there are certain 

 establishments founded for the sole 

 purpose of analyzing genealogies from 

 a biological or statistical point of view. 

 The first of these was the Galton Labor- 

 atory of the University of London, 

 directed by Karl Pearson. I shall not 

 take time to mention the European 

 institutions, but shall call to your 

 attention the two at work in the 

 United States. 



The larger is the Eugenics Record 

 Office at Cold Spring Harbor, Long 

 Island, New York, directed by Dr. 

 Charles B. Davenport, and maintained 

 largely through the generosity of Mrs. 

 E. H. Harriman. Blank schedules are 

 sent to all ajjjjlicants, in which the 

 pedigree of an individual may be easily 

 set down, with reference ])articularly to 

 the traits of eugenic importance. When 

 desired, the office will send dupHcate 

 schedules, one of which may be retained 

 by the ai^plicant for his own files. The 

 schedules filed at the Eugenics Record 

 Office are treated as absolutely confi- 

 dential, access to them being given only 

 to accredited investigatfjrs. 



The second institution of this kind is 

 the Genealogical Record Office, founded 

 and directed bv Dr. Alexander (Graham 

 Bell at 1601 thirty-fifth vStreet NW., 

 Washington D. C. This devotes itself 

 solely to the cf)llection of data regarding 

 longevity, and sends out schedules to 

 all those in whose families there have 

 been individuals attaining the age of 

 80 or over. It welcomes correspondence 

 on the subject from all who know of 

 cases of long life, and endeavors to put 

 the ])arliculars on record, esi)ecially 



with reference to the ancestr\- and habits 

 of the long-lived individual. 



DUTY OF THE INDIVIDUAL 



Persons intelligently interested in 

 their ancestry might well consider it a 

 duty to society, and to their own 

 posterity, to send for one of the Eugenics 

 Record Office schedules, fill it out and 

 place it on file there, and to do the same 

 with the Genealogical Record Office, 

 if they are so fortunate as to come of a 

 stock characterized by longevity. The 

 filling out of these schedules would be 

 likely to lead to a new viewpoint of 

 genealogy; and when this viewpoint is 

 once gained, I am satisfied that the 

 student will find it adds immen.sely to 

 his interest in his pursuit. 



You are all familiar with the charge 

 of long-standing, that genealogy is a 

 subject of no u.se, a fad of a privileged 

 class. I do not need to tell you that 

 such a charge is untrue. But I think 

 that genealogy can be made a much 

 more useful science than it now is, 

 and that it will be at the same time 

 more interesting to its followers, if it 

 ceases to look on itself as an end in 

 itself, or solely as a minister to family 

 pride. I hope to .see it look on itself as 

 a handmaid of evolution, just as other 

 sciences are coming to do ; I hope to see 

 it link arms with the great biological 

 movement of the present day; I hope 

 to see the two of them working in close 

 harmony, for the betterment of man- 

 kind. 



So much for the science as a whole. 

 What can the individual do? Nothing 

 better than to broaden his out-look so 

 that he may view his family not as an 

 exclusive entity, centered in a name, 

 dejjcndent on some illustrious man or 

 men of the past; but rather as an 

 integral ])art of the great fabric of 

 human lifi", its warp and woof continu- 

 ous from the dawn of creation and criss- 

 cros.sed at each generation. When he 

 gets this vision, he will desire to make 

 his family tree as full as possible, to 

 include his collaterals, to note every 

 trait which he can find on record, to 

 preserve the ]3hotographs and measure- 

 ments of his own contemi)()raries, mid 



