Tracing Your Ancestors 



11 



is rarely that the first interview yields 

 all that the person interviewed really 

 knows. If a letter is written, it is best 

 not to demand too much information at 

 first. Proceed by degrees. Everyone 

 may not be as interested as you are, and 

 to write at one time a detailed history 

 of all the members of the family of 

 whom one has knowledge is a task apt 

 to be shirked rather than accomplished. 

 In the first letters ask only the leading 

 questions. Let each subsequent letter 

 deal with a special individual or sub- 

 ject. File the answers to your letters of • 

 inquiry, giving each a proper number, if 

 practicable the number of the person to 

 which it mostly relates. 



The second step is to discover if there 

 exists any family record, as is often found 

 in a Bible, and to cover every item 

 therein. Great care should be taken in 

 writing such abbreviations as Jan. and 

 Jun., and in writing dates. A careless 

 copy often leads to much vexation at a 

 later period when the original cannot be 

 referred to. 



If members of the family have been 

 interred in some nearby cemetery, their 

 gravestones should be examined to 

 obtain the dates usually cut upon them. 



If the family has resided long in one 

 place, the town record of births, mar- 

 riages, and deaths will yield information. 

 So, usually, will the church records, 

 especially of certain denominations. 

 Admissions and dismissals from church 

 membership should be examined as well 

 as records of baptisms, marriages and 

 burials . The latter are not always kept . 



The above sources of information 

 having been exhausted, one may now 

 seek information in printed books. To 

 discover if any family history has been 

 published examine the list of American 

 and English Genealogies published in 

 1910 by the Library of Congress, which 

 may be had of the Government Print- 

 ing Office for a dollar, if it is not on the 

 shelves of the local library. 



If the local library has ever paid any 

 attention to genealogy, it will most 

 likely have Durrie's Index, and later 

 publications, giving lists of articles 

 devoted to certain families which may 

 have been printed. A well-equipped 

 library will have a number of reference 

 works of that character, and may pos- 



sess the Index to the first fifty volumes 

 of the New England Historical Genea- 

 logical Register, a valuable and expen- 

 sive work which will prove of the 

 greatest service, especially if the fa- 

 mily lines run back to New England. 

 For New York, and many New 

 England families, the New York Bio- 

 graphical Genealogical Record will be 

 found useful, and for the South such 

 publications as the William and Mary 

 Historical Quarterly and The Virginia 

 Magazine of History and Biography. 

 There are a number of genealogical 

 periodicals, published privately or by 

 societies, and proceedings of historical 

 societies, to all of which the librarian can 

 direct a searcher, or concerning which 

 information may be obtained by writ- 

 ing to The Genealogical Magazine, 

 26 Broad Street, Boston, Mass. 



CRITICAL JUDGMENT NECESSARY 



In using any printed source it must be 

 borne in mind that all that is in print is 

 not truth. Especially is this true of 

 publications prior to 1880, or even later, 

 as not until quite recent years has 

 genealogy become the exact study it now 

 is, and tradition and guesswork were 

 often responsible for many statements 

 which cannot be authenticated by re- 

 corded evidence. 



If the family is settled in the West, in 

 fact anywhere west of the Hudson 

 River, it is rare that the family history 

 can be traced for more than three or four 

 generations without resorting to the 

 original records found in the older set- 

 tlements. 



It may be that histories of the family 

 under investigation have been printed 

 either separately or in some town or 

 county history. Such publications are 

 very numerous for some portions of the 

 country, and are more or less helpful 

 according to circumstances. 



A few libraries have sought to place 

 all such publications on their shelves. 

 Every library should have some guide 

 to what has been published. Inquiry 

 and a little persistence will sometimes 

 result in the purchase by local libraries 

 of a few of the most useful books. 

 Libraries rarely buy what there is little 

 or no call for, and the average library 



