SYMPOSIUM OX SAXITAflOX 35 



mu^t be presented before a marriage license will be issued. 

 If he is a candidate for any public office or civil appointment, 

 he must produce his birth certificate as an evidence of iden- 

 tity. Educated Europeans look with amazement on this vast 

 country and its rapidly growing population, which has con- 

 tinued to multiply, either by immigration or by natural in- 

 crease, for nearly 150 years, without making, until a few years 

 ago. any intelligent effort to record the birth and death of 

 its citizens. The family Bible, with its carelessly kept and 

 incomplete record, often destroyed by fire or disappearing in 

 the course of time, has been the only record which has been 

 made of the appearance and disappearance of millions of our 

 people. As a result, we are practically dependent for inform- 

 ation regarding our immediate ancestors on records which are 

 entirely untrustworthy, or on equally doubtful family tradi- 

 tions, handed down by word of mouth from generation to 

 generation. This audience today, is probably as typically 

 American as one could secure. It is probable that at least 

 90 per cent, of the immediate ancestry of those in this room 

 were men and women of more than average education, and, 

 consequently, more interested than the ordinary person, in 

 questions of descent and heredity. Yet I question whether 5 

 per cent, of us could give the names, the place and date of 

 the birth and the place and time of death of our immediate 

 ancestors in the third generation, while probably not as many 

 of us could give the names of the brothers and sisters of our 

 grandfathers and grandmothers, who are only two genera- 

 tions removed from us. A farmer who did not keep a better 

 record of his stock, would be regarded as a very careless 

 breeder. Those interested in race-horses, bull terriers, angora 

 cats or pouter pigeons, probably know a great deal more 

 about the genealogy and ancestry of their pets than they do 

 about that of their own children. Each of us has two par- 

 ents, four grand-parents, and eiglit great-grand-parents. How 

 many of us could, either from present knowledge or after 

 any amount of careful investigation, produce positive proof 

 of the identity of our eight immediate ancestors in the third 

 generation or of our descent from them? How many of us 

 today could produce positive legal evidence of our direct 

 connection with our four grand-parents ? Let us bring it even, 

 closer and make it more personal. How many persons are 

 there at present within the sound of my voice, who could, if 

 necessary, produce legal documentary evidence of the place 

 and date of their own birth and of their own parentage? 

 Those whose parents are still living could avail themselves 

 of this evidence, but aside from this means, how many of Us 

 could produce any positive proof, that we were born at the 



