158 The Smithsonian Institution 



tion to such matters in his later busy life, there is still in e 

 istence an elaborate "genealogical tree," prepared by himse 

 at the age of sixteen, by the aid of which it has been pracl 

 cable to identify his ancestors up to and including all those 

 the fifth degree, thirty in number, and in many lines far beyon 



His grandparents were all the children of colonial Penns) 

 vanians. He was emphatically an American, for over eigh 

 per centum of his progenitors in the sixth degree were livir 

 in the colonies during the seventeenth century. Out of tl 

 total number of thirty -two, one, or perhaps two, were < 

 Swedish blood; one a Huguenot, and one or two others fro 

 the Palatinate companions of Pastorius in the founding < 

 the first German community in America. The others we: 

 either natives of Great Britain or their descendants estal 

 lished in the American colonies. Of these there were sever 

 of Scotch, Irish, or Scotch-Irish blood, and one or two fro 

 Wales. 



Although in one sense only agencies in the concentratic 

 and transmission of the various traits derived from previoi 

 generations, his immediate ancestors with their person 

 traits, the results of education and environment were thoj 

 who had the most direct influence upon his character. 



His father, Samuel Baird (1786-1833), was a lawyer, 

 man of fine culture, an independent and original thinker, an 

 a lover of nature and of outdoor sports. 



His mother, Lydia McFunn Biddle (1797-1861), who sui 

 vived her husband nearly forty years, was a woman of fir 

 executive powers, fascinating manners, and of a sunny an 

 equable temperament. 



His father's father, Samuel Baird, served as a quarterma! 

 ter in the Revolutionary Army ; he was a surveyor, and WE 

 interested in the opening of coal-mines in eastern Pennsy 

 vania, in association with his cousin, Colonel Thomas Pott 



