Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1898-04-23
THE FAMILY TREE
Who We're My Ancestors!"
Seems to Be the Question
Of the Hour.

In these days of Colonial Danes
Daughters of the American Revolution
and various other societies that ara
branches of forest of family trees the
study of genealogy is an Interesting
one "Who We're were my ancestors ~
seems to be the question of the hour I'm
America.
The Aryan colonists left their ancient
home in India and spread over the con.
tinent of Europe in many diverglnr
streams. Centuries passed. Some of
the streams united In the northeastern
part TO form a river. The brave Brlton
the fiery Celt. the versatile Gaul tho
slow but steady Teuton, the daring nj
ratlcal Norseman-all these combined
to make the mighty river of whose ON.
flowing waters we are proud to form a
part. What part?" do we ask Wa
certainly cannot be molecules, heing
visible to the eye and of some trinlns
Importance in our own eyes We must
at least be drops. large sized drops. OF
course. in this Anglo-Saxon-N Norman.
American genealogical river.
OF the same Aryan or Indo- Europenn
stock We're the polished Roman and the
barbarian Brton. DO we like to realize
tilut Nne WoTu bTltuH means a painted
man. spotted, variegated man? Ce.
sar says the ancient Brtons stained
themselves blue before entering battle
also that 10 or II of them had their
wives in common. We know that hu-
man victims were offered on their al.
tars.
Some 500 years later st. Augustine
and 40 others-bless their memories
came on a foreign mission to carry
Christianity to the fair haired people
of Angleland. 1t was 200 years after the
time Of Alfred the Great, Saxon. before
surnames We're known in England. and
they were not at all common until the
fourteenth century. So that II Is rarely
possible to trace our family lives far
Their back than 700 or 800 years 1t Il
interesting that some Welsh fanilies
claim lineage among the noble Romans;
also that few French families assuua
to trace their lines TO Noah. But with.
out doubt the Oldest recorded family On
the globe is that of the mikado OF Japan,
whose lineage has been carefully kept
for % centuries. Some of our American
forbears thought 1t undemocratic to
have an ancestor. Abraham Lincoln
said, and / am sure we should all be in
sympathy with the sentiment, II do not
know my grandfathers name, and I
am more concerned to know what his
grandson IL going to make OF himself"
The study of genealogy. pursued in
liberal spirit, brings all Americans into
sympathetic bonds. AS we climb our
family tree we find so many other per-
sons ancestors sitting among the
boughs. Our Ebenezer, John or Daniel
who came over at an early period
proves to be also the ancestor of per-
haps 1000 other living persons. In fact.
we find our genealogical tree a network
of grating. wondrously interviewer by
the intermarriages of many generations.
As we grow older we have to deal In
ourselves with the influences of our
education, perhaps even more with those
of blood and breed. VIII it not profit US
to study them? As we learn the histories
of those before us at the life loom Will
1t not stimulate us to do our best in
weaving the web of our lives?
Let us take our ancestral heroes out
of the obscure past and place them in
household inches where their memory
can be kept green and their deeds re-
hearsed to fire our own hearts and the
hearts of the children.