Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-11-08
He GENEALOGY FAD
AND WOMEN ARE NOT THE ONLY
VICTIMS.
The Pitiful Story of the Jerseyman
Who Did Not Know How
It is Done.


written for The Evening Star.
Pedigrees are no longer priceless They
have come to be reckoned among the things
for which there are strict market quota
tions This was inevitable when the passion
OF them rose to its present height. Ances-
tors indeed may be said to be the fad of the
hour.
man who knows said the other day: Il
agree with Ruskin. About the strongest OF
human passions is the passion for distinc-
t1on.' We Americans are more and more
finding that out. We have had the feeling
this long time-it no doubt in large measure
explains our lavish bestowal of titles. You
see 1t is this way-when a man has got fair
~ up in the world. he finds there are other
| things than those money will openly buy.
FOR example, have a friend who finan-
clally Is able to buy and sell me outright.
HIS income is way up in the thousands, but
his business, though a useful one is inele-
gant-it does not make him even a consid-
cradle figure of finance. He can only eat so
much food, wear so many Clothes take out
lngs In snatches as business permits, and
now and then put swell bet on favorte
on the big races. That is all he gets out of
his thousands so 1t makes him hot In the
collar to see me socially several cuts above
him, because 1 happen to be the great
grandson Of man who did something in
the REVOLUTIONARY able to be member OF
all the patriotic societies and by taking
peil III lueii uSllDeTdllOUS ana DelQS IalTly
active at their functions, often get my name
in the paper. To my friend that is fame
tame which he covetS inordinately. If any
genealogical sharp should get hold of him
in his present temper, he would stand stiff
price to be provided with an approved pedi-
gree, double-riveted and copper fastened on
to some of our first families
Don't say that can't be done. It Is done
! right along. Don't you know all about it?
why! tell you there are several men who
i've ana live well, by providing people with
the right sort of ancestors. Generally they
belong to several clubs-that gives them OPP
portunity, you see. There they chum with
men who are beginning to be socially am
pltlous. Iney are suave fellows and full OF
tact. OF course they do their spiriting gen.
tly. 1t Is never coarse outright bargain.
Oh, no. They are interested in genealogy'
you understand, and spend their days in the
Libraries studying dry-as-dust books. Quite
incidentally they discover something which
may be OF interest to their aspiring club
friends and mention the fact casually; then
If the fly rises to the bait, there is apt to be
a set negotiation.
who pay. Senator Chauncey M. Depew is
reasonably prominent-yet he paid one of
the club genealogists a thousand dollars
and expenses to go abroad and trace the
DepeW descent back to a Norman knight
and Norman castle. Knowing that 1 can
not help wondering what Mr.. Waldorf AS
tor paid for his French-Crusading descent
from Jacques d'Astorga. But even when
you have got your pedigree you are not at
the end of expenses. 1t must be spread
abroad. Do you know there are half a
dozen periodicals which exist just for that
purpose. The charge Is twenty-five to one
hundred dollars a page-cuts extra. OF
course the periodicals are not wholly made
up of paid stuff, though it would not matter
| greatly If they were. They circulate MAIN
| ly among Sons and Daughters, to whom
pedigrees of any sort are as the breath OF
| life. There is money in them, loads OF
money. Vanity is soil one can depend on
| to produce a paying crop.
Il am far from condemnng the people
who make them possible. The claims of
| long descent have always a social and often
| a commercial value. Besides, when people
| have more money than they well know how
| to spend they could hardly find a more
| harmless diversion. Men usually have more
| loose money than women, so more Of them
| pay to get their descent exploited. But the
women who can afford it are mighty good
secondhand luck to both, say t.
The speech recalled to memory a Jersey
man. who some years back was bitten with
| the same passion for distinction" In fact
| he simply pinned for ancestors but how to
| get them he did not know All he did know
| was that his grandfather had been an En-
| glishman. England. the inquirer reasoned,
was so small place, there must be traces
| left In 1t of any fairly well-to-do immigrant.
So he decided to write letters to the parish
authorities everywhere, asking that search
be made for people and records of his name
and promising to pay literally for the max
ing.
The letters meant a private secretary.
One was found and duly set to work After
| eighteen months of effort, and the expendf-
ture, all told, of two thousand dollars the
man in search of ancestors struck his first
trail. 1t ran straight and landed in the par
ish workhouse, but even the pauper dis
claimed kinship. None of his stock hadn't
never gone to Ameriky, he said. The inves-
tigation ended suddenly then and there, and
one American family is still in the dark as
to its family tree.