Evening star., 1909-02-26
PASSION FOR ANCESTORS.
The Work of Growing Family Tree.
for Obscure Americans.

From the New York Sun.
This week there has been a great sale
of genealOgies in Boston. where so many
family trees have been collected. Prices
were high. Why not? Everything has
gone up, and it is not only a poor. but
poor spirited family that will not go
without food and drink and even auto
mobiles rather than be deprived of the
monuments of its origin. "Japhet in
Search of a Father never searched so
hard as Americans do after "ances-
tors" and they find them in quantities
to suit, although they come pretty
high. especially If the quest is contin-
ued across the water. The Jump that
would break a herald's neck as DIR.
Holmes put it. Is taken boldly and with
out injury. Probably few of us under
stand how magnificent and purple the
ancestries of Americans have come to
be. The Norman conquest is too near
for the exclusive. They want to go
back Of Dane. Saxon and Irish kings.
Colonnas and Orsinis are but new peo-
pie to an American really ambitious of
ancestry; and of course it is much easier
to make one than to grow one. That
bland literary light John D. Rockefeller
rises along the Rhine. we believe, or can
fails and the wine" is all gone. we ex-
pect to see Pttsburg devote itself with its
wonted energy to the discovery of long
line of ancestors.
Much more modest. it may be said.
is the amiable delight in the mostly
humble family records and descents
in the collection now so general and
enthusiastic. of works on genealogy
Perhaps it isn't rash to divide Ameri-
cans into two classes on this point.
those who venerate genealogy and those
who don't care a rap for it. 1t is very
often the young folks who compose the
second class. Father and mother,
grown prosperous. extend patroniz-
ing interest to their forebears. The
children. on the contrary. perhaps
aware that the annals of most Ameri-
can families are the short and simple
annals of the poor or more likely, for
want of time and enjoyment of the pres
ent. are apt to be languid genealogists
indeed. much like the chapter which
the New Englanders call the "begets''
Dim Eleazars and Ezekiels. Marthas
and Rebeccas pass by. They worked
hard (some Of the men drank hard,
for that natter. had big families.
and went their way. To clothe those
dry bones Of date with life and rebuild
those careers, most Of them SO narrow,
laboring and obscure, might make an
American genealogy more entertaining.
them extinct or gone off with the tories
in the revolution, have really welded
the sword instead of the plough handle,
and worn lace and velvet and silver in
stead of homespun. We are "borel fol-
as Chaucer would say. Ought to be
proud of 1t, the moralist will tell us,
and are snobs IL we're not proud of it.
Too true. but the virtuous are too sell
dom interesting The stage on this
side of the water was parochial: and If
we may say it with the peace of Colo
nial Danes and Descendants of the
Colonial Wars. our ancestors are a little
depressing. Perhaps that is the reason
why we want to carry a longer line
of them, and beg, borrow or steal some
thing picturesque and feudal.
Meanwhile let US remember that
even our "aristocracy" was bourgeois.
and as we look over the genealogy be
grateful that by universal consent we
all belong to lone of the most prominent
families especially when we shoot
sOmebody