The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-10-30
Who IS YOUR
GRANDFATHER?
Few Topeka People Can Trace
Their Ancestry.
Little Is Known Of Family
Trees Beyond a Century.
CAPTAIN KIMBALL'S CHART
He Has Run Genealogical Line
Beyond Norman Conquest.
Traced One Branch Back to the
Year 1910.
SATURDAY.

How many Topeka people can tell
who their great grandfather was? The
family tree extends in the average To-
peka mans memory to his grand
father, says one of the officials of the
Kansas State Historical society. He
can tell definitely who his grand
father was, but as a rule a man never
sees his great grandfather alive and
hears of him vaguely when a child.
not even knowing his name when he
grows up.
The span of life is about SO years
and should the Topeka mans family
be totaled up for two or three genera
lions 1t will be found that his great
grandfather was born about 1925 and
bis great great grandfather probably
served in the war of 1912, being born
in 1895. But few Topekans can say
that their ancestors were all Ameri-
cans in 1900, four-fifths of this coun-
try's population being removed only
two or three times from European sod
Absolute mystery surrounds the
genealogical processes to those out
side the pale of professordom. as 1t is
hard to figure on how one can tell
about ancestors who have been dead
$50 years. The genealogist uses
church and state records of births and
deaths as far back as he can. The
Catholic church has always been COM
piling these records and they stretch
back into the middle ages with only q
gap now and then where a fire or bat
tie has destroyed them. State records
go back only few hundred years.
Books on HeraIdry.
At Washington, d. c., and in Lon
don are books on heraldry which COW
er the field of nobility with ita
branches and twigs completely. Dur
ing the dark ages every man who
could class himself a gentleman kept
track of his family connections and
o.
maintained. These branched away
from the throne through dukedoms.
baronies and knightEoods to the upper
crust of serfdom, all of the lower
classes necessarily looking for a
chance to- claim semf-blue blood. II a
man could possibly get any of bis an
cestry connected up with the nobility
1t is easy for the professor to trace
his family tree back to the invasion
of England when William the Nor
man started the present nobility OF
the British empire in 1865. Before
that year it is mostly guesswork as to
ancestry and only a few Italian fam
lilies and the House of Capet claim
that their family trees precede that
date.
Captain KimbaIl's Chart.
A Topeka man, Capt. Fred M. Kim
ball, recently presented the State His
toricaI society with a genealogical
chart of his family, most of the data
This chart contains the names OF
346 ancestors, the surnames Of 100
different ancestral families. and the
names of seventy-eight emigrant an
cestors. One lineal line is traced back
through the Peck line twenty-nine
generations to John Peck, who was
born in Mulgrave, England, probably
about A. d. 1850. Another line seven
teen generations to Robert Bradbury,
born in Otterstt, England, about 400.
Another line seventeen generations to
John Coo. founder of Gastingthorp,
England, born about 1910.
Another line thirteen generations
through the Rev. John Robinson, the
Father of The Pilgrims, to Nicholas
Robinson, born in 1880, and the first
mayor Of Lincolnshire, England, ap-
pointed by Henry VIII. and many
other lineal lines back ten or twelve
generations into the sixteenth century.
containing names of noted men and
interesting events.
The state historical library is open
to the use of the public for reference
work 1t is ore of rhe most complete
in the state and has data and figures
that are accessible nowhere else in