Clambering Among the Branches of the
Family Tree, One May Find
Royal Ancestors.
A little harmless fun with the people who are engaged in a hunt for
ancestors is indulged in by that playful journal, the New York _Evening
Post_.
The point arises in connection with the expose of a man who professes to
be able to link every American with royalty, by the chain of a common
ancestry, asserting that thus "you and your family, relatives, or friends
will have rare facilities in securing business contracts from European
governments." The reflections aroused in the _Post_ by this offer of
unearned greatness are in part as follows:
A fortune awaits the person who will thus bring genealogy
home to the hearts of the common people and make the
contemplation of a pedigree a source of daily happiness.
We fear that J. Henry Lea, who has just published a
hand-book entitled "Genealogical Research in England,
Scotland, and Ireland," misses the point of view. He is a
dryasdust, who is concerned about long, dull tables of the
probate courts, lists of marriage licenses, and parish
registers. He talks as if genealogy were a science--a notion
that also troubles a recent writer in the London
_Spectator_.
But if genealogy is to appeal to the masses, it must be an
art. Now, the strength of an art is not its grasp of facts,
but its flight of imagination. In a science the rule is,
abundant data and meager results; in an art, meager data and
abundant results.
Tell a scientific genealogist that your grandfather, a Welsh
cobbler, arrived in the steerage in 1860, and what do you
get? After three years and numerous fees for expenses, you
learn that for two centuries the heads of the family had
been mechanics or small tradesmen--a disgusting outcome.
Tell an artistic genealogist the same thing, and in three
weeks, for a stipulated sum, you have a neat picture of a
tree, proving that you are a Tudor, and that the English
Tudors got their start by marrying into your family. This is
why we set art above groveling science.