Finally, there is the undoubted fact stated at the beginning of our chapter, that the "clan" genealogy has pre-empted the field. It is the work everywhere met, the book which is in every mind when a genealogy is thought of.
Special difficulties attend the compiling of this kind of work, and for the overcoming of these we have prepared a special notebook.
It should be remembered that if, instead of counting one man's ancestors, we should reckon one man's descendants, assuming an average, in each family, of three children who become parents, in nine generations some 9,841 descendants would have become parents, each with a wife or husband, making a total of 19,682 to appear in the tribal book, without counting descendants that leave no issue!
After the ninth generation the tribe grows with leaps and bounds that are truly mighty. A single additional generation, the tenth, would add a new crop of no less than 39,366 husbands and wives, making a total of 59,048 tribesmen entitled to a place in the book! And the eleventh generation—but peace! Our little work on the joys of genealogical research shall not be marred by the statistical bore who tries to scare with his wretched arithmetic!
In truth, formidable as the "clan" genealogy sometimes is, at present it seldom takes in ten generations, while our estimate of family increase is perhaps too great. And what genealogist, though he beg and implore information of the later generations, sending out hundreds of eloquent letters, is ever able to make a complete exhibit of a great tribe? Our figures should not terrify, therefore, but simply compel proper appreciation of the problem of the notebook.
How shall the data for a whole tribe be preserved until the day of compilation, and how can we keep it from becoming a jumbled miscellany that will drive us to despair?
The terror of the notebooks first dawned upon us just as we thought we had the matter well in hand. It was our first extensive investigation, and as the ancestral names increased on our research list we found that we must make a choice of methods. Should we search the authorities for one name at a time? Many advise this to avoid confusion, on the principle of choosing the lesser of two evils.
But it is a clumsy method, well nigh intolerable, which leads one to visit certain places and consult certain authorities for data on one name, and then return over pretty much the same ground for the second, the third, and all other names on a long list. We rejected the thought of such a system, determining that as each authority came into our hands we would extract whatever it contained on any of our names.
This settled, another question presented itself. Should we carry a separate notebook for every name investigated? Our list of names was so formidable that such an expedient threatened to transform the genealogist into a genealogical packhorse. Hence we preferred to carry a book or two at a time, to which we committed all our discoveries. Previous historical training had taught us to note the authority with each item, and we made rapid progress with the work. When one notebook was full, another took its place. What could be more simple and expeditious?
But the day came when we sat down to compile. Alas! our sins had found us out! A stack of notebooks lay before us, and through them all were scattered our data for each name, without system or chronological order. Oh, the despair of going through that pile of books, turning down pages and numbering items according to dates, in a desperate attempt to arrange the material for each name so as to compile the facts in a decent order!