In spite of all our care, the wretched books concealed desirable items until our manuscript had passed the proper place of insertion, sardonically calling our attention to the omissions when we were busy with another subject. How we grew to hate those notebooks, and how they tormented us with a plague of re-writing! We had a premonition that they would conceal some things to the very last; and, sure enough, having tortured us during the days of writing, humiliated us in the proof-sheets, and demanded a display of errata as the book went to press, they waited until it was nicely printed, bound and published before making their final disclosures!
To obviate all this trouble, we now have the Grafton Genealogical Notebook, American Form. As the last two words indicate, this notebook embodies the arrangement of the "clan" genealogy used by the most eminent American genealogists and adopted by such organizations as the New England Historic-Genealogical Society and the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society.
This notebook consists of a succession of groups of pages, each group arranged with blanks to receive the data for a whole family. The facts are written in their proper spaces when first ascertained, and when the work of research is finished it will be found that the work of compilation has taken care of itself! In fact, the notebook is self-compiling. The blank spaces are arranged in the order of the statements as they are to appear on the printed page, the connecting words and proper punctuation being printed in the notebook. Having filled in all the spaces which our data requires, we simply draw a pen through the rest, and our book is practically compiled, for its own leaves may be sent to the printer as manuscript! The leaves are perforated so that they may be readily detached, and thus we are saved the labor and the possible errors of recopying.
For example, having written our introductory matter, we detach the leaves from our notebooks, group by group, beginning with the family of the common ancestor, followed by that of his oldest child, who had issue, and so on through all the families and generations in order. In this order, we consecutively number the leaves in blank spaces provided for that purpose, and if the "family" and "individual" numbers have not already been assigned, we note them in the proper spaces.
We may add that this notebook is equally well adapted for tracing all of the descendants of an ancestor, or those of the sons alone. Its use will be understood at a glance by experienced genealogists. Detailed instructions, however, with sample blanks filled out, have been prepared for those desiring them. These instructions completely initiate the amateur into the details of the best form of "clan" genealogy.[4]
FOOTNOTE:
[4] The Grafton Genealogical Notebook, American Form (copyrighted), can be had of The Grafton Press, Genealogical and Biographical Department, 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City. Price, per copy, 25 cents; 12 copies for $2.50. The book is 5 1-4 inches wide by 8 1-2 long, and can be carried in the pocket. The instruction pamphlet will be sent to any address upon receipt of 25 cents. It is furnished free, when requested, to every purchaser of 12 copies of the notebook.