Concerning Genealogies / Being Suggestions of Value for All Interested in Family History

by Frank Allaben

In making the investigation, we should aim to collect data for a very full account of each ancestor, with a portrait, autograph, the history of his possessions, photograph of the homestead, his old letters, his Bible and will—in fact, any and all materials which picture clearly his character and affairs. When we have finished collecting, our accumulations are worked up into monographs on each one of the lines traced, each monograph enriched by illustrations and accompanied by an appendix in which we exhibit in full the documents and extracts constituting the proofs of the descent. We recommend that each monograph be introduced by a chart, exhibiting the pedigree from the earliest known progenitor down to the person whose ancestry is the subject of the book. This adds a valuable feature, and makes the whole line clear at a glance. After all the monographs are completed, they should be arranged together for publication in one volume.

If expense is not much of an object, it is especially interesting to prepare for one's own library one copy of the edition printed, sumptuously bound and enriched with original documents, or certified copies of them,—old prints, silhouette portraits and other illustrations gathered solely for that copy. In fact, some people may prefer to limit the edition to this one copy. These ideas may be followed in the Grafton plan of genealogy with brilliant results. A proper method of research, with the necessary means at its disposal, should result in the accumulation of an abundance of interesting illustrative matter for such a book.

The Grafton plan of work calls for a notebook in which the display of the genealogical statistics of a family takes a subordinate place. What is wanted is a notebook in which an indefinite number of pages may be devoted to the data of each ancestor, with some index system which will make all instantly accessible, and some ready means of rearranging the pages. These ends are achieved by a notebook equipped with the Grafton Chart Index, which is quite different from the notebook mentioned in the last chapter.

The Chart Index affords a diagrammatic display of one's ancestry for ten generations—spaces for writing in the names of every one of our 1,022 theoretically possible ancestors, each in his proper place. Each name is located by a Roman numeral, indicating the generation to which it belongs, and by an Arabic figure, indicating its place in that generation. With each name also appears a blank space in brackets, to receive the number of the page of the notebook where the data of that name begins. And at the top of this page in the notebook are written the generation and place numbers of the name in the diagram.

Do we wish to know where to look for the data bearing upon a certain person? We glance at his place in the chart and there find the page reference to his place in the notebook. Or, with our notebook open at a certain place, do we wish to know the ancestral connections of the individual there treated? We glance at the numerals which head his data, and thus learn his place in the chart, which displays at a glance his relations to all the lines and other individuals of our entire ancestry, so far as determined. The body of the notebook is detachable from the cover and chart-index. When its pages are full, another section may be attached, which becomes Section B of one great notebook, this process being repeated as often as desired, the one index covering the whole. If the data on John Smith begins on page 50 of the first section, the page reference in the chart will be A50, or simply 50. If it begins on the same page of the next section, the reference will be to B50, and so on.

The leaves of the notebook are perforated and easily detachable. When the work of investigation is complete, or at any time in the process, the data can be rearranged in any order desired. When the data for one complete line has been gathered, we may wish to arrange it in the order of descent and begin the delightful task of working it up for the printer while other lines are still being investigated.

The Chart Index may be obtained separately. It can be used simply as a chart, to exhibit one's entire ancestry, or may be adjusted as an index to some system of notebooks which the reader already has in hand.[5]

The notebook referred to in our last chapter may be used to advantage in conjunction with the one just described.

For example, John Smith, the first of one of our lines, may have had eight children. While the "Grafton" genealogy will dwell at length only upon that one of the children who is our ancestor,—Stephen Smith, for example,—his seven brothers and sisters will be briefly noticed, although their descendants will not be followed unless it be to call attention to distinguished relatives in some of these collateral lines. Having given the history of the first John Smith in full, we append a condensed account of all his children, other than the one who is our ancestor, after which we take up the latter, Stephen Smith, in full. The notebook devised for the "clan" genealogy will serve admirably for collecting the skeleton of facts desired for these notices of the brothers and sisters of our ancestors.