But while genealogical research affords all the excitement of the chase, it is followed by no reproach for having taken life, but by the permanent satisfaction peculiar to the benefactor of mankind. The ancestry-hunter does not kill, but brings to life. He revives the memories of the dead, and benefits the world with an honorable contribution to the science of history. For a trophy he does not show a string of fish, nor a few birds and skins to distribute among friends, but a genuine historical work of ever-increasing value, which hands down his name to an appreciative posterity.
We have compared the peculiar delight of establishing a family link, long shrouded in mystery or attended with harassing doubts, to the angler's joy in landing a notable catch. In both cases the issue may long hang in the balance between skilful manipulation and a possible stroke of bad luck, which no skill can guard against. The fish may be reeled in or given his head without a single mistake of judgment. But who can foresee the sharp rock, the hidden snag, which cuts or entangles the line? And so, too, is skill most richly rewarded in searching for ancestors; but what can it avail against the positive wiping out of indispensable records?
We recall one of these genealogical tragedies, which cast its shadow over a remarkable record of successes in tracing a number of interesting lines for a gentleman who could start us off with no more than the names and birth-places of his parents. Two lines remained which pointed back by strong evidence to European connections of the titled class. All that was needed in one case was a clue to show to which of several branches of the family in Great Britain, the first American ancestor belonged. But to this day that clue has eluded every attempt to pick it up by research here or abroad.
Cases which are parallel up to this point are not uncommon. But the tragedy has yet to be told. At the colonial homestead of this ancestor we learned that his personal papers had, indeed, been preserved from generation to generation. Their last owner, a maiden lady, had carefully kept them in an old trunk, which was itself an ancient heirloom. But she had never taken the pains to examine their contents, and only a short time before our investigation brought us upon the scene, these hoary documents, after surviving the vicissitudes of seven generations, had been destroyed in a fire which reduced the old house to ashes!
Who can express the sorrow of it? No finder of Captain Kidd's buried treasure could gloat over Spanish doubloons and glittering gems with half the delight with which we would have contemplated those ancient parchments. How fondly our fingers would have turned the precious pages and smoothed the creases of those yellow papers! But now no hand may touch them, no antiquarian's eye explore nor pen exploit their contents to the world! If our friend had only sought his forebears earlier, and launched us sooner upon the voyage of discovery!
The other line, it is true, had no disappointments for us. It even yielded the discovery and possession of an original parchment pedigree, signed by an official herald of arms, which the ancestor had brought over with him, exhibiting his descent from the many Sir Williams and Sir Johns of an ancient Lincolnshire family extending back nearly to the Conqueror. It also enabled us to confirm the connection through official sources in England, and to prove that the emigrant was the son and heir in the line of primogeniture. For these kind favors, we trust that we were truly thankful. But they could scarcely comfort us for the lost papers which might have carried back another line in the same distinguished fashion.
Thus, genealogy has its griefs as well as its joys—some disappointments among many triumphs. But so it is with life and with everything worth while. Who would care to measure skill with a gamefish if the creature had no chance? Or who would glory in the death of a bull-moose that a look could bowl over? In genealogical research it is the part played by skill and by the unknown quantities which gives to it all the fascination, with none of the risks and evils, of a great game of skill and chance.
Another pleasure is the sensation of original discovery. Would you experience the feelings of a Columbus? Then set forth to explore the unsailed seas and hidden continents of your own or some other person's ancestry! If your own happens to be virgin territory you are one of fortune's favorites, with the ripest joys of life just before you. Nor is it any question of great achievements or high social position enjoyed by the ancestor. The truth is that all ancestors are remarkable persons. In the first place they are our ancestors, and in the second place it is a noteworthy fact, as mysterious as delightful, that every homely feature about them wears a wondrous glamour and dignity. Their homesteads, their property, their church affiliations, their signatures, any little act of barter or sale,—all these items create an absorbing interest as they stand recorded in old archives.
We remember, as if it were yesterday, the peculiar charm of the simplest details in clearing up our family history. The most that parents, aunts and great-uncles could give was a vague tradition of a certain great-great-grandfather, a captain in the Revolution whose chief distinction seemed to have been his success in getting captured by the British and having his silver knee buckles stolen by a Tory. Of course he subsequently escaped, met that Tory, knocked him down, and recaptured the silver buckles.
Turning to the records we were able to identify this energetic patriot without trouble, although in the process he dwindled from a "captain" to a "sergeant," and even held the latter title on a rather uncertain tenure, having been once "reduced." Indeed, his military record ends (shall we confess it?) with the rather compromising word, "deserted." But what of that? This flesh-and-blood progenitor is much more to our liking than any starched and laced dignitary of the imagination. And while history saith not concerning the knee buckles, that he was ready with his fists seems altogether probable in the light of his subsequent career. His title of "captain" was acquired at sea. He commanded a craft in the waters of Long Island, where he met an untimely death—through "foul play," says that old gossip Tradition, whose tongue we dare not trust. Features of mystery still remain, and if we knew all, it is possible that we could lay claim to a picturesque pirate—a most desirable addition to any family line, and especially so if he escaped hanging.