The frauds continually practised by those who assume to be heirs to every unclaimed estate, have become a matter of notoriety in English legal practice; and though there are many estates now in abeyance in England for want of discovered legal heirs, the bar and the bench in England are exceedingly distrustful of the evidence forwarded by claimants in this country. No doubt many of these claimants are sincere in the belief that they are true heirs to those estates; but the evidence upon which that belief is founded generally proves to be of too unsatisfactory a character to procure a judgment of the English tribunals in their favor; whereas, had materials been previously collected and given to the world through the columns of an authoritative periodical, the evidence thus furnished would be almost irresistible to any court of law.
We can ask with confidence the attention of all travellers to this journal. Communications relative to the antiquities of the countries they may visit; descriptions of monuments which exist, with the inscriptions thereon; and such information as they may communicate respecting themselves which may be interesting to the families to which they belong: all these will be within the scope of this work. It needs but an announcement of these facts, to obtain from those interested, communications which will not only throw light upon the pedigree of families, but will contain many accounts interesting to genealogists, biographers, and historians, which otherwise would be swept into oblivion; and in this department of the periodical, the public will find amusing, entertaining, and instructive pages. In this view of it, the New England Historical and Genealogical Register should be extensively patronized; and we are happy to learn that thus far it meets with the decided approbation of the community.
[OUR ANCESTORS.]
"Our ancestors, though not perfect and infallible in all respects, were a religious, brave, and virtuous set of men, whose love of liberty, civil and religious, brought them from their native land into the American deserts."—Rev. Dr. Mayhew's Election Sermon, 1754.
"To let the memory of these men die is injurious to posterity; by depriving them of what might contribute to promote their steadiness to their principles, under hardships and severities."—Rev. Dr. E. Calamy's Preface to his Account of Ejected Ministers.