Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Ode to the Genealogist

"No evil-minded person ever felt any interest in his ancestors, or made any efforts to rescue their History from oblivion."
That is a pretty powerful and somewhat provocative statement! The quote is part of a tribute to the genealogist I came across a few years ago. I re-read it recently and decided to share it with whoever might look at this blog. The tribute was in the introduction to a book about the Buell Family. This was (is) an ancient family that settled in New England as part of the Puritan migration in the 1630's. The book is typical of the family histories and genealogies written by a family researcher (or other party) in the late 19th century. In this case, the book was compiled by Albert Welles, the President of something called the 'American College for Genealogy Registry, Family History and Heraldry' and was published by the society in New York in 1881.