The compilation of a genealogy or family history when tracing ancestry would be exceedingly prosaic and totally lacking in spice if there were no problems to be encountered in the work. To copy names and dates from first one book and then another and piece the data together might, like a puzzle, provide interest for a time, but that sort of task soon grows wearisome. It would not be sufficiently interesting to keep a genealogist at his work over a period of several years to the conclusion, of his task.

The genealogist cannot change the history of an individual or of a family when tracing ancestry, and it would seem at first thought that his only activity is that of a copyist and an editor with no op­portunity for mental exercise other than a knowledge of the methods of compilation coupled with an ability to use good English, and a spirit of exactness.

There is, however, another side to the work. The genealo­gist must just as truly be a creator as is the novelist, in fact, more so. The story writer can dream and, whether his dream be probable does not matter. He is not bothered with prov­ing anything. Often times the more improbable his creation, the more fascinating is his story and the greater his success as a writer and a story teller.

The genealogist, however, must be a theorist. He must create a story and then labor hard and long to prove that his theory is not only a story, but a true story.

Tracing ancestry, like every other science, has its element of problem, of experimentation and of mystery. The successful genealogist must be a man of vision and a guesser. He must be able to see two and two making five, and then go out and find the missing one that makes the five a fact. But he must not forget that he has to find that one and he must never assume that it is somewhere hidden away and can be taken for granted. It must be hunted up and brought out to the light, turned about and looked at until there is no doubt that it is the particular one that is wanted.

Many occasions will arise during the compilation of the work where it will be concluded that a connection must exist between an obscure line and the main family, but where there is no positive proof to substantiate such a conclusion. If the record of a birth, marriage or death is not to be found, there is nothing to do about it but accept the fact that there is no record. If the fact cannot be established by private record, and there is not even tradition upon which to base a conclu­sion, there is only one thing left to do, and that is to attempt to build up the case by cumulative evidence.

In tracing ancestry, it will be found in these obscure families that old family names occur repeatedly. They may be odd and unfamiliar names like that of "Zattu" in the Cushing family. By some such indication there is created in the mind of the genealogist a suspicion of a family connection, which thought finally becomes a belief of certainty, but there is no proof at hand.

In those families where there has been found but one emi­grant ancestor bearing the same surname it is pretty certain that all those bearing the same surname are sprung from that common ancestor. It is not always safe to assume this however. There are three exceptions which should be guarded against in this assumption. First. If any of the family were slave holders it must be remembered that slaves, if they had a surname, usually took that of their masters. This must be especially watched in instances where members of the family settled in the South many years ago. The genealogist must not be surprised to find negro families bearing his surname. Second. There has always been a tendency on the part of foreign people with unpronounceable names when they settled in America to change either or both given names or surnames without leave or license, adopting any one that suggested itself as most useful for business or other reasons. For this reason the genealogist may find a family of Italians, Arme­nians or Russian Jews with a surname of one of the old colo­nial families. Third. It must not be overlooked that the early emigrant was only one of the many in the homeland bearing the same surname, and that those who did not migrate at that time have gone on raising families, some one or more of whom may have come to America in more recent years. In the cases of old New England families ship lists and migra­tions are not usually checked after the ancestor is found, but that does not mean that some bearing the family name have not emigrated during a later time.

In obscure lines it is difficult to establish the fact that all bearing the same surname are from a common ancestor even though there is found evidence of only one emigrant.

The spirit of adventure which prompted so many to leave England in the days of settlement to investigate a new land in America has always been present as an element of human nature. It drove men tramping into the wilderness of the "west" when that west was only as far away as the frontier of New York state; it drove families transported by ox teams to the central states; it drove adventurous gold seek­ers to the Pacific coast in 1849. It was the same human ele­ment of adventure that prompted men in recent times to seek the ice covered poles of the earth. It is a spirit as old as humanity and it will manifest itself as long as men live.

When tracing ancestry, the genealogist will be told of an adventurous son of the family who "went west and was never heard from again." Doubtless some of these sons died of hardship, but it is probable that many more of them finally found wives from among the settlers whom they met in their travels, and they lived to old age, rearing families. Many times there can be found no record of these families because there was not even a town organization in which there could be clerks to keep records even if they had been so disposed.

The memory of their descendants may reach back and furnish the desired link, but this is not always possible and the genealogist is bound to find many families with no sug­gestion as to their connection with the main family. If the line is brought into its proper kinship it must be done by circumstantial evidence.

The question arises as to whether circumstantial evidence is sufficient to warrant assuming that its sum total estab­lishes fact. In answer to this it must be cited that the courts have agreed that a man's life may be saved or sacrificed by such evidence. Very often in criminal practice no one person knows any particular fact upon which the innocence or con­viction of a person under trial can be established, but it is the accumulation of facts, insignificant in themselves when con­sidered alone, which are gathered from many sources, which are built up, piece by piece, until there is a structure so strong that courts feel justified in taking a man's liberty away from him, and in some instances, taking his very life itself.

If evidence of this sort is sufficient to free or hang a man, it certainly should be sufficient for the admission of a line into the body of a family.

No tracing ancestry has ever been done where there did not arise many instances where the family connection must be established by cumulative evidence. Such cases are difficult to handle and require the most painstaking work of any that the genealogist will be called upon to perform. They usually present themselves in the early period of the work. And be­cause the/ are of early origin the fate of a large number of people and of individual families will depend upon their settlement. At the present period in American families de­scended from colonial ancestors the ninth and tenth genera­tions are mostly the ones living. It will readily be seen that any question effecting the third or fourth generations would either include or exclude a great many people.

Occasions will be met where there is no evidence that can be found that will prove, even circumstantially, a family connection, in which case the only thing the genealogist can do is to put the disconnected family in an appendix and sim­ply make the statement that while the family probably came from the same common ancestor as those of the other branches in the compilation, there has been found no proof of its connection. It is always disappointing to be obliged to do this as it appears like a confession on the part of the genealogist that he has failed somewhat in the accomplish­ment of his task. The family so segregated is bound to feel somewhat slighted and, while its members are not able to furnish proof of the connecting link themselves, they seem to feel that the genealogist, who is a specialist in his line of work, should have possessed some superhuman insight that would have revealed to him things not visible to the laity.

Problem of American Origin

When tracing ancestry, the occasion may arise where the common ancestor is found in some early American settlement with no record from whence he came or the ship by which he reached Amer­ica. These instances are not rare. They were caused quite likely by the educational limits of the early times.

It is found that one of the most prominent men of the Plymouth Colony could not read or write. He was a dele­gate to many meetings for the settlement of serious contro­versies among the colonists; between those of the Plymouth Plantation and those of the Massachusetts Bay, and between the colonists and the Indians. He established town bound­aries, helped to establish the boundary between the Ply­mouth and the Massachusetts Bay colonies, laid out and apportioned the common lands, and for a great many years was one of the most useful men of the Plymouth Colony settlement. It is not known, however, when he came to America. While he could not read or write he appears not to have suffered very much thereby in establishing his place in the community, and he probably was one of the large major­ity who had little or no education from books, and whose only education was that of a naturally bright mind in­structed by experience and observation.

He was found in Scituate, Massachusetts in 1634, but there is no record of how he got there. He was probably one of the "Men of Kent" who came with the Rev. John Lothrop in that year. He may have been one of the earlier comers. That his name does not appear on any of the ship lists may be accounted for by the fact that he could not write it him­self, and in pronouncing it, whoever made the list of pas­sengers for the ship in which he came, wrote down what he thought was the name from hearing it pronounced. There is little doubt but that a name intended to be his is on the list of some ship which came into Plymouth Harbor between 1620 and the end of 1634, but what that name was and how it was written and where it is to be found is a question to be solved.

It is not a long period to search—only fourteen years—and not many ships, comparatively speaking, came to Plymouth Bay during those years. The genealogist should examine every one of those ships lists with an imaginative mind. First, for names which sound like the one wanted. Let him pronounce the name and imagine with the English accent, possibly with Scotch accent, what a total stranger writing it down would most likely put on the book. Then he should go over the lists for elimination. There is certain knowledge regarding the after life of many of those who came in the early ships. Each name should be taken and eliminated if the subsequent history of the passenger can be established. Those names can be then crossed off and the list narrowed down to a handful from which must be found the solution of the problem. It will probably appear that some one who came apparently disappeared from history and the connec­tion can thus be established between a passenger who was lost from the record and an ancestor who was found with no record of ever having been a passenger to America.

Problem of Emigrant Marriage

When tracing ancestry, closely connected with the problem of missing names on ship lists is that of whether the emigrant came as a single man or was married before arriving in America. If the given name of the wife of the emigrant ancestor is known it may help very much in finding the couple on the ship list provided they were married before the emigration. If two given names were connected as husband and wife on the list and it is recognized that those were the given names of the ancestors, the case is strengthened.

The business of raising a family was strictly attended to in colonial times and for several generations thereafter. Be­cause of this it is fairly easy to establish a probable date of marriage from the date of birth of the first child if that is known. Raising a family was well regulated. Seldom did more than a year elapse between marriage and the birth of a child, and each second year thereafter saw a new addition in the family with almost clocklike regularity.

Following the illustration of the Scituate settler referred to above, who was found in that town in 1634, it is not known when he married or the surname of his wife. It is known, however, that while he was in Scituate in 1634, his first child was not born until 1639, five years after we have found record of the father. It is fair to presume, therefore, that the emigrant was not married when he came to America, and instead of looking for a man and wife linked together on a ship list, whose given names are known, search should be made for a stray woman listed as unmarried and bearing the given name of the one who was later known to have been the wife of the emigrant.

In this case it is not known what her surname was, there­fore it cannot be determined whether she was correctly listed on the ship's list or not. All that is known on which to base the search is her given name. Here also there is room for mistake. In the case recited years were spent searching for a woman passenger by the name of Hannah, only to discover that her name was Honour and not Hannah. If the family name of the wife can be found it may unearth the informa­tion wanted regarding the husband.

If the given name of either husband or wife is known, all names on the ship lists bearing the same given name should be scrutinized. Every bit of information should be examined with the utmost care, and every clue run to earth. In all these matters the genealogist must have a lively imagination, and have it well under control that it does not run away with him and arrive at a determination from such imagination rather than from the weight of evidence.

Problem of Early Lost Lines

When tracing ancestry, in the early generations members of the family were not infrequently lost in their removal from one of the New England states to another or from one section to another in the same state. This was particularly common in the re­movals to Maine when that territory was a part of Massa­chusetts and mostly wilderness wherein settlements were being established. In later generations, members were lost by going to the western frontier which was the western portion of New York state. From these settlements they were lost as they pushed westward into the new country of the now Central States, and it is within the memory of those living today when relatives were lost in the wilderness west of the Mississippi River.

In order to understand better this problem of lost mem­bers it is necessary to remember that the means of communi­cation were very limited as compared with those of today. There was no telephone or telegraph and letters were de­pendent on slow travel from point to point for many hundreds of miles. In the early settlements there was no regular mail service, letters getting in to the settlement when someone came in from the older settlements, and going out at the convenience of some traveler who, tiring of the hardships, turned his face back east, or someone going out for supplies, which was seldom.

It must be borne in mind that the member of the family with the roving and pioneering disposition was not usually the scholar of the family, but the reverse. Many times the migrant had not the ability to write home evenif he had possessed the disposition to do so. The wonder is not that so many young men who "went west" were lost to their fam­ilies who stayed in the old home in the east, but that more of them were not swallowed up in the wilderness and never heard from again by their relatives.

Perhaps the best method of explaining cumulative evi­dence in finding lost members of a family is to take a typical case and carry it through.

It is found that Cornelius Robinson settled in one of the southern Rhode Island towns, and that he married Thankful Saunders in 1733. There is record of their having had seven children, viz.:

Elizabeth
Freegift, b. June 26, 1738 Sarah,
b. Oct. 2, 1740 Hannah, b. Nov.
1742 Ruth, b. Mar. 27, 1745
Stephen, b. May 17, 1747 and
Cornelius, b. Aug. 7, 1749.

The birth date of Elizabeth is not recorded, but when she married she was published as the daughter of Cornelius and Thankful. She married in 1753, which was twenty years after the marriage of her father and mother. She was prob­ably their first child, born in 1734 and was nineteen years old at the time of her marriage.

The next child of whom there is any record was Freegift who was born in 1738. She was born presumably four years after Elizabeth. By all the rules of raising families in that day, there should have been a child born in 1736. It will be noted that in the subsequent record of births in the family there was a child about every two years. The four year period between the probable birth of Elizabeth and the known date of the birth of Freegift causes suspicion that there was an­other child whose birth was not recorded, and about whom there was no other record, born in 1736. It may have been a child who died in infancy, but whatever became of the child that period must be accounted for in some way. Of course it may have been possible that a first child died and was never recorded, but that would bring the marriage of Elizabeth to seventeen years of age. All indications are that there is a place for a birth in this family in 1736.

When tracing ancestry, the next step is to ascertain if there was subsequently found any one of the same name in the vicinity whose parent­age could not be accounted for by the records. If so, can sufficient evidence be produced to lead to the conclusion that the parents of that child may have been Cornelius and Thankful?

A new line of evidence is started and it is found by private record that one Thomas Robinson was born in the same town and that the names of his parents are not known. It is known, however, that he married in the same town in Janu­ary of 1758, Mary Hall; that in his marriage publication he was recited as being a resident of the town; that he was mar­ried by Stephen Saunders, a Justice of the Peace, and a brother of Thankful Saunders who had married Cornelius Robinson of that place. It was also found that Stephen Saunders married three other of the children of his sister Thankful, among whom was Stephen who married Dorcas Hall.

It is found too, that Cornelius was the son of Isaac, who was the son of Robert, who had a brother Thomas, so that Thomas was a family name as was also Isaac. In following the subsequent history of the family it is discovered that Thomas who married Mary Hall had a grandchild named Isaac, one named Robert and one named Thomas and that all of these family names, together with many other of the names appearing in the family of Cornelius have been re­peated in the descendants of Thomas down to the present generation.

If Thomas who married Mary Hall in 1758 had been the son of Cornelius and Thankful, born in 1736, he would have been twenty-two years old at the time of his marriage, which would have been a proper age for that event to have taken place; he would have been married by his uncle Stephen as were three of his brothers and sisters, and his wife, Mary Hall, may quite probably have been the sister of Dorcas Hall who married his brother Stephen.

Thus it would seem that Thomas was the son of Cornelius and Thankful; that he was their second child, and that he was born in 1736.

Leaving the family there, the next move is to learn if there is any evidence of any other Thomas Robinson in that local­ity between 1725 and 1760. No record can be found of a Thomas, or even of another Robinson family in the records of that town or of any other of the surrounding towns. There appears to be no other way to account for Thomas unless he can be injected into this vacant period in the family of Cornelius and Thankful. Thus both by positive and adverse evidence it must be concluded that Thomas was the son of Cornelius and Thankful and that he was born in 1736.

The point to determine is, having arrived at this conclu­sion, shall it be written into the history as fact and thus have a place in the family and be dismissed from any further con­sideration. While the evidence seems strong enough to place the family of Thomas in the line of that of Cornelius, it should be done only after proper explanation of the process by which the conclusion is reached that the correct place has been found for Thomas. The evidence is too strong to ex­clude the family and place it in an appendix, but on the other hand it is a conclusion based on cumulative evidence rather than on facts of record and should be so stated.

In this tracing ancestry example, the problem of placing Thomas in the family has been settled by finding room for him in the family of Cornelius and Thankful. The subsequent family of Thomas, however, presents another and a more difficult problem. He married Mary Hall in January of 1758. By custom there should have been a child born of the union during the latter part of 1758 or early in 1759. There are known to be two children born to Thomas and Mary, the birth of only one of whom is recorded. The first of these children was Susan who was known to have been born in 1769, eleven years after the mar­riage of her father and mother. She married in December of 1787. It is doubtful if she was the first child of the family. The only other child, whose birth was recorded, born to Thomas and Mary, was Benjamin who was born in 1772, three years after the birth of his sister Susan, which probably places him as the next child in the family. The eleven year period between marriage and the birth of Susan, however, shows altogether too much family irregularity to have been the entire history of the union. It would seem that there must have been children born to the parents before Susan. Considering the infant mortality of those early times it may be quite possible that there were a number of children born during this period who did not survive and whose births and deaths did not get on any record.

It is known that Susan and Benjamin both married and removed from Rhode Island to Franklin County, Massa­chusetts where they settled and spent the remainder of their lives on adjoining farms each having raised a large family. Of Susan's ten children, several were born before their re­moval from Rhode Island, and of Benjamin's family of eleven children, four are known to have been born before the family came to Franklin County. This places the removal of the families as around 1800.

Now, to leave Susan and Benjamin for the time being. There is found another family of the same surname in the same vicinity in southern Rhode Island, and because, when we attempted to place the parentage of Thomas there was found no other family of the name there, it must be concluded that there is a connection between this new family and that of Cornelius and Thomas.

The given name of the father of this family is not known, but it is known that he married Nancy Briggs, and that be­ginning with 1801 this couple had a family of ten children. Whether the father and mother of this family ever went to Franklin County, Massachusetts is not known. Three of their sons went there and settled in an adjoining town to that in which Susan and Benjamin were living. In this family of ten children there appear the names of Freegift, Saunders and Thomas, all of which are familiar family names. The first child of this family was born in 1801 which places the probable date of marriage as around 1800 and the approxi­mate birth of the father as around 1775. Inasmuch as there was no other family of the name found in the vicinity from which this man could have sprung, it would indicate that he was another child of Thomas and Mary and younger than Benjamin.

The question arises why three of the sons of this family went to Franklin County, Massachusetts, and settled near Susan and Benjamin unless there was a family connection. Were Susan and Benjamin their aunt and uncle? For whom was Freegift named unless for the aunt of her father? The name is not common in the family and is found in no other branch. For whom was Saunders named unless it was for the family of grandmother Thankful? And is it not clear that Thomas was named for his grandfather, Thomas, and as the name of his father is not known, that also may have been Thomas. There was a Nancy named for her mother.

To continue this interesting investigation in tracing ancestry, is to go from one problem to a still deeper one. John, Briggs and Saunders went to Franklin County, Massachusetts and settled, from which place, after a little time, they migrated to the western part of New York, not far from where Buffalo now stands. They were all young men and unmarried. Shortly Briggs and Saunders tired of the hardship and returned to Franklin County, leaving John alone in New York. Briggs married, and after the birth of his first child, he, with his family and Saunders returned to New York state to find John. They never found him.

Later the other seven children of the family all went to western New York where they settled, married and had families. Whether they went directly from Rhode Island; whether they went by way of Franklin County, Massachu­setts; whether the father and mother ever left Rhode Is­land, is not known.

Years later a large family was found in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania and the eastern part of Ohio who said they were the descendents of one John, whose ancestry none of the family knew, nor did they know from what place he came, but there was a family tradition that he came from Rhode Island.

Whether he was the same John who went from Rhode Island to Franklin County, Massachusetts, and on with Briggs and Saunders to western New York is not known, which in itself presents a genealogical problem.

There now appears to have been located a possible third child of Thomas and Mary. There was Susan who was born eleven years after the marriage of her father and mother, Benjamin who was born three years after Susan, and possi­bly another son whose name is not known, but who was younger than Benjamin. Still there is the matter of those years before the birth of Susan. Were there other children who reared families that have not been found? If there were other children and their families were the size of those of Susan and Benjamin—twenty-one children—and a possi­bility of a family of ten more from a son of unknown name, there is yet much for the genealogist to do to gather in the stray progeny of Thomas and Mary.

What shall be done about this unnamed member of the family with his children as far as tracing ancestry is concerned? Is there strong enough evidence that they are of the family of Thomas and Mary to warrant putting them in there with an explanation? It would hardly seem that the case has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. It is very suggestive, but the name of Freegift may have come from another family. Stephen Saunders married many couples and any number of them may have been grateful enough to name a child for him. Thomas was a quite common name of the times. Coming from the same town it might not be surprising that these three boys went to Franklin County where they might be near old neighbors, though no relation. The fact that no other Robinson family can be found in the vicinity lends strength to the case. It looks hopeful. Is it safe to set up as having been proved? It is not as strong as the case of Thomas who fitted so perfectly into the family of Cornelius and Thankful. If it is put into the family of Thomas and Mary it should be done with full explanation and subject to removal upon the presentation of evidence that tends to prove that the family belonged in some other section of the family history.

The case of John is clearly not strong enough yet to war­rant his family being connected with that of the John known to be the brother of Briggs and Saunders. The only real evi­dence is the loss of a John and the finding of a John not far from where the first John was lost. The tradition that John of Pennsylvania and Ohio family came from Rhode Island is at this point tradition only, and of no real value in establish­ing proof. There is reason to believe that these Johns were one and the same, but the case awaits more evidence to prove it.

Problem of Purposely Lost People

In tracing ancestry, the genealogist is sometimes faced with the problem of a member of the family who has deliberately dropped out of the knowledge of his relatives.

Robert Jones lived his life in a Hudson River town, was married and had one son. Robert was a successful business man with no special troubles so far as was known. After the death of his wife, and when his son had grown to manhood, he suddenly sold every thing he possessed and moved away from the town which had been his home for years. Why he did this is not known. He and a brother next older in the family had been very close in their family ties. They had both served in the Union army during the Civil War and had kept in close touch with each other all their lives up to this time. This brother and the son spent much time and money and did everything possible to find the lost brother and father, but without success. He left no forwarding address at the post office; he never wrote again to any member of the family, and although his mother lived in the old home for a number of years he made no apparent attempt to communicate with her and he had no communication with any one with whom he had formerly been associated in business. His loss to the family was the loss of an individual only. No line was lost, and at the time of his disappearance his age was such as to make improbable remarriage and the rearing of other children.

The son married and had one son, but because of unhappy home conditions followed his father's example and suddenly disappeared. Nothing was ever heard from him that could lead to his discovery by the family. He was heard from in Texas working on a railroad, at various times in other parts of the country, but he has never returned to his family or been in communication with any of his relatives. Unlike his father, he was a young man and may have raised another family somewhere.

There has recently been found the history of the family of a man who was lost at the conclusion of the Civil War when he did not return to his home in Massachusetts after having been discharged from service. Through the World War records of his grandsons, which were secured from the files of the War Department in Washington it was found that this Civil War soldier went to Texas where he married and raised a large family of children, who in turn had sizable families which are now scattered over the entire southwest portion of the country.

What mental process prompts a man to drop out of all touch with his home and family is not the business of the genealogist. His problem is to find him again and put him back, on the record at least, in the family circle.

In tracing ancestry, war has always been a medium by which discontented men could lose themselves, and the records of the War De­partment are helpful in finding some of them. The United States Pension Department also sometimes renders great assistance. The genealogist will have occasion to cultivate the acquaintance of both of these agencies for information.

Shall Problems Hold Up Work?

The question arises as to how long the publication of the genealogy shall be held up pending the search of such cases and the solution of the many and varied problems that arise. If the book is held from print for this cause it is safe to say that it will never be printed. In tracing ancestry, the genealogist must deter­mine when he has made a reasonable search and not spoil his entire work by unduly waiting to untangle all of these knotty lines. Many of the problems will never be settled beyond a reasonable doubt. The perfect genealogy has never yet been written.

However it is not necessary that the genealogist feel that his work is done when his book goes to print. The author of the Parsons Genealogy, after the printing of his book spent several years in continuation of his search with the result that he published a second volume as large as his first book. This is an admirable thing to do.

It must be remembered that there have been cited but a few of the many dropped line problems that will arise throughout the work. While the book may go to print with many of these problems unsolved, the scent of the chase is in the blood of the genealogist and he cannot drop the search. He will go on hunting in spite of everything. He will find new leads that will uncover rich mines of family history and he will always meet problems which will tax his keenest mental powers.

The subject of Problems has been considered in this chapter largely from the standpoint of genealogy, and their solution, to that extent, will be the united effort of the genealogist and other members of the family effected by the questions involved, while in the Ancestral History they will effect no one especially except the examiner or his client and, be­cause their solution is of no interest to others, it will resolve itself into a lone hunt.

Problems affect the Ancestral History as vitally as they do the Genealogy but their solution or failure of solution has a far different result. In Genealogy it may mean the inclusion or exclusion of a large number of people comprising an entire branch of the family many of whom are still living and vi­tally interested. In Ancestral History it will determine the continuation of one line of ancestors and the anteceding lines running therefrom. In the former it is an ancestor and his descendants, and in the latter it is an ancestor and his an­cestors.

In the genealogy it may delay publication or mean omis­sions and the time element enters the problem, while in an­cestral work there being no question of publication, the mat­ter of time does not become a vital consideration.

Cumulative evidence may be sufficient to convince the examiner that he has discovered his correct line which will produce an unbroken chain of ancestry, but he will find, how­ever, if his aim is to secure admission to some of the better known hereditary societies that only documentary evidence is sufficient to establish his line of blood.

The children of succeeding generations of Thomas and Mary Robinson referred to above may well be included with the descendants of Cornelius and Thankful with a proper recitation of the evidence which leads to the conclusion that they are properly placed in the family, but if Cornelius or Thankful had been a descendant of a "Mayflower" pas­senger, or if he had seen service in the American Revolution, it would be found that the evidence which admitted the family of Thomas and Mary to the genealogy would not admit their descendants to membership in the hereditary societies basing their lines from "Mayflower" passengers or Revolutionary soldiers. There can be no explanations of evidence in the hereditary societies. The fact of record alone counts.

Many vexing situations will arise in ancestral work. For illustration, in an Ancestral History going back in many lines without interruption into early English families it is discovered that a great-grandmother (which in ancestral work is rather recent history) was Sally Pratt, the first white child born in Halifax, Vermont. There is no town record, gravestone, family Bible or other known means of finding out who Sally's father and mother were, when or from where they came to Halifax. Years of search have been to no avail and the history is stopped in that line with only three known generations back of the examiner. All histories covering towns from which early families emigrated to Halifax have been studied. The origins of other families in the town have been examined. All published Pratt Genealogies (and such a common name as Pratt is a disadvantage) have been scru­tinized. In all the places searched there is no hint of Sally. The Ancestral History will proceed along other lines but there will always be a watchful eye for Sally Pratt. She may turn up in some unlooked for place and the problem of years be solved in a minute.

In tracing ancestry, for the ancestral worker, these problematical situations soon become the absorbing part of the work. They call for skill and science and demand a lively imagination. They are the real sport of the occupation and because they are of such vital interest to the genealogist they relieve what otherwise would be drudgery and a monotonous task.

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