INTRODUCTION AND COMPENDIUM.
5
a member of the family whose name we bear is honored, our own respect is
gratified, and we instinctively feel our family pride rising within us; and, on
the other hand, when one of our kindred becomes the subject of disgrace,
we afterwards feel chagrined, and acknowledge our relationship with embarrass-
ing feelings. That sentiment of pride in a family name by which a dístin-
guished and worthy ancestry was known, is both natural and commendable,
and should be cherished as sacred. In a good family history the virtues of
our ancestors and kinspeople are recorded, and in reading of these we are
inspired to noble ambition in the emulation of their examples, and in trying to
perpetuate in our families the characteristics for which our fathers were
deservedly esteemed while living, and lamented when gone; indeed, all thoughtful
persons feel inseparably identified with those who bear their names, and have an
honest desire to preserve the prestige of those families as a patrimony for the
rising generation.
Such a history has value, secondly, because of the respect we have for our
departed friends. Universal custom has caused all respectable families to feel
it a moral obligation to erect some monument to mark the places where their
dead are buried; it is a filial and sacred duty to thus preserve the names of
our parents, to record their ages and the times in which they lived, in such
enduring form. Such monuments have a beneficial influence on the living, and
are protected by the most stringent laws; but a comprehensive family history
is a monument more enduring than the sculptured marble, which is worn away
by the
"tooth of time"; a monument of little cost, upon which may be
inscribed the names, ages, marriages, and deaths of our entire family connec-
tion. Another valuable feature of such a work is the collection of portraits
embraced within its pages, and handed down to gratify the desire of the rising
generation to mark the resemblance between the several branches of our tribe.
In consequence of removals from State to State, local monuments erected by
loving hands, are often far away from the friends who would gladly visit them
to read again the epitaphs recorded there; but a family memorial in book form
may be carried with us and kept always ready for reference; this may be
entailed in our families from generation to generation, until so long as there
remains one to bear our name they may possess an authentic and chronologi-
cal history, from the most remote period to the present time.
A book of this character has value, thirdly, because it serves as a medium to
satisfy the natural desire to be remembered when our work of life is finished.
Few persons whose lives have been useful in this world are willing to be for-
gotten; and yet those in the more humble and obscure walks of life must resign
themselves to the probability that in a few years at most, unless their names
are recorded on the page of history, they will be lost to memory. There exists
in every heart a fond desire to be remembered by kindred and friends, and when
separated from them for a short time there is great pleasure experienced in
hearing from them by letters, and in knowing-
"They look for us their homes to share,
And joyful greetings "wait us there."
A good family memorial has value, fourthly, from its relation to local and gen-
eral history, for which it preserves many valuable data of a character that would
otherwise be irrecoverably lost. A work of this class contains descriptions of
the lands and homes where our forefathers once lived, and toiled, and died; ex-
tracts of wills, deeds, inventories, and journals are here preserved, thus handing
forward to other generations a knowledge of original owners of lands, the
