This short book written in 1899 covers many topics still relevant today.
The author comments: “add all that you can learn from your parents friends, or can yourself remember, about either of your parents; changes (and dates) of residence, or of occupation; church connections; social or political relations; peculiarities of person, of manners or of habits anything and everything, in fact, which will enable you to make a distinct picture of their respective personalities.
And, right here, let me remind you that the highest function of a genealogy is not the mere proving of a line of descent — valuable as that may be — but it is the preserving and presenting to our contemplation the lives, work and real character of our ancestors; in a word, visible portraits of them. A mere logical arrangement of names and dates is as uninteresting as a barren tree. It yields no comfort of shadow, nor any delight of fruitage.” Quote by author Henry R. Stiles.