Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Fifty Ancestors: Who Came to New England From 1620 to 1650
Many people think a genealogist is "queer," or in a temporarily queer condition when he is ancestry hunting. One says, "Skip genealogy"; another, "Dried dates don't interest me, but I like the dates of the Ph nix dactylifera (date palm)"; another, "Better not go back too far, - you may find a persona non grata." But these little jocosities produce no permanent effect on the genealogist who is hunting like "Japhet in search of a father."
"Looking backward" a little way, say as far as the Pilgrims, is on the whole rather interesting. Along the course two hundred and seventy or eighty years in length one finds many admirable characters; he sees jthat he has considerable more to do in order to live such a life as the forefathers lived; and the view stiffens up his own standard of living. Nothing queer about that. If there is, why, let us have a little more of it.
To some it seems queer to work long and hard on a subject that is not expected to yield any returns whatever in dollars and cents; to perform a costly "labor of love" seems queer; to toil from motives of pure sentiment seems queer; to give away genealogical publications that cost a dollar or more apiece, as one gives away tracts, seems queer. "What are you doing it for?" they ask. But the explanations fail to explain it, because motives of sentiment and labors of love are not to be explained.
Again, it is interesting to find that well-known names, perhaps one's own, were recorded more than six hundred years ago: "Henry Clappe, Co. Oxford, 1273." "Alexander de Clopham, Co. Kent, 1273." "Thomas de Clopton (of Clap town), Co. Norfolk, 1358."
Or, take another familiar family name: "Bourne, Bourn, Burns, Burne, Burn, 'at the burn, ' i. e. stream." "Burne, a brook; a northern pronunciation of Bourne, whence Burns, Aburne, &c." In Suffolk Probate Records, Byrne is written for Bourne. "John de la Burn, Co. Oxford, 1273."
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