"Dear Catherine, Here is the information you wanted for your DAR application, but my dear, why on earth would you want to join so pedestrian an organization when you could be a Daughter of the Mayflower?"
Catherine, sly fox that she was, left the letter on the coffee table the next time Hazel came over. She then repaired to the kitchen to fix some tea. She knew full well that Hazel, a notorious snoop, would grab the letter and read it. Catherine later reported, with a mischievous smile, that when she returned to the room the visit progressed pleasantly, and somehow the matter was never brought up again. Neither did Catherine, an equal-opportunity iconoclast, ever seek to join the Daughters of the Mayflower.
On that subject, I like Ben Franklin’s observations on people who take credit for their famous ancestors. While he was still serving as the American Representative in Paris, his daughter wrote to him to tell him about of the creation of the Order of Cincinnati, headed by George Washington. Its members had to have been officers in the Continental Army. Membership in the organization was to be hereditary, with the privilege passing down to the oldest male descendant of each veteran in perpetuity, like the titles of the nobility in the Old World.
Franklin promptly replied: "Honour worthily obtained ... is in its nature a personal thing and incommunicable to any but those who had some share in obtaining it. Thus among the Chinese, the most ancient and from long experience the wisest of nations, honour does not descend but ascends."
When a Chinese person attained greatness, Franklin explained, the credit went to his parents and ancestors. This practice, he said, is useful to society, as it encourages parents to do a good job of bringing their children up to be educated, right-living folk. ... "But honour that descends is not only groundless and absurd, but often hurtful to [the individual], since it is apt to make [him] proud, disdaining to be employed in useful arts and thence falling into poverty and all the meannesses, servility, and wretchedness attending it: which is the present case with much of what is called the noblesse in Europe."
He also offered a mathematical explanation for the absurdity of inherited membership in the Cincinnati.
"A man’s son, for instance, is but half of his family, the other half belonging to the family of his wife. His son, too, marrying into another family, [the father’s] share in the grandson is but a fourth ... [and] In nine generations, which would not require more than three hundred years (no very great antiquity for a family) our present Chevalier of the Order of Cincinnatus’s share in the then existing knight will be but a 512th part." Not only that: the knight would owe his honor not only to the 512 oldest male descendants, but also to their wives, who, after all, had a part (!) in creating him. There would be, Franklin says, 1022 in all. "So many men and women,” he noted, “to make one small knight!"
To be fair however, we must add that a few years later, Franklin was himself made an honorary member of the Cincinnati, although he had never been in the army, let alone held the required rank. He may have accepted this honor partly because he knew the honor wouldn’t descend through him. His only surviving son, William, was a Tory and had fled to England. Needless to say, he and his father were estranged. William Franklin had an illegitimate son, Temple Franklin, but there the male line died out. In fact, ultimately, the only male descendants of Dr. Franklin came through his daughter, Sally Franklin Bache, hardly the all-male line required by the Cincinnati.
Being honored for his achievements must have been sweet to Dr. Franklin, who was one of 17 children, the 10th (and youngest) son. His father was an upright but poor soap and candle maker who lived in a two-room house in Boston, and the children (at least those who were home) slept in the same room where the candles and soaps were produced.
Franklin once remarked that he was gratified to feel that he had turned out "the likeliest of the lot." Considering his service to our fledgling country, "likeliest of the lot" was a very modest claim indeed.
If you are interested in looking into your roots, the Internet is absolutely full of resources. So are
- Your public library’s genealogical section
- Your county’s or city’s historical and genealogical societies
- Older family members; if you have any, they should be interviewed pronto, because when they die, what they know dies with them. Prepare a list of questions in advance.
- Veterans’ organizations can provide service records
- Census records and immigration records are also good resources
- Marriage licenses, birth certificates, and death certificates can give much more information that you might expect. John traced my father’s line despite knowing nothing about my paternal grandfather except for his name and place of birth, which were listed on my father’s birth certificate — and mind you, the family name was Brown, not at all distinctive, to say the least.
- County courthouses have all sorts of records that can be searched. So does the Mormon Church, although I suggest caution, there. They seem to take as truth any reporting from a family member, and reportage that lacks documentation can be questionable.
- A professional genealogist. These people can be expensive, but if you’ve gotten just so far and then become stuck, they may possibly be able to help.
©2010 Julia Sneden for SeniorWomen.com
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