40.
Such incomplete pedigrees are rarely published nowadays, but in studying
historic characters, one frequently finds nothing more than the single
line of ascent in the family name. Fortunately, American genealogies
rarely go to this extreme, unless it be in the earliest generations; but
it is common enough for them to deal only with the direct ancestors of
the individual, omitting all brothers and sisters of those ancestors.
Although this simplifies the work of the genealogist immensely, it
deprives it of value to a corresponding degree.
(c) As the purpose of genealogy in this country has been largely social,
it is to be feared that in too many cases discreditable data have been
tacitly omitted from the records. The anti-social individual, the
feeble-minded, the insane, the alcoholic, the "generally no-count," has
been glossed over. Such a lack of candor is not in accord with the
scientific spirit, and makes one uncertain, in the use of genealogies,
to what extent one is really getting all the facts. There are few
families of any size which have not one such member or more, not many
generations removed. To attempt to conceal the fact is not only
unethical but from the eugenist's point of view, at any rate, it is a
falsification of records that must be regarded with great disapproval.
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