Family History and Record
by Marshall P. Wilder
The study of family history elevates and ennobles the nature of man, and lifts it up to a truer and nobler type. To know nothing of our ancestry or from whence we came, to have no reverence for the precious memories of the past or an interest in those who are to succeed us in the battle of life, is to ignore the elements and influences that have made us what we are, and what more precious testimonial of your love of kindred and home can you leave, than that which provides for the transmission of the history of your ancestors, yourself and family, to future generations? And how consoling the thought, that when you shall have been gathered to your fathers, this history shall live through all coming time, as a precious inheritance to your descendants. This is a trust that Providence has confided to your care, and who so dead to sympathy and affection, to kindred and country, that would not preserve the record of his ancestors, the place of his birth, the home of his childhood, and the sacred spot where repose the loved and lost ones of earth. No doubt in the lapse of time, when the sandstone and marble of that ancient graveyard shall have crumbled into dust, some copy of this list will give the descendants of the many different families a trace of their lineage. There is no spot that ever becomes so dear to a man as the spot where cling the memories of his childhood.

Family History and Record
by Marshall P. Wilder
The study of family history elevates and ennobles the nature of man, and lifts it up to a truer and nobler type. To know nothing of our ancestry or from whence we came, to have no reverence for the precious memories of the past or an interest in those who are to succeed us in the battle of life, is to ignore the elements and influences that have made us what we are, and what more precious testimonial of your love of kindred and home can you leave, than that which provides for the transmission of the history of your ancestors, yourself and family, to future generations? And how consoling the thought, that when you shall have been gathered to your fathers, this history shall live through all coming time, as a precious inheritance to your descendants. This is a trust that Providence has confided to your care, and who so dead to sympathy and affection, to kindred and country, that would not preserve the record of his ancestors, the place of his birth, the home of his childhood, and the sacred spot where repose the loved and lost ones of earth. No doubt in the lapse of time, when the sandstone and marble of that ancient graveyard shall have crumbled into dust, some copy of this list will give the descendants of the many different families a trace of their lineage. There is no spot that ever becomes so dear to a man as the spot where cling the memories of his childhood.