Early Connecticut Marriages as Found on Ancient Church Records Prior to 1800, Vol. 5 (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from Early Connecticut Marriages as Found on Ancient Church Records Prior to 1800, Vol. 5 The question of the abandoned farm seems to us at times to be more a question of the abandoned family than anything else. In other words a case wherein some well established family of to-day in the changing vicissitudes of our American life as is so common had lost all knowledge of its early career. Even the traditional had faded from view and that usual mainstay - a Bible record - but began a short and' uninteresting story some two or three generations back with the bare facts of a birth. A marriage and the children; just where, it did not seem as if of enough consequence to state., There are, we feel sure, many such instances all over the land of old American families that through the changing years and circumstances have become detached from their early anchorage, while the effort to find it again has seemed so hopeless as to induce the feeling of utter despair. It might seem, therefore as if the disclosure of these early marriage records might serve a good purpose if they surely revealed the long hid den secret and fixed the locality in the minds and hearts of this genera tion. In our last issue - Book IV - we had occasion in the Preface to refer to the bright prospects of some definite action by the state authorities to repair and save the old records scattered about; and could wish now it was our pleasure to report steady progress in that direction. The ques tion seemed so vital and so completely removed from any thought of party prejudice that every member of the General Assembly might be presumed to have an interest as he had an interest in his own town's need. A definite policy for the reconstruction of the old books seemed to be the most natural conclusion to draw from the facts in hand. From our view therefore it is a real disappointment to have to chronicle here that when the special commission had, after months of labor, made its interest ing report, been given a hearing and had pressed its recommendations, said report met the same fate as many another unpopular though worthy cause. And so here seems to be the end of the suggestion which Governor Lounsbury so faithfully urged, with nothing apparently gained by the long discussion. The old records are now two years older than when this subject was first as a crying need advocated; while what is a more serious complication consists in the fact that in two old towns at least with rec ords of very ancient date, a private corporation has seen fit to make com plete abstracts of both land and probate for their own use, while the originals freely handled have suffered even more serious damage. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.