PREFACE. No nation was ever more careful to frame and preserve its genealogical tables than Israel, and it seems strange that peoples, and especially families who have for generations revered the Holy Scriptures and made them their guide through life, should almost entirely neglect their plain teachings and example in this respect. However dispersed or depressed the nation was they never neglected to keep exact genealogical tables prepared from the authentic documents kept at Jerusalem, carefully preserved and renewed from time to time. But their " books of generations" were not peculiar alone to the Hebrews. earliest Greek histories were also genealogies. The Man now scans with scrupulous care the character, and most especially the pedigree of his horses, cattle, and dogs; but when it comes to his own, this care in almost all cases seems utterly superfluous and unworthy of any consideration whatever, yet at the same time, and under almost all other circumstances, he has almost unlimited faith in the old rule "that blood will tell," and can cite incontestable proofs almost without limit that in general it does. With their blood and name, always of good repute, the example of their lives is the only legacy transmitted to us by our ancestors long since passed away, who have in their day and generation so well performed every duty which fell to their lot in life. That their names and records are worthy to be preserved and transmitted with a laudable pride by their descendants to the remotest generation, none can deny. The genealogy in Holland was compiled by Jonkheer William Frederic George Louis van der Dussen, Knight of the Order of the Oak Crown, Lieutenant Colonel and Commandaut of the Fortress of Nimeguen, in the Netherlands, (1873), secretary of one of the archealogical societies, editor of the great genealogical journal at the Hague, and one of the greatest genealogical authorities in the Netherlands. This |