GENEALOGY

What am I to do with documents like these? I turned them up in the process of sorting out the storage boxes in the garage. There are dozens of them, dating back to as early as 1830, all executed on still crisp parchment in impeccable calligraphy and validated with elaborate stamps and seals attesting to the signatures of my ancestors. Along with the Clothiers there are Deans (my middle name, and my son's) Leggs (my father's middle name) and Murcotts. Their peculiar beauty is not limited to their physical appearance; they echo with a long family resonance, through nearly two centuries of English history.

My mother preserved these documents. She was the family archivist and genealogist. I remember her poring over the family trees she painstakingly constructed in her neat handwriting, not only the Clothier side but her side of the family, too, the Williamses, the Stutevilles and the Isaacsons (the non-Jewish Isaacsons, my grandmother would proclaim; she, with the Hebrew-inlaid furniture and the memory of Yiddish from her childhood in the streets of the east end of London!) There was the St. Quentin family, too, refugees from Revolutionary France; I forget which ones, if any, lost their heads to the guillotine! There was a treasured book in my mother's possession--who knows where it could have got to, these many years later?--titled "The Royal and Noble Families of England", or something similar, in which she proudly traced the family back to Edward I, with many notable historical figures in between.

I think I have copies somewhere of all the work she did, those elaborate family trees. If I ran a search, I could probably lay my hands on them. The truth of the matter is that, while I appreciate her passion, I have never shared it. Still, I find myself unable to unclutter my life from "treasures" of this kind. My daughter, Sarah, is a trained archivist and sparks with interest when she sees the contents of those boxes. Perhaps one day she will find the time to go through them and preserve the family history for future generations. Or perhaps not. In the meantime, I suppose they are doing no harm on the shelves in the garage, to which I will, as usual, return them.