Born and reared apart from all his relatives of his own name, and never having seen any one of them, except his father, till he was about grown, the writer knew but little of those who were contemporaneous with him, and almost nothing of the dead generations behind him. Actuated by this natural desire to know what sort of blood ?ows in his veins, and from what sources it came, and stimulated by some acci dental discoveries made in his reading, he, a short time ago, began a research on the subject, and prosecuted it in the intervals of official duty, with the care and diligence necessary to discover the facts. The conclusions at which he has arrived are recorded in this little book, a few copies of which are printed for distribution in the family. It will amuse some, instruct others, and, perhaps, a hundred years hence, should a copy survive the ravages of time, be of interest to our posterity. It makes no pretensions to literary merit, and the author has drawn on his imagination for1'