The reader will now fully appreciate our reference to this kind of book as the "clan" genealogy. It shows the relationships, most of them quite distant, between the collateral branches of a single tribe; but it does _not_ exhibit the many lines of one's ancestry. The kind of book which accomplishes the latter object will come before us in the next chapter.
Nevertheless, the "clan" genealogy has its place. The recognition of tribal relations has become popular, and family organizations, with the occasional function of a "family re-union," are rapidly increasing. Many of these organizations, embracing all the known descendants of a common ancestor, elect regular officers, and in a few cases the whole tribe has a legal status as a corporation.
The tribal genealogy is also favored by many who hope to make a profit by the sale of their book. A fair-sized tribe is considered a promising field for such an enterprise. Among several thousand clansmen a considerable number, it is assumed, will purchase a copy of a book which traces one of their ancestral lines. When the project is well managed and the book properly exploited this hope is often realized very handsomely.
The "clan" genealogy also finds a prominent place in local history. The annals of a town or neighborhood having been given, these are supplemented by monographs on the old families. Beginning with the first settler, his descendants are traced down, each family sketch becoming a "clan" genealogy on a small scale. This feature immensely increases the interest of town histories, and if the tribal genealogy needs any justification, it certainly finds it here.
Finally, there is the undoubted fact stated at the beginning of our chapter, that the "clan" genealogy has pre-empted the field. It is the work everywhere met, the book which is in every mind when a genealogy is thought of.
Special difficulties attend the compiling of this kind of work, and for the overcoming of these we have prepared a special notebook.
It should be remembered that if, instead of counting one man's ancestors, we should reckon one man's descendants, assuming an average, in each family, of three children who become parents, in nine generations some 9,841 descendants would have become parents, each with a wife or husband, making a total of 19,682 to appear in the tribal book, without counting descendants that leave no issue!