Book excerpt: Who were we, and where had we come from? Whence these customs and constraints by which we make some little progress day by day? My ongoing journeys and Genealogy research of now some twenty plus years have put me in touch with many distant relatives in North America. Family lists have thickened into tomes. I had hoped to uncover enough information to have constituted the capsule summaries of at least my own direct ancestors. Letters they might have written, what they said, did, and what they might have thought; or some anecdotes of their lives as they faced the challenges of their own lives and times. But lives are busy, recollections are scanty and unlikely ever to have been recorded, and letters are perishable. The mementos of the aged householder are scattered and lost at his demise, in the inevitable house-cleaning in preparation for the new resident of the old dwelling-place. Thus, little remaining history of the common man, as there is more apt to exist concerning nobles, kings, and notable persons. It does not mean that the life of the common man would not be an adventure of interest, only, that it’s history is not commonly available.