American AcornsPDF page 11, no printed page number
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PREFACE. All history as a record of men's acts, is biography. To record facts is always a legitimate and worthy object. The record of a family is as valuable to the family as the record of a town to its inhabitants. The comprehensive genealogical record is to the tribe what -the Bible or tombstone record is to the single family. It is in no proper sense a book for the public. It is put in print simply to insure greater permanence and accessibility. An an- cient prejudice has caused the printing of a family history to be regarded as a sort of title hunting, or an effort to invest a com- monplace family wtih a fictitious prominence. American geneal- ogists as a rule have taken a different and proper view of the matter. Hundreds of such histories have been printed, thou- sands of them are being compiled, and the custom receives the hearty approval of the best men. The undertaking of this work in 1891 was due to a realization of the fact—sad, though by no means new or peculiar—that the writer's own family was nearing extinction in its old home. In the quiet little adjoining New England towns of Garland and Exeter, Maine, where his great grandfather had died, as also his grandfather and great uncles and aunts, where their children had spent their lives ; where he and others of his generation had been born—there were but five of the name surviving, all in old age. Soon the name would be found there only on tombstones. The younger generations were widely scattered ; and in a few years, all knowledge of the old home and the relationship be- tween the branches there originating would be lost. Inspired by this somewhat sentimental view of the matter, the writer determined to compile and if possible to print a small pamphlet record of the ancestors and descendants of his great grandfather, the only Oaks of whom our family had any knowledge. As he progressed with the work he not only became fascinated with it— the usual experience of those who dabble in genealogy—but he came to realize that his branch of the family was only one of many ; that Garland and Exeter were only one of many old homes whence the Oaks had been distributed—the same tender memories clustering about each of those centers as about ours. So the scope of the work was extended to include all descendants of our immigrant ancestor.