| OCR Text |
Show Genealogy of John Tanner LETTER OF GEORGE C. TANNER In 1893, the Reverend Elias F. Tanner, A. B., of Grand Ledge, Michigan, published the Genealogy of Thomas Tanner, Jr. He tells us that about three years before, he began collecting information - concerning his ancestry on his father's or the Tanner side. It was during this period that I received a communication from him asking for the record of my own line, to ascertain if there were any immedi ate connection between the families. He had also written to other members of my family, and thus .had collected a considerable mass of, material and information, which, being of no practical use to him in the work he was doing, excepting as it made it unnecessary for him to pursue that branch .of the family tree any further, he most kindly presented to me. The motto of his book is "The Fathers, Where Are They?" The title was a suggestive one, and it very naturally appeals to everyone who has a pride in his ancestry. My grandfather who was born in 1770, was an only son., As he had five sons, with all of whom I was personally acquainted, my knowledge of the Tanner family was re stricted to the families of my four uncles and three aunts. The descendants of my great grandfather's two brothers had all gone up country, is the phrase of my boyhood, or as we say, "gone west," in the wave of emigration soon after the war of the Revolution, and The movement we had lost all trace of them in the lapse of time. indeed, began even earlier, as early as 1769. As my grandfather's grandfather had settled in West Greenwich, R. I., as early as 1735, it was easy to go to the town records, where town records were kept, and they were at first religiously kept after the old English custom, and get such records, and trace out the old wills and deeds. But this did not often give me the connection between those who had removed and those who remained behind, unless, as sometimes happened, one who had removed to another town in a distant state sent back a power of attorney for the sale of land in his native town, which thus became a matter of record and an indication of the residence of other mem bers of the family. In New England the town is the unit, in the states west of New England, the unit is the county. The latter simplifies the work of the genealogists. Rhode Island, the original home of the Tanners in the North, being a small state with five counties, and having exactknowl edge of the original town where William Tanner the immigrant settled, about 1680, and that state being my native home, my work |
