OCTOBER, 1926   Volume 4   LINCOLN, NEBR   Number 4

 

 

   The Record is issued quarterly on the first of January, April, July and October. Terms: two dollars a year in advance. Subscriptions should be sent to Mrs. C. C. Waldo, treasurer, 826 South Fourteenth Street, Lincoln, Nebraska.

   The Nebraska Genealogical Society, realizing that the responsibility of connecting the past with the present rests upon the people of the Middle West, is endeavoring to interest the individual in finding the missing links.

   Whenever a member of an eastern family moved westward, the family chain was broken, and many times that particular link was lost, since the chief record was the family Bible.

   It is our duty to collect and preserve these records which form the basis of all genealogical work including the production of family histories. Without them all our ancestral lines would end a few generations back in a hopeless tangle.

   Originally in this country such records were kept only by inscriptions on gravestones, by entries in family Bibles, by church records and by the filing of records in a few instances with town clerks. Even though these records were scattered, inaccessible and lacking in permanence, they are invaluable to the historian and biographer of today. Without these records it would be impossible to trace our family lines. Is it not our duty to keep a better record for succeeding generations?

   In the United States, genealogy was generally neglected until the latter part of the nineteenth century, when the organization of patriotic, State and colonial societies aroused an interest in genealogy. This interest has given birth to most of our town histories whereby material invaluable to succeeding generations is being preserved.

   It is important that. a correct genealogical record of every family be kept in order to prevent controversies in regard to heirship and fraudulent distributions of property.

   In 1910, Vermont enacted a law similar to that of New Hampshire. In addition to the ordinary records kept by the town clerks, the Vermont statutes covered church records and gravestone inscriptions bearing dates earlier than 1870. The object of the law of 1910 and its amendments was to compel the filing of all missing records from the earliest time to 1870, so as to complete the different family records.

   Nebraska has a registration law but does not have a statute providing for the collection and preservation of the old vital records. The Nebraska Genealogical Society is therefore urging that the citizens of our State make an effort to collect gravestone inscriptions bearing a birth date antedating 1850, to copy court records of marriages and divorces previous to 1904 when our registration law went into effect, to visit your court house and make abstracts of wills giving the name of the maker of the will, the date when the will was made, when and where it was probated, the name of the wife, if given, and the names of the children and other relatives mentioned in the will, to copy birth and death records found in the office of your town and county clerks, and to collect old Bible records. Send these data, to the Nebraska Genealogical Society, where they will be filed in such a way that they will be accessible to all who desire to use them, and where they will be preserved for succeeding generations. Whenever it is practical, the data

   Do not hoard the material which you have acquired, even though it has cost you time and money. Your children may not be as interested in it as you are and after you are gone, unless there is a permanent record of it, it may soon be lost to succeeding generations.

   The Unthank family was founded in England with the family seat at Intewood Hall, County of Norfolk. The Unthank family long seated at Unthank of the County of Northumberland, England, was founded by Thomas Unthank in 1568. 

   The family coat of arms was Or, Gu between two crescents in the pale of the crest and as many griffins head arased in Fesse Sa. Motto: Esta Sempre Fidelis. Seal: Intewood Hall, Norwick, England.

   Major William Clement Joseph William Unthank of Intewood Hall, County of Norfolk, England, was born August 18, 1847, married 1873. He was captain of the seventeenth lancers and justice of the peace for Norfolk County.

   The family history in America tells of William Unthank, who served in the Revolutionary War as a private in Captain John K. Smith's company, in Colonel Calvin Smith's (late Wiggleworth's) regiment, continental army pay account for May 15, 1777 to May 12, 1780. Residence, South Bourough. It also tells of Captain Aaron Unthank, Haynes County, who served in Edward Wigglesworth's regiment, May 15, 1777. He enlisted for three years and was reported sick in the general hospital.

   The Unthank family, when they came over from England, settled in North Carolina, then drifted north to Massachusetts and Vermont. Our branch of the family moved to Indiana and settled near Richmond, Winchester and Fort Wayne. My father was born at Newport and attended school there. My grandfather and family emigrated from Indiana to Nebraska and homesteaded in Nebraska near Bell Creek, which is now Arlington. My grandfather, John A. Unthank, was a member of the Nebraska Territorial Legislature. John A. Unthank married Mary Jane Curtis, daughter of Samuel Curtis, who served as captain with Lincoln in the Blackhawk War, and as lieutenant colonel