Folk take up forebear-hunting for all sorts of spurs, and after thirty years among the muniments I fancy I have heard each one: wonder, a school task, a health query, a bequest, a blood-test finding that sowed more puzzles than it settled.
The most met spur, though, is plainer and shyer of confessing: the sense, commonly near mid-life, that the elder rung is fleeting and its tales are departing with it. Research is often affection in a bookman’s jacket.
We dig among the departed, yet we dig on behalf of the breathing — commonly in the nick of time.
Whatever ushers you to the hunt, cherish it. The health-hunter and the merely wondering land in the same chapel books, aided by the same custodians, startled by the same finds. Spurs vary; the craft stays common.
My counsel to each tiro stays constant: inscribe why you opened, and date it. Years ahead, when the chest you raised answers another’s query, your spur will stand as the front page of their tale.
Tender of the Rootwell chest, setting down the crafts and finds behind this household’s past.
