The rest of the story

The recently-concluded U.S. election reinforced for everyone, The Legal Genealogist included, that the absolute best way to get wonderful research done into your personal genealogy is to run for high political office.

A presidential candidate is essentially guaranteed to have everyone and her brother checking out every overlap between his genealogy and that of his opponent,¹ all the famous people in the candidate’s family tree² and any connections to interesting aspects of American history.³

Heck, run for President and folks will even track down your relatives overseas,⁴ though I suspect you’d still have to ask them to do that DNA test yourself…

It’s enough to turn a brick-walled genealogist green with envy…

So it was with pleasure that I discovered, buried in a footnote in yesterday’s guest blog by Bruce W. Owen,⁵ one little nugget that was too good to leave in a footnote. It turns out that in at least one case, a President didn’t just accept the gift of genealogical research done on his behalf, he also actively gave back by contributing to preserving and recording records that today’s genealogists can use.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, born 30 Jan 1882 at Hyde Park, New York, governor of New York from 1928 to 1932, elected President of the United States in 1932 and re-elected in 1936, 1940 and 1944, died 12 April 1945 at Warm Springs, Georgia, buried in the Rose Garden of his Hyde Park estate.⁶

FDR.

Great Depression President.

War-time President.

Historian and patron to genealogy.

Who knew?

In the course of his research, Bruce discovered a volume called Records of Crum Elbow Precinct, Dutchess County, New York, 1738-1761⁷ … and the editor was Franklin D. Roosevelt.

That Franklin D. Roosevelt? Yes.

His interest piqued, Bruce looked into this, and reports on what he found:

I was previously unaware of FDR’s interest in genealogy. Checking online, I found a short tribute to this and related interests: “He was a major patron of the Dutchess County Historical Society. He somehow found time from his presidential schedule in 1939 to edit an entire volume of Records of the Crum Elbow Precinct, Dutchess County.”⁸

Sarah Malcolm, Archives Specialist at the FDR Library in Hyde Park, recently added the following to the story of FDR’s work in the genealogy field:

FDR was always fond of history and was especially interested in the history of the Hudson River Valley, the United States Navy and other periods of American history. He was a collector of historical documents, manuscripts and books. He considered himself to be an amateur historian and at one point was the historian for the town of Hyde Park. He was especially interested in the history of Dutchess County in which his family had played a prominent role.

In 1914, FDR and Professor Helen Wilkinson Reynolds of Vassar College founded the Dutchess County Historical Society. Among their projects, they sought the publication of historical local documents. One of the volumes published was The Records of Crum Elbow Precinct. Another volume published by the historical society with FDR listed as editor is The Records of the Town of Hyde Park.⁹

Wow. Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you, Bruce, for letting us all know.

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