Adair History and Genealogy - Hardcover

by M. D. James Barnett Adair (Author), Mary Ellen Vail (Managing Editor)

This Genealogy is an index of the character and intelligence of the Adair family it represents; our ancestors are reflected in their biographies; and the ideals and sentiments of living members are shown in the kind of Book they demand and support.

We hope this Book will be found worthy of the honorable family it represents.

We tender our thanks to the California Society Sons of the Revolution for courtesies.

And especially to the Los Angeles Public Library, we tender our thanks for courtesies and service, and to Miss Clara M. Rowell of the Genealogical Department of the Library for numerous courtesies and advice.

On the last day of December, 1914, the Editor was badly injured by being run down by an automobile driven wild by a reckless boy; he was badly injured and confined to bed for many weeks; when convalescence was advanced, the son of the editor (who was just out of his teens, now a prominent Dentist of Los Angeles, ) asked his father to tell him all about hi kin and put it on paper. When the father undertook it he found that he knew but little to tell; so, he promised his son to ascertain the facts of the history for him. And began to write letters to persons supposed to know, for information; His cousin, A.D. Adair of Atlanta (the princely Merchant), answered with a copy of his Autobiography and tradition; and advised the following it up. Well, the Editor has been following the investigation ever since and the results are embraced in this book.

The sources of information embraced in these researches include all kinds of authentic history. Court House Records, marriages, deeds, and probate records, church records and military history, family bible records and tradition. And in Galloway Scotland, the land records were kept in Latin and embraced some sketches of their owners. In Great Britain the Peerages kept up the genealogy of the titled Adairs, but they do not take the trouble to start very far back.

Much of the history is meager and conflicting. Our task has been to collect this data, sift out the truth, correlate it and make a straight, harmonious story of it. We make no pretense of giving all the Adairs complete. In many families we found no member of the family that would answer a letter; and a few expressed themselves as indifferent. Most of the cities in America contain a few scattering Adairs, and we soon found it was useless to try to include them in the genealogy. We did include most of the principle families and made them as complete as available data would permit.

The extraordinary stimulus given to researches in the genealogical field by the various patriotic societies is one of the happy signs of the times.