Mission
The ability to write a good family history belongs to only a favoured few; it is not given to every man to select with keen and true judgment the fittest facts, and then construct with them a terse yet interesting record, not of a nation, or province, or even of a parish, but of a single family.
I cannot lay claim to this gift, but I am not convinced that I am at any special disadvantage in having to write the annals of a humble race.
Arthur W. Cornelius Hallen, "An Account of the Family of Hallen or Holland" (Edinburgh: Neill and Company, 1885)