John Light wrote: > > Leroy - Unless you are referring to the specific Light family traditions > I reference, and if I understand your question, this is my understanding > of "family tradition" when used in genealogy: > Any story or information about the family that is passed down from > generation to generation. The tradition may have, or often does not > have, factual basis or a reliable source such as public record to back > it up. Example: for years my father told us we were descended from a > famous patriot based on what he remembered as a child. I could write a > genealogy based on that information, citing "family tradition". > However, I have disproved that ancestry (the patriot was a cousin, not > an ancestor) using actual death, burial, war and wedding records. I now > write a different genealogy with reliable, or primary sources. > Sometimes family tradition is all you have to go on, but it is based on > memory and recollection, not exactly infallible. Many written family > histories (as I am contesting) simply state information as fact without > any reference to reliable source; I suppose this too would be a form of > "family tradition", or perhaps "secondary source without factual > basis". Any one else care to take a stab? > John Light > Monterey, CA > > I found your letter very interesting. I have nothing of substance to > > add, but I was very curious about the source of what you call a family > > tradition. Can you tell us more? > > Leroy Miller > > West Hills, CA > > ==== PALEBANO Mailing List ==== > Visit Rootsweb and support our sponsor: > <http://www.rootsweb.com> John, What attracted my curiousity was the sentence, "I am trying to find the origins of what may only be family tradition that our assumed, and prolific, Lebanon Light family immigrant (1738) Johannes Licht/Light married a Maria Kreider ca late 1720s in Germany." Most oral family traditions don't extend that far back, and I wondered what method of handing down this family information was used in your family. Did you have an older relative that had memorized all this from an even older oral tradition? Could it have stemmed from some old written text, similar to the one by Moses Light? Does, or did, such a written account exist? There is some disagreement as to when the Immigrant John Light came to America and exactly who he was. I wondered if your family tradition involved this confusion about the identity and history of John the Immigrant. In my own family, for example, I remember my mother mentioning orally the names Lydia Zinn and Veronica Ellenberger as being in her grandmother's line. (The Light names, of course, all blend together and become almost indistinguishable after oral history has been transferred through a few generations, but the more unusual names---the wives they married---stand out in one's memory.) My mother was raised by her grandmother, and they both had a penchant for talking about their "Freindschaft." Later I found these names in the book by Rev. Francis and the book by Moses Light. (The latter contains errors, of course, which are easy to detect.) However, if your family tradition goes back to Maria Kreider as being the wife of the Immigrant, that is another two generations further back. The oral transmission of so much family history is remarkable but not impossible, and I wondered if you could describe how it might have occurred. Leroy