People have always been interested in preserving history, and in times past the recording of family history was done with style.
In late sixteenth and seventeenth century North America, families recorded important vital records in the family Bible. Generations of births, christenings, marriages and deaths were painstakingly recorded line-by-line in the family Bible. Today these records are cherished family mementos, reminding us of where we come from. Unfortunately, most of these Bible records are simply lines of handwritten vital statistics and don’t tell us much more than a name and a date.
Printed family registers provided a way for family members to commemorate these important events within a more decorative framework. At the end of the 18th century, the Connecticut folk artist Richard Brunton produced a series of engraved family registers in which blank tables for genealogical information were surrounded by allegorical figures. In the early 19th century, an itinerate silhouette artist known as the “Letterpress Artist of Connecticut” produced typeset registers decorated with cut-paper portraits of family members.
By the mid-1800’s, Americans were becoming enamored of the colorful prints produced by firms such as the Kellogg brothers of Hartford and Currier & Ives in New York City. Their prints were so inexpensive that most Americans could afford to purchase them, and as a result collecting them became popular. The subject matter covered historical events, views, politics, everyday life and many other subjects that were of interest to the average American.
Capitalizing on the demand for artistic lithographs and coupling that with Americans’ interest Americans in recording their family histories, the Kellogg and Currier firms began creating a series of blank family registers, incorporating elaborate images and engaging detail. The vignettes representing the important stages of life, including childhood, marriage and death, provided a visual counterpart for the information regarding births, marriages, and deaths which the individual user was expected to inscribe in the blank spaces of the form.
When completed in this way, each register not only recorded a family history, but also became a very unique and personal piece of artwork. Some such registers were actually tipped into family Bibles, becoming an up-to-date 19th-century equivalent for earlier Bible records. Others were beautifully framed and displayed in the family home, a highly visible expression of family pride and affection.
