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by Leonard H. Jr. Smith (Compiled by)
It is well known that Cape Cod families are difficult to trace. Only the probate records survived the burning of the Barnstable County Courthouse in 1827, and similar disasters have taken their toll of the Cape's town records. This was precisely the predicament Col. Leonard Smith found himself in when he stumbled upon a series of pamphlets published at Yarmouthport by Charles W. Swift in the early part of this century under the name "Cape Cod Library of History and Genealogy." A series of 108 pamphlets! Although contributors to the Cape Cod Library included a number of celebrated genealogists, the series never reached a large audience, and is today virtually inaccessible. No library in the country holds the complete collection of 108 pamphlets. With great diligence, Col. Smith put together a complete collection for himself, arranged the pamphlets in the order in which they were published, and then, to make the material usable, compiled an index of names. In just over 2,000 pages he has managed to put together a reference work that compensates for the chronic shortage of printed Cape Cod source material, and it is available now in this splendid two-volume consolidation.
