The Fiske-Fisk Genealogy and its foibles are a subject of their own.
Having worked with the book for many years, I prefer to think of it as
an early version of PAF
or IGI or FTM CDs; a collection of events, some real and a few imaginary,
which may or may not relate to the person to whom they are ascribed. Pierce
was not a family genealogist in search of the pure truth. He was
a journalist with a sideline. In order to drum up orders for his
books, Pierce had the annoying habit of forcing links that did not exist,
to the unending confusion of us all, in order to make the book "relevant"
to as many Fisks and Fiskes as possible. Modern professional genealogists
like to get outraged at the sloppiness of Pierce's work, but I think they
are holding him to a standard to which he never aspired. He was in to quantity,
not quality.
You should pay little attention to whether the surname is spelled Fisk or Fiske, and you will have to look in both lists. For personal reasons, I have kept most Fisks in my own Kentucky ancestral family spelled Fisk, because that's what they did, and most the Wenham family spelled Fiske, for the same reason. Other Fisks are usually shown with the "e" whether they used it or not. One reason is that the Massachusetts Vital Records series varies by town in their treatment of the name, regardless of the original records.
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Last Updated and © on December 13, 2001 by Alan
Magary
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